Adoptee belongs in family photo
DEAR READERS >>
I’ve stepped away from the Ask Amy column for two weeks to work on a new writing project. I hope you enjoy these edited “best of” columns in my absence. All of these questions and answers were first published 10 years ago. Today’s topic is: Petty is as petty does.
DEAR AMY >> I had a child before I met my husband. When we got married, my husband adopted my daughter, who was a year old at the time. We then had three more children together. Now they’re all grown and have children of their own.
My mother-in-law wants to have a “generation picture” done. She plans to include only the children my husband and I have biologically together. My husband considers my daughter to be “our” daughter.
Is it rude of his mother to ask for pictures with our other children and to exclude her?
If my mother-in-law won’t include our daughter in the shot, I feel no pictures should be taken. DEAR CONFUSED >> Your mother-inlaw’s distinction between biological and adopted children is offensive. Adoptive parents are “real” parents in every way.
It is somewhat surprising that all of your children are now adults and yet your mother-in-law persists in differentiating among them. You and your husband should have set her straight on this many years ago. If you didn’t, or if she has forgotten what makes a family, now is the perfect time to educate her on the subject. I completely agree with your conditions regarding this family photo. (April 2009)
DEAR AMY >> My parents divorced when I was young. I lived most of the time with my mother.
My room at my father’s house was sometimes used for guests when I was not visiting, and I had no objection to this.
Several years ago, I was visiting for Thanksgiving, and so was my stepmother’s sister. The room choices were to stay in either my room, or a guest/ craft room.
My room was larger, and my stepmother’s sister arrived first and was put there.
When I arrived several days later, they told me that the first guest to arrive is usually given the larger room — so I stayed in the craft room. Shouldn’t they have saved my room for me? DEAR DISPLACED >> Shouldn’t you have offered to give up your room to your family’s guest? Yes, you should have. You have held onto this petty gripe for several years. Let it go. (September 2009)
DEAR READERS >> Are you curious about my background and life outside of the confines of this space? Read my two memoirs: “The Mighty Queens of Freeville” and “Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things,” available wherever books are sold or borrowed.