Does your family play pretend for photos

[Anonymous]

When I was growing up I had cousins I barely saw because our parents hated eachother. When we saw eachother we had to pose with big smiles on all these photos and everyone would say "the cousins!" We look at old photos years later and mom makes a big deal "the cousins!" We're not close.at.all.

My brother and I are close and our kids get along. We occasionally take photos and they are genuinely happy together. We don't make a hugw deal out it and we don't force poses and we find it funny when kids just be themselves and pout or whatever. My sister is always pissed at us and doing something obnoxious, but when she visits she takes a million photos, poses our kids with hers, re-takes until she gets the smiles and glee she wants and she makes a huge deal about "the cousins!" It's so fake. Her kids won't even talk to ours. We prepare our kids to be snubbed, but to still try to engage and nada. It's all so phony.

I see other people post photos on IG with "the cousins!" and I wonder are these kids being forced to pretend like we were and our kids are or are the cousins really close. If I drank at a family event every time a fake posed photo was created and someone yelled "the cousins" I'd pass out.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my family is just like this.

[Anonymous]

No, I don’t relate to any of this. I don’t think being asked to smile for a picture has nearly the phoniness or drama you seem to think. I liked the cousins I didn’t see very often well enough, even if we didn’t know them well. But then, the siblings in our family didn’t hate each other. Since you don’t like your sister or her kids, don’t have them visit.

[Anonymous]

There's value in photographing relatives together, even / especially if they don't see each other often. You may value those photos later, or not. Your older relatives seem to value them, and your kids might -- I really like seeing photos of my parents as children. It's similar to a parent wanting all their adult kids around the table sometimes, even if those kids don't particularly get along.

The photography issue seems separate from you feeling like your nieces and nephews are not friendly with your kids.

It's not fake to smile for photos. Candids are nice but you can strike a balance between candids and a photo where you can see everyone's face smiling at the camera. Kids should learn to cooperate for a reasonable number of posed photos. If they've done that and your sister is still fussing and retaking, you can say "That's enough, kids go play!"

[Anonymous]

I mean, I’m not close with my cousins anymore, but I don’t hate them, so I don’t complain if our parents want a picture of all their kids together. So yes, I smile for the cousins picture.

[Anonymous]

My cousins and I were and are genuinely close. But it was always a few pics, no big deal. We were mostly local, though. I think it's great when my kids see their cousins, but it's not a production. They have fun.

Among all of us, though, there is only love and friendship. No feuds or bad feelings.

[Anonymous]

I can't relate to this exact situation but as a general matter I get very tired of gatherings with a lot of posed photos, especially when the person taking photos has a lot of demands and takes forever to be satisfied. I understand wanting a good photo but I think there is too much emphasis on a "perfect" one. I don't like having my photo taken very much and the longer you force me to plaster on a smile, the worse I look.

The funny thing is that I used to be a semi-pro photographer (it was how I made money on the side during grad school) and I tend to take quite a few candid photos at family events and these are the photos people are most likely to ask for copies of or frame in their homes -- the grandkids goofing off in the kitchen when they think no one is looking, my mom and her sisters laughing over cards, my brother in law resting his head on my sister's shoulder when it's late and time to go home. These are photos of actual people looking like themselves. Not a group of people staring at the camera for 10 minutes and plastering smiles on their faces.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I don’t relate to any of this. I don’t think being asked to smile for a picture has nearly the phoniness or drama you seem to think. I liked the cousins I didn’t see very often well enough, even if we didn’t know them well. But then, the siblings in our family didn’t hate each other. Since you don’t like your sister or her kids, don’t have them visit.

+1 My family made sure all the cousins were in pictures when we got together precisely because it was rare for us all to see each other and that made it special. Not to fake some super-close bond that didn't exist.

[Anonymous]

Yeah all the time! Real colors show during this pandemic too. So dysfunctional.

[Anonymous]

Hypocrisy is always hard.

I rarely saw my cousins growing up, we had fun when we saw them but we were much older and lived far away. DH is really close to all his non-crazy cousins (there is one that is challenging). I love the closeness of DH’s family, it is wonderful to be part of a big fun family.

I suspect the fantasy of special cousin relationships has survived despite the reality that families often move and extended families don’t spend time together without effort.

[Anonymous]

I think it's normal to smile for photos. Making it something it's not is weird, though.

[Anonymous]

I don't relate to any of this. I have four sisters. We all have three or four kids. The cousins are totally in love with each other. We often have a couple of cousins sleeping over and a child or two sleeping at one of my sisters' houses.

It's all genuine.

[Anonymous]

My 10 year old is the only child on either side of the family, so there are no cousins, but we absolutely "fake" pose with aunts and uncles and grandparents and family friends. I don't want lame crabby photos. Smile!

[Anonymous]

I love my cousins but we grew up so far apart that we never really became close. I like that they have so much in common with me, regardless. We have so many of the same traits.

I come from a big family and the cousins who are close in age or who have lived near each other are very fortunate. My kids are not in the mix due to age.

[Anonymous]

Yes, and if certain “scenes” are missed by the family photographer, we are asked to recreate them. For example, MIL missed me bringing apple pie to the table with the perfect photo when it happened, pick up the pie and do it again so she has a photo. It is infuriating.