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Wedding Woes
mrsconn23
member
I need to know the content of these "creepy" posts.
in Wedding Woes
Dear Prudence,
I live in a small two-bedroom cottage in the same town as my parents. During the holidays, my bedroom and living room always have guests, and for the past few years these have mostly been my sister and her college-age daughter. I was alerted by another family member that my niece has been insulting me and my home online. I was “Aunt Creepy” for having a doll collection and old antiques in my home. She put up pictures of my home to make fun of it. I emailed my sister telling her I was upset and didn’t want either of them in my home again. My sister made her daughter apologize but still is upset because I will not have them back. My brother and his family stay with our parents; I told my sister she can rent a hotel room. Now I am the one ruining the holidays. My niece was cruel, and I do not want her under my roof again. I was in tears over her insults to me; her apology was forced. My sister acts like she is a child rather than a young adult. How do I deal with this without it escalating? My parents are very elderly.
—Unwelcome Guests
I live in a small two-bedroom cottage in the same town as my parents. During the holidays, my bedroom and living room always have guests, and for the past few years these have mostly been my sister and her college-age daughter. I was alerted by another family member that my niece has been insulting me and my home online. I was “Aunt Creepy” for having a doll collection and old antiques in my home. She put up pictures of my home to make fun of it. I emailed my sister telling her I was upset and didn’t want either of them in my home again. My sister made her daughter apologize but still is upset because I will not have them back. My brother and his family stay with our parents; I told my sister she can rent a hotel room. Now I am the one ruining the holidays. My niece was cruel, and I do not want her under my roof again. I was in tears over her insults to me; her apology was forced. My sister acts like she is a child rather than a young adult. How do I deal with this without it escalating? My parents are very elderly.
—Unwelcome Guests
Re: I need to know the content of these "creepy" posts.
I can completely understand being hurt but why are you punishing the sister over the actions of her daughter?
Also, why jump immediately to "Now you're not welcome in my home??" The daughter is developing her own opinions and while in completely poor taste LW needs a thicker skin about how young adults feel about antique decorations and dolls.
As far as, "How do I deal with this without it escalating?" exactly what does the LW want? She decided that rather than talk about the matter over decorations her sister (someone who had nothing to do with this) and the daughter are now not welcome in her home. So the LW escalated it! You go back to sis and tell her that you understand that sis is not responsible for her daughter's opinions, her home is her own personal taste and you then sit down with the niece and share your feelings like grown adults.
LW can't have it both ways. You can't punish mom for the actions of her child in one sentence and then say that the child is an adult in the next one.
Also, why freak out and start banning people from your house? Since her niece is a young adult, why not use it as a teaching moment?
LW is responsible for ruining the holidays because she overreacted to some social media bullshit.
The teachable moment is that niece gets to learn that actions have consequences. Don't insult family and still reap benefits of said family's generosity.
And she doesn't get to play the "I don't want to escalate it" card.
My hunch is that LW is upset that the rest of the family aren't going to her defense. Sorry honey but most grown adults know that you can only control the actions of dolls - not humans.
Tbh, I wouldn't let her in my house again. Maybe I am petty but *shrug*. I wouldn't punish my sister though.
Mom can say that she can't travel without her niece. But that doesn't mean that they ARE a package deal just like they aren't for weddings.
If niece is not remorseful and doesn't see the ramifications of her actions after a discussion I could agree - niece is not welcome. And that MAY mean that mom doesn't go because her daughter isn't welcome. But that's a choice that mom should make. Sister is calling her niece a grown up in one sentence and in the second she's in her mom's papoose??
Sorry - she needs to make up her mind here.
If this is the first time the niece has ever done something like this and has never been disrespectful or rude to LW, then I think the better route is to say that her feelings were hurt and why. College-age kids do dumb shit and in this instance, niece got caught and needs to know that actions have consequences...but if they've always had a decent relationship, I think leveling with her (and LW's sister) would have been the better way to go.
Either she already has a little defensiveness about traits/collection that the daughter references, and so it exploded over this, or it's a pattern of disrespect, and so it exploded over this.
Or, what the daughter said was really bad.
She's allowed to ban the daughter, and yeah, no one's entitled to stay in your home for the holidays anyway. Sister needs to back off on the entitlement. But I feel it's more likely than not that this isn't quite a proportional reaction.
Adding this in myself but maybe LW feels taken advantage of, living near their parents, always playing host.
This did make the situation exponentially worse for me. It is such a huge invasion of privacy, that a random stranger could probably figure out exactly who the aunt is and where she lives. It sounds like a lot of photos and I'm sure the awful niece wasn't careful with what was in the backgrounds.
Although the niece is the one at fault, if the LW didn't feel her sister had her back...even if she did make her daughter apologize...I can understand not wanting the sister to stay at her home in the future, either.
I also think inviting/not inviting just the sister is a moot point, anyway. I don't think it would matter to the family or to the sister that only the niece is not invited to stay. They would all still see that as "ruining the holidays". And apparently it didn't occur to anyone, no matter what happens, that the LW's holidays are going to be sadder because she'll have to see the niece who was so unnecessarily cruel to her.
Niece has a lot of growing up to do; I just don't agree with punishing mom for her daughter's actions.
If I were in her shoes, I would also be hurt, but I'd have fun with it by letting the niece stay again and maybe sneaking a creepy doll into her bed in the middle of the night, or having one suddenly "appear" in the bathroom. Then, I hope, they could laugh about it, discuss the unkind social media posts, and arrive at some kind of relationship-salvaging understanding.
^not the point, I know
No, it's not nice to do that, it's beyond dangerous to share photos of the home online, but I just get this image of an older single aunt who now has her tiny "cottage" lots of dolls that are either porcelain with eyes perpetually open OR that are plastic with the eyes that close only when they lay down and have a perpetual surprised face. Crocheted doilies on claw foot tables chairs and couches with floral upholstery are against lace curtains to complete the look.
Also, I wonder if the family member alerted her to the aunt creepy to be aware of what's online or to nudge LW to think of hiring an interior designer.
I also want to know how cruel the niece was that she was in tears. Is it the message or a thin-skinned recipient?
I have relatives who have what >I< consider (no accounting for taste and all that) weird homes, and I've stayed there. Yea, I've talked to H or my mom or someone about the drawbacks and what's been annoying about being there, but I don't go posting pictures and calling them "Cousin weirdo" or whatever.
I consider myself a "medium" skinned person and am not especially sensitive. But I would be extremely hurt to be called Aunt Creepy by my niece or nephew. Because they are people I love and a name like that would mean to me that they don't even like me, much less love me. And, while the comment and the hurt from it would diminish over time, it is a memory that would occasionally haunt me. And I'd feel awkward around them. Maybe for years, depending on how the relationships progressed.
I don't even have to know what the comments/pics are, though I'm sure that just makes it even worse. But the "Aunt Creepy" name alone is enough for it to cross past the "cruel" line.
I'm in no way defending the niece. I'm questioning why this "you're not welcome in my house". If niece is an adult why isn't aunt trying to handle it in an adult manner?
We had issues with BIL (not public but ones none the less). DH picked up the phone and talked to his brother. Words were used to resolve issues.
But it's HER room, no one else goes in there.
After reading everyone's thoughts, I still stand by my original answer that LW can be hurt and ban the niece from staying. A disproportionate reaction to the insults would be to, say, cut her out of the will or something. It doesn't sound like she's refusing to see her ever. But insult the house, don't stay there. Seems reasonable to me.
Although a different issue, this line reminds me of the letter awhile back where a relative was mad the LW's guest room in a resort town had twin beds, instead of a Queen. And shamed/insisted the LW get a Queen in a group family message.
It is like the old adage, "No good deed goes unpunished."
Why mom is banned I don't get.
There's so little backstory here and not much is known about her relationship with the rest of the family but it's odd to me that she never mentioned any form of support received by the rest of the family.