Dear Ann Cannon • My mother-in-law is very active on Facebook, which is fine. The only problem is that she posts lots — and I mean LOTS — of pictures of her grandchildren, aka “my kids.” I know she does this because she’s interested in and proud of them. She also gets plenty of strokes, frankly, from her Facebook friends who compliment her for being such an awesome grandma. They praise her for taking the grandkids to the zoo, doing crafts together, going on hikes, etc.
Now here’s the problem. I’ve chosen to have a very limited presence on social media. I rarely share pictures of my older kids because it sort of feels like an invasion of their privacy to me. So it bothers me that my mother-in-law feels free to post about them as much as she does. I do appreciate what she does for us and I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But I really want her to knock it off when it comes to oversharing. How should I handle this?
— No More Pictures, Please
Dear No More Pictures • Sometimes I think if it weren’t for problems caused by social media, I’d never get any questions from readers. But that’s not the point. The point is that you want to find an effective way to communicate your feelings to your mother-in-law.
My general rule of thumb is this: If you can find a way to live with another human being’s annoying behavior, you should do it and keep quiet. If you can’t, you need to say something. And you definitely need to say it before your head explodes and all the words swirling around inside your head come spurting out of your mouth in one long angry torrent.
I get the feeling from your letter that you’re at the point where the subject should be addressed, right? Of course this is so much easier said than done. Navigating the special relationship between a mother- and daughter-in-law requires a certain amount of delicacy. Still, if you and your mother-in-law get along well, I think you should bring up the issue with her yourself.
How to best proceed? Begin by expressing gratitude for all the things she does for your family. Then explain that you’re personally not crazy about having your kids’ pictures on social media, reminding her that you yourself have chosen to share them on a limited basis. Finally, hit the conversational home stretch by expressing your gratitude for her once again, while also praising her skills as a grandmother.
How does this strategy sound?
I suppose you could always ask your spouse to bring up the matter with your mother-in-law. I gotta say, however, that I’m not typically a fan of having third-party intermediaries. In my experience, the chances for misunderstandings increase when you ask someone else to do the talking for you. Still, there are times when this is a workable option.
Will speaking frankly hurt /embarrass/anger/one of the above/all of the above your mother-in-law? Maybe. For a little while, at least. But if you approach her with kindness and respect, she’ll probably get over it.
And now for a word to all of us with a presence on social media: Let us not forget that different people have different levels of comfort when it comes to public sharing. When I was a young mother writing columns about our family’s experiences, for example, I freely dropped my children’s real names. I’m obviously OK with living out loud and I assumed they would be, too. As they aged, however, they made it clear they wanted me to keep their names to myself. So I did. Mostly. Except when I REALLY wanted to embarrass them.
Awareness of other people’s feelings isn’t a bad thing, is what I’m saying.
Good luck!
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