Mum fumes after sister chucks son out of family photo for pulling ‘silly faces’

A mum was left feeling “hurt” after her sister cut her 10-year-old son out of a photo intended for his grandma, having taken issue with him pulling “silly faces”

A woman whose son has “always pulled silly faces” was left feeling “hurt” after her sister ordered him out of a family photo intended for his grandmother. According to this dismayed mother, her 10-year-old son has always pulled daft faces. They’ve tried in the past to get him to stop but he “can’t help himself” and so they’ve decided to “just get on with it.”

All of his school pics are of him pulling faces, and so she feels all she can really do is just laugh about it. Unfortunately, things recently came to a head during a recent family trip to a national heritage site, when it became abundantly clear her sister had an issue with this comical trait.

Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here.

Taking the Mumsnet, the unnamed mum – who goes by the username @HellMc – explained she’d gone on the day trip with her son, her sister, her children, and their other sister’s son.

She recalled: “My sister wanted a group photo of all the kids so they all stood together in front of the ruins. Sister then said to my son ‘either stop pulling faces or stand over there out of the photo’.

“It came as a shock as everyone was laughing at him initially and then she suddenly got mad. I told her I thought she was being a bit harsh and she said ‘sorry but I’ve been trying to take a nice photo of them all day for mum and he’s ruined every one of them so far’.”

Speaking with her son, she urged me not to pull a face “just this once”, however, he continued to do so, ultimately resulting in his exasperated aunt ordering him “to get out of shot.”

The upset mum continued: “She then took the photo of the other kids and said ‘there, finally mum will have a photo for her wall’. I said mum would want all the kids together, and she said ‘actually, mum told me to take the pic without your son if he insisted on pulling a face. She was annoyed with the last lot of photos I took her because he’d ruined them all’.

“I feel hurt, not just about my sister but also what my mum (his grandma!) has clearly been saying!”

Fellow Mumsnet users were left divided on this topic. While some felt the youngster was old enough to stop pulling faces when told to do so, others felt her sister had been “a bit mean”.

One person wrote: “You’ve indulged this and not stopped it. I expect he enjoys you laughing at his faces. But enough is enough at 10 – if someone asks him not to, why can he not stop himself? Because there’s never been a serious request to stop and he thinks he’s the family joker.”

Another commented: “While I agree that he’s old enough to understand that this behaviour is annoying to people, I don’t agree that a silly face ruins a photo. It’s just showing his personality, isn’t it? I wouldn’t consider a photo not worthy of a wall just because a child’s pulling a funny face in it.”

Do you have a family story to share? Email us at [email protected]