Selfie Etiquette - Relationships

Selfie Etiquette — Relationships

My question is about selfie etiquette.

To my horror and dismay my college student niece posted a selfie of she and my sister just after she passed away. I want to ask her to take this macabre selfie down but my husband and our sons say that it would be adding insult to injury. My sister would be mortified. What do you suggest?

–Name Withheld, Cos Cob, CT

Allow your niece to grieve the loss of her mother in her own way and in her own time. For your niece’s generation, (hold your breath) taking the selfie of she and her mother may help her to say goodbye and loosen the emotional bonds to a parent who has been a distinctively significant part of her life.

Try to understand how a daughter experiences the loss of her mother.
What does she feel she has lost with her mother’s death?

Your niece’s reactions have an integrity and logic of their own.

Your niece’s selfie of she and her mother may seem strange to you if you don’t consider that it reflects her age, the times in which she is living and how she experiences life.

As hard as it may be, keep all judgement to yourself.
Disregard the selfie incident and let it go.

Comfort your niece and try to understand the complexity of her grief.

Lighten up her heart by telling her funny and interesting stories about her mother, to show how much you appreciated her, too.

You have a significant bond in common with your niece. Let her know that you are there for her whenever she needs someone who isn’t judgmental to talk to.

Not only did you and your niece lose your sister, but you both lost an important relationship, and in those relationships a sense of self that existed in those bonds.