My sister said my teenage daughter had ruined every vacation photo.
She pointed at my daughter’s skin, complained that the birthmarks were distracting, and told her she should have covered herself before stepping in front of the camera.
Then my 10-year-old son stood up.
He had been quiet throughout dinner, sitting beside his sister and clutching the small camera he had carried with him throughout our family vacation.
He placed it carefully on the table.
Then he looked directly at my sister and said one sentence that made her face turn gray.
“She didn’t ruin the pictures—you’ve been cutting her out since she was 11.”
The room went silent.
But to understand why those words hit my sister so hard, you have to understand what my daughter had spent most of her life believing about herself.
