We all know someone who frequently posts on their social media accounts in a tireless effort to stay relevant.
Redditor ThrowRaEditedPics is a mother who is all too familiar with the practice. Her sister is obsessed with Instagram and establishes specific criteria based on vanity for adding posts to her page.
Recently, the sister took some liberties when applying those criteria to a photo featuring the Redditor’s daughter, and it created some family drama.
After seeing the sister’s latest Instagram post, the Original Poster (OP) was infuriated and took to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit community and asked:
“AITA for calling my sister out for editing photos of my daughter?”
“So my (33 F[emale]) daughter is 16 and my sister is 23.”
“My sister is obsessed with her instagram, like she posts 3-4 times a day, she’s got an ‘appearance’ and ‘standards.’”
“My daughter has struggled with her weight for a while, she’s 1.8metres [5’9 ft] tall (?) And 13 stone [182 lbs], our goal is to get her down to 11 stone [154 lbs].”
“My sister took a picture of her and my daughter and posted it on Instagram, my daughter was really excited but when she checked it she got really upset – she hasn’t left her room yet.”
“My sister had heavily edited the picture so my daughter looked skinny.”
“I was extremely angry and phoned my sister to tell her to take it down/ post the unedited photo, she refused telling me that she just wanted to show the world what a beautiful girl my daughter was and that she promotes health.”
“My daughter is trying to lose weight, it isn’t her fault and she’s a beautiful, growing girl! My sister has crushed her.”
“So I commented ‘I’m ashamed, my daughter is beautiful without the heavy editing going on in this photo, be ashamed sister for body shaming a teenager, take this down immediately and apologise.’”
“My sister didn’t see it in time and got a bunch of negative comments, she took it down but phoned me in tears saying I hurt her and that she’s sorry but she didn’t mean it etc.”
“My husband thinks that I went overkill.”
“AITA?”
Anonymous strangers on the internet were asked if and where guilt belongs by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
“Nope absolutely NTA.”
“Your sister is 23, we have all done sh**ty things at that age, but she is an adult.”
“Her sh**ty actions hurt a child – your child – and all for the sake of her instagram « mission ».”
“You’d be a bad mom if you hadn’t done something, fast.” – SomethingComesHere
“OP’s sister’s mission doesn’t even make sense. She wants to “promote health” by photoshopping? Photoshopping is probably the least healthy thing you can do for your body (and self esteem).” – Evolutioncocktail
People pointed out the damaging effects of the way the sister was “promoting health.”
“Seriously, if she actually cared about promoting health she could celebrate all the effort that OP’s daughter is putting in to her weight loss and congratulate her on the progress she’s made so far.” – MrKyle666
“‘Promoting health”… guess mental health just isn’t important, huh? Because that sure never factor in when people do this kind of thing.”
“The effects of this bullsh*t is far more unhealthy for that poor girl’s well-being than being two stones overweight could ever be.” – yaaqu3
“Not to mention the fact people can be fat or thick and also healthy, the same way one can be skinny and unhealthy.”
“What OP’s sister did was awful and ignorant on so many fronts, but overall it’s just plain f’ked up. How dare she.” – roxadox
This Redditor believes that the actions of family members have a deeper impact.
“NTA, OP. You need to evaluate if your sister should be around your daughter going forward.”
“Speaking from experience family comments and actions like this are far worse than a stranger. Family should make you feel safe and loved.” – badwolf7850
Many Redditors lauded the OP for confronting her sister.
“NTA, absolutely NTA – you go, momma bear.”
“As someone who has struggled with weight all my life: this is so damaging. If your daughter had welcomed the photo, that would be another matter, but as you wrote it – it sounds like it hurt her a lot.”
“Your sister should have taken it down immediately, and you (rightfully) commented that she should remove it and she got backlash.”
“I fail to see how this is not entirely her own fault.” – Kay_Elle
However, this Redditor expressed more concern for the daughter’s health and received Reddit’s “Ignite!” award for their comment.
“While nta, I am side eyeing your ‘weight goals’ for your kid.”
“She is 16. At her height and 13 stone, she is in the ‘overweight’ category….by 3lbs. Her weight will fluctuate by twice that during her period, for goodness sake!”
“Dropping her weight to 11 stone puts her quite far towards the bottom of what is considered a healthy weight for her height.”
“Honestly, rather than having a weight goal, it would likely be a lot better for your daughter from a mental health pov to have health goals; things like running a 5k or lifting a certain weight, especially at the age of 16 when her body is still growing.”
“I’d go have a chat with a dietician if you’re concerned, but at her age, focusing so exclusively on the number on the scale is not setting her up for a good relationship with her weight for the rest of her life.” – ZeeLadyMusketeer
This Redditor also took issue with how the OP established the goal weight for her daughter.
“Note OP’s use of the term “our goal weight” not daughter’s personal goal weight. Why ‘our.'”
“A mother having a goal weight for her normal not obese daughter makes the mother an a**hole. The mother characterizing her daughter as really overweight when her weight is fairly reasonable for her height makes the mother an a**hole.”
“Having a goal weight on the low end of normal for her teenaged daughter makes her a huge asshole and is surely contributing to her daughter’s self esteem issues.” – Status-Carpenter
This Redditor had a different interpretation for the sister’s claim of wanting to show “the world what a beautiful girl” the OP’s daughter was.
“Editing her photo in the first place was extremely gross. All it tells your daughter is that she’s not good enough and her aunt is embarrassed of her. And if any of her schoolmates saw it? She’d be torn to bits.”
“She’s not sorry that she did it, as you tried to go to her to remove it and she refused. She didn’t care that it had hurt your daughter. She didn’t care that it had hurt you.”
“All she cared about were her social media audience and her public image, as evidences by the fact that her devastated niece and furious sister begging her to remove the photo didn’t matter to her, but her followers calling her out did.”
“Your sister shouldn’t upset with you for calling her out. She should be upset with herself because she cares more about the opinions of strangers on the internet than the actual harm she did to your child.” – emanresuelbaliavayna
“Seriously, sister was basically implying that OP’s daughter wasn’t beautiful, and so she had to edit the hell out of her to ‘show the world’ how beautiful she was. Yuck.” – shortandfighting
Redditors agreed on one thing in this post—that the daughter was the only one who was NTA.