People Ask For Help In Coming Up With A Decision On Their "Am I The Jerk" Stories

“My (32 F) father is 20 years older than his younger brother, David (34 M). Due to various factors, David spent the majority of his early years with my parents. By the time I was 10 and David was 12, he moved in. David and my dad look nearly identical and people always assumed that was his son.

My parents always said he was their first kid, they loved him like a son, etc.

I always felt a bit weird about this. David is a nice guy, but he’s not my brother. I never understood why it was my parents’ job to pick up the slack of my grandparents’.

It caused a few disagreements in my youth that always boiled down to ‘David has nothing, you have everything, be nice’. I hated that I essentially went from an only child to a younger sister without being asked. I never looked at David as a brother but obviously, due to our small age gap, I never saw him as an uncle.

To me, he’s just family. We get along well.

David is now married with a daughter, Aria. My parents are ‘grandma and grandpa’ to her. It does make me feel some sort of way that they’ve christened her as their first grandbaby, but I’ve accepted I can’t control how they feel and relate themselves to David.

So long as when my husband and I have kids they’re the same to them (and I know they will be), that’s fine.

The real issue is that David, his wife, and my parents have tried making me ‘Aunt Tabitha’. I don’t like it.

Aria isn’t my niece. I tried to just refer to myself as my first name with her but the hint wasn’t going through. As Aria is too little to speak (8 months), I planned to let it go for now.

Yesterday, we were at my parents’ for Christmas.

Aria was being fussed over, as usual. When it came time for David and his wife to help her unwrap the gift my husband and I got her, David told Aria ‘This is from Auntie Tabitha and Uncle Mike!’ Without thinking I said ‘Just Tabitha and Mike’.

David gave me an odd look but went back to unwrapping.

Later on, privately, David asked if I was okay. I said yes, why? He said I got weird during gifts. I said not weird, just factual. I’m not Aria’s aunt. He was still confused. I said I was not his sister.

This seemed to hurt his feelings but he said okay, apologized, and said he’d never say it again.

My mom pulled me aside later and said I was cruel to David. She said he considered me his sister. I simply said I’m not, and I’m not that baby’s aunt.

My mom gave me a disgusted look. She and my dad barely spoke to me the rest of the night, though David and his wife were polite.

My husband feels there were better ways of going about it. AITJ?”

Another User Comments:

“Gentle YTJ. Here’s the thing.

Parents should consider their bio-kids’ feelings and address any issues before taking another child into the home. But, it also sounds like the choice was to take David or let him suffer/go into care, so the decision had to be made without sorting your feelings.

Your parents are not in the wrong for prioritizing David’s safety over your happiness in the short term. But, it sucks that they didn’t work to address your feelings in the long term. Offering therapy, talking through your feelings, and finding a way together as a blended family should have been done years ago.

Instead, it sounds like your feelings were constantly minimized and ignored. Left unaddressed, you’ve built up resentment. But you’re an adult now. It’s your job to deal with inappropriate or unreasonable feelings and how they affect others.

You don’t have to be an aunt if it makes you uncomfortable.

Biologically you’re not. But it’s not unusual for people to use the term with unrelated friends and more distant relatives as a term of endearment, so it’s understandable David uses the term, especially if he genuinely sees you as his younger sibling.

You need to have an honest and frank (but kind) conversation with David privately about how you feel, and what you’re comfortable and uncomfortable with. About how he’s family and you care about him, but you don’t see him as your brother and it makes you unhappy to be called aunt.

The way you handled it here was harsh and lacked empathy for David who clearly sees the situation very differently from you. You also need to sort through your own feelings. Bluntly, whilst it may not be biological, you were raised as a sibling. Your parents utterly see David as theirs, of course, Arya is their first grandbaby.

You need to work through these issues and get to the root of what causes you pain. Because it isn’t and shouldn’t be ‘I wasn’t asked’. Kids don’t get the final say. Opinions matter, but you weren’t the sole concern.” ececacademic

Another User Comments:

“YTJ because of your approach to the situation. You could pass along to your cousin that you don’t want to be called ‘Aunt Tabitha’ and not be a jerk about it.

In addition, you may be genetically/geneologically/biologically correct (in that he is your biological cousin) but you wouldn’t be socially correct.

You were raised as siblings. Plus, parents don’t base how many kids they will be having around the opinion of one child. There are many factors that come into play including your parents’ desire for another child or other familial considerations (AKA maybe there is a sick parent they might need to take care of eventually).

Your parents were not evil for deciding to have another child, albeit in an unusual way. I know many people who gained a sibling when they were 12/13/14. Not to mention that many people will consider anybody close to them as their children’s ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle.’

I am not Hispanic, but from what I understand, ‘auntie’ and ‘uncle’ merely refer to an important adult in the child’s life who isn’t a sibling, parent, or grandparent. ‘Auntie’ could even refer to someone who is their cousin but significantly older cousin!

So there are those social precedents as well.” UCgirl