Every family has traditions. It’s a sometimes unfortunate truth that these might only include members of a certain age – and leaving out younger members isn’t anything personal.

OP and his cousins began doing a “cousin walk” after Thanksgiving where they could get away together and chat about things they might not mention in front of their parents.

When the bulk of my generation of cousins were 16-19 we started a yearly tradition of a “cousin walk” at Thanksgiving.

For people unfamiliar, a “cousin walk” happens with a group of teenage/adult cousins where there are certain activities that aren’t appropriate for older or younger relatives.

At the time, there were only 3 that were under 16: a 14 year old, a 4 year old, and a baby.

They were all teenagers, and so after some debate, they decided to include their 14yo cousin.

14 is kind of pushing it, but with the age differences, it seemed mean and stupid to leave the 14 year old out and it would draw more attention, so we brought her with us.

This became a yearly tradition. The two youngest would ask to go, but we always said it was an older cousin/older kid thing and everyone accepted it.

Now, the OG cousins are in their 20s and the next oldest has turned 14 – so his mother wants him included because 14 was previously old enough.

This Thanksgiving, that 4 year old is now 14.

We went to go on our walk as usual, and this time my aunts really didn’t accept that he couldn’t come because we let Sheila (fake name) come when she was 14 so he’s clearly old enough now and should “be included”.

NO. He’s too young, and it’s not appropriate.

They declined, because when the last 14yo was included they were all teenagers and now the rest of them are adults.

Sheila was too young, but it was “vaguely pushing it” young with the rest of us being very close in age.

Now we’re all in our 20s being asked to include a kid. Also, not for nothing, but all of us (including her) were in high school when this started.

This was all teenagers, not 20 somethings and a middle schooler.

His aunt continues to be angry, but OP doesn’t think they did anything wrong.

She kept pushing and wouldn’t understand why we were being so “mean” and not including him, and of course we couldn’t admit exactly why.

We were eventually let go, but she’s been all over the family group chat about how awful we are and how we are all lacking in family values if we are so exclusive.

I don’t think we’re in the wrong. Having an adult cousin only activity isn’t inappropriate.

There’s just too much of an age gap that unfortunately there are two cousin groups.

Does Reddit? You know they’re going to tell us!

The whole thing is kind of silly if you think about it.

So many people out there with cool cousins!

They say OP should have a frank talk with his aunt.

A few people did disagree.

This is an odd post.

I think I need to have a chat with my cousins, now.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.