When you marry someone from a different culture, it can be good to keep your kids involved in the cultural traditions of both families so they know their heritage.

What would you do if your daughter asked her cousin to be in her Quinceañera, but after she accepted, you learned that she would be out of town for all the rehearsals?

That is the situation the mother in this story is in, so she wants to c the cousin. The problem is that uninviting her will probably cause conflict in the family.

Let’s read the whole story to see what she should do.

WIBTAH if I removed my niece from my daughter’s Quinceanera with only 1 month to go?

I (48F) have 2 daughters, 18 and 14. I have a sister (45F) who has a 14yo daughter, too.

My daughters are Mexican-American, as is my niece; my sister and I are white.

I have engaged deeply in the culture I married into, and we celebrate a lot of Mexican-American traditions; my BIL and sister do not engage in any of those traditions – my BIL’s family fully assimilated.

This should be about the daughter, not the mother.

My 14yo is having a Quinceanera in a month, and she asked her cousin to be in her quinceanera court.

I was wary about this from the beginning because my sister has never been able to keep her disdain for the traditions we keep off her face and out of her voice. She mostly says the right things but her smile is never true and her tone betrays her.

Additionally, she doesn’t cover up her facial expressions well, and her disdain is clear.

But, I let it go because I know my daughter and niece get along really well and because my niece is privately very curious about the culture she’s missing.

This is going to take some work.

FYI – the quinceanera and her court put on a show at the celebration. A series of dances that require practice time and choreography.

I made sure my sister understood that when I let my daughter as her cousin.

My sister agreed.

Ultimately, though, it’s been a nightmare – from the selection of the court dresses so they were modest enough for my sister – to the choice of dance music (nothing too scandalous) to getting my niece to the practices.

I have regretted my decision every step of the way.

Maybe she should just back out of this commitment.

And here comes the main problem: my niece is going to be gone away on vacation for the 3weeks before the quince and not here for any of the choreography practices. In fact, my sister and family aren’t coming back until 2 days before the quince.

What’s worse: my sister didn’t tell me – I found out from our younger sister (42F) who didn’t realize I didn’t know.

My daughter is shocked and angry. And when I called my sister on it, her response was: “well, you know [husband] gets July off and that’s when we vacation.”

This is the right thing to do, but don’t do it in a combative way.

At this point, I am very tempted to say to my sister: give me back the dress, my daughter will ask a friend to be in it, and we’ll make the dress work.

I know that response will cause a deep fracture not only between my sister and me, and my daughters and their cousin, but it will likely reverberate out to the rest of the family.

But, I honestly don’t know what else to do.

AITA?

Why not just tell the sister and her daughter that since she can’t do the dance, she can’t be in it for that role, but she can join in other ways? There is no reason to have conflict here.

Let’s see if the people in the comments on Reddit have anything helpful to add.

This is really good advice.

Just ask the cousin to drop out of the dance part of the ceremony.

This commenter thinks mom is putting the sister’s needs before the daughters.

This commenter has a good compromise.

Yup, this is the way.

Mom needs to put her daughter first, not her sister.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.