When a mom laid down a firm rule that her kids’ faces couldn’t appear online, their aunt thought she was respecting it perfectly. She skipped the sticker route and simply edited the kids out of the birthday photos before posting. Problem solved…or so she thought.

Instead, the move ignited a surprisingly intense family conflict. What was meant as compliance ended up being taken as a personal slight.

Read on for the story.

AITAH For photoshopping my nieces and nephew’s out of the pictures I posted online

My (F27) sister in law (my husband’s sister) (F38) decided about a year ago that she does not want her kids’ faces posted on social media.

She still posts almost daily family photos but always with stickers covering the kids’ faces.

I only post on social media for special events. My friends list is mostly family and a few friends back home (Middle East).

Makes sense.

My grandma especially loves logging into Facebook to see pictures of my kids.

She often messages me afterward to talk about them and sometimes even shows the photos to her group of friends back home. She has told me this.

I am okay with a bunch of grannies seeing the pictures.

Who doesn’t love some grandma love?

At my son’s 5th birthday recently I was taking photos. My sister in law approached me and said she does not want anyone online to see her kids’ faces. I said I understood.

Later she told my husband (M40) that she thinks it is weird that we are okay with exposing our kids online and that it is just bad parenting.

My husband laughed and said we are not Instagram famous like her since she has quite a few followers and that no one really cares. He told her to relax.

Chlllllll.

Instead of putting stickers on her kids’ faces I photoshopped them out of the pictures before posting online.

My grandma sometimes prints photos and stickers would look odd. Also my sister in law does not want her kids’ pictures posted online anyway.

My sister in law later called furious. She said I was being a vindictive a****** and that it looked like her kids were not at the party or did not matter.

Wowww.

My husband backed me up and said she was overreacting. He told her that I respected her wishes and did not post her kids’ pictures online and that I do not owe her an apology.

My sister in law blocked both of us. My mother in law says we should explain the misunderstanding better and just apologize and end this argument .

Do I owe her an apology? Was I an a******?

Now the aunt is stuck wondering whether she truly crossed a line — or just followed instructions in a way no one expected. Redditors quickly weighed in on whether respecting the rule still counts if feelings get hurt in the process.

This person says OP abided exactly as she should’ve.

Like, exactly.

Everyone agrees, the sister in law is full of drama.

She followed the “no faces online” rule to the letter…just not in the way anyone was emotionally prepared for.

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.