Family traditions are supposed to make you feel included…not edited out. For years, they were the one behind the scenes—carefully putting together a yearly photo calendar, making sure every family member had their moment, every birthday was recognized, and no one felt left out.

So when their mom took over one year, it seemed harmless. Well, until they opened it. No birthday month. One barely-there photo. And somehow even the dog had more representation. At that point, it stopped feeling like a simple oversight and started feeling a lot more personal.

Read on for the story.

AITA for telling my mom she excluded me from our family?

This story is from December but it’s still bothering me so gonna ask.

My family have this little tradition (I believe since 2019) where we make calendar that includes our photos. Cause I’m the one who usually do the photos on family events, holidays etc I always was the one who set this up.

I always made sure that on someone’s birthday month there was photo of them, that there was a group photos and everyone was equally included on photos (which wasn’t the easiest job cause my father is working abroad and my sister for few years was living abroad too so we didn’t had much occasion to actually to photos together over the year).

How thoughtful and sweet!

In September i moved out from my family home. So when end of November came my mom decided to do the calendar by herself (I was literally coming back home few days later which she knew about). She texted me about some photos and I send her whole bunch of it.

When December came and I get back home for Christmas I noticed that calendar was already there so I decided to check it out.

What it turned out is that everyone still had their birthday month but not me and also in all 12 months there was only one photo of me which wasn’t even a fully photo – just photo of me and my mom where my face is halfway cropped. Literally my dog is on more photos than I am.

Wow, hurtful much?

When I told her its kind of mean she said I’m dramatizing and it’s not a big deal (she literally make big deal out of that calendar every year).

To add to that I came out as non binary a year ago and since that I feel like I’m getting slowly excluded from family, especially since I moved out and this kind of made me feel like I’m not welcome home anymore.

AITA?

Reddit largely sided with NTA, with many agreeing that while it might seem small on the surface, the context made it hurtful.

This person is giving the family member the benefit of the doubt, but still says NTA.

This person has an idea of what to do next.

And this person is giving it to her straight.

When you go from making the memories to barely being in them, it’s hard not to feel erased.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.