To ask that my nephews don’t come

I hate it to. I think to deliberately leave a sibling out of a family lunch because of the sex they are is vile and such an outdated concept.

Dhs family do it all the time to. They have "girls" trips and never invite the sons or grandsons. Dh finds it incredibly hurtful and MIL wonders why the boys are not as close to her.

If families chose to exclude kids because of the sex they are its little wonder relationships fracture. I think the op has massively over stepped generally here. I would never dream of arranging a girly only birthday lunch for my niece without her mum's permission whilst leaving out her brothers. I would ask my sister first and include my nephews to.

I suspect in a few years when the ops son is older and is being left out because he js a boy she will realise how unkind this situation is.

She's 18. Cancel the whole thing and arrange separate meet up with her and your kids. No need to involve your sister.

I have two nephews and I have different relationship with them. It is totally fine. I see them separately and together. Same with extended family, there is a mix and match of people based on interests and events. Even in nuclear family it is fine to divide occasionally.

I don’t know I’m a bit conflicted….I do think it came from a good place you arranging this for your Niece, but knowing her and her mum have an already strained relationship and how she ‘favours the boys’ to then explicitly not invite her brothers yet tag your own kids along for convenience does seem a bit off to be honest.

It’s for your sister to treat all her children equally- you are not bound to doing the same. That said it sounds like you treat your nephews to vouchers and stuff on their respective birthdays, so no problem there. I get vibes your sister either doesn’t like her daughter or jealous you are closer in age to her daughter perhaps? You doing afternoon tea, you’re not taking her to Disneyland. The boys will cope and so will she.

Stand your ground and tell you sister it’s not fair to make a nice thing for your niece all about what your sister wants, she needs to grow up and stop competing with her daughter.

🙄

I don’t really understand the no boys thing and I hate the comments implying normal boys would hate it, my son would love it and so would one of my brothers (the other definitely would not). I was always brought up with invites extended to all but not everyone was expected to come if they did not say to. Didn’t really ever have boys or girls only things but I guess some people clearly do.
inviting them from the beginning would have been nice, sis forcing them to go when the by don’t want to is very odd

Does she want a medal?

OP just wondering is your sister like this at family weddings or other big occasions?

It sounds to me like she wished she'd thought of a fun afternoon tea for neice, but you said she doesn't think about or organise such things and I think she might be a bit jealous..

Not a great parent if she'd rather cancel and have her DD bored at home, than let her go to your outing if the nephews aren't invited.

Her son is a six month old BF baby.

That was the sister's ridiculous argument too...

So OP has to either cancel the whole thing

or bring and pay for two teenage boys too... because its not fair if the six month old baby gets to go because he's a boy.

If someone wanted to plan a lovely birthday treat for my DD.... I'd let them. and say thankyou

I think it's a lovely idea from an aunty... your sister needs to calm down it's the daughters birthday so she spits her dummy out and her daughter misses out .. what a parent .

Cancel the whole thing. She’s an ungrateful cow.

EDIT: actually the niece isn’t an issue so invite the adult niece, offer to pick her up and just uninvite your sister.

Your niece is 18.
Your sister is BVU dictating what an adult should do for her birthday.
I’m not into ‘all girls’, but if your niece is, of course she should be able to without her brothers.

i don't think nieces mum cares if she's unhappy about them coming or not. which probably contributes to why things are strained.

Reporting you for what?

Anyway, I don’t know why you wouldn’t have just arranged to take your niece out on her own in the first place?

It’s when you start inviting specific children and people and excluding others, that causes problems.

Well that’s nice but do you also have a back story of your sister declaring that she has a closer relationship with your daughter than you do? And would you still be fine if it was all arranged behind your back, with you only being invited 3rd down the list as an afterthought?

It’s the OP who is turning something nice into something unpleasant imo.

It’s a half day event once you’ve factored in travel time. But for many people that basically means a day off work. The re-invites would be 5 female adults total potentially. It can be a hard number to pin down.

@Littlebitofthis1 I think sometimes people see issues everywhere. I wondered if your sister was upset about something else (not with you, just generally) which might have made her more sensitive. Maybe she's feeling sensitive because her baby girl is turning 18, it's a lot to see your child become an adult I imagine.

Personally think it’s a bit rubbish that you are taking all of your children on the premise that they are the same sex as the birthday girl (and of course one being a baby) and excluding 2 of your sisters children based on the fact they are boys. Seems a bit unfair to exclude them in my opinion. It’s afternoon tea, I would say both sexes can enjoy that, sounds more like you are trying to save money. So either do something that’s costs less money that involves everyone or don’t offer.

@Littlebitofthis1 Totally agree with you. My family did this and I don't think either of us was ever offended when one of our parents did something with the other one and it was good to have that one on one time. I do the same with my children and whether it's historically gender specific is irrelevant. I can't see why anyone would criticise you doing this with your niece regardless of if it is traditionally 'girly'. Does it matter if she'll enjoy it.

@Littlebitofthis1 I'm just impressed you're managing to organise anything/ leave the house with 3 children under 5, whilst on maternity leave so the little one must be under one. Go you 🏆👏

@Littlebitofthis1 I would tell your sister you are happy for them to come, but ONLY if your niece is happy for that to happen. It's her birthday and you are doing something incredibly nice for her, which you are paying for. Your sister is being unreasonable, especially as you've already discussed with your niece and she was happy it was just girls. To be fair I think you're right and the boys probably don't want to go anyway. Do you think your sister is trying to make this into an argument and maybe there's something else going on? To me it seems her reaction was so extreme I wonder if she's got a bee in her bonnet about something else and is using this to air her frustration 🤷🏼‍♀️.

I can't believe that your sister is making her two teenage sons attend even though they don't want to go!

Luckily, their dad sounds more reasonable than your sister.

Well it’s not really a girls event if your own son is going ? 😂😂😂

You got banned?

It’s me!! The OP, I’ve had to create a new account and username thanks to someone reporting me?!?

anyway thanks for the big discussion, I went round to my sisters today to apologise and ask what she want to do next. I said the boys could come and she said she’d tell them. They walked in shortly after that and argued with their mum about not wanting to go. She’s said they don’t have a choice so I’ve booked it for everyone.

my niece was upset but my BIL came in and said to my sister that he would be fine for me to take out my niece again on her own. Just thought you might like to know how it all played out in the end.

thanks everyone