Man tells vlogger sister she can't take footage of his daughter; sis says it's 'heartbreaking.'

"AITA for making my sister 'choose' between family and career?"

Pretty much the title. My younger sister is getting married. She is a content creator/influencer/vlogger/whatever you want to call it. One time a few years ago she made a video with my kids at Disney, I gave her permission to post it.

I felt really uncomfortable and violated on behalf of my kids afterward with how many random strangers viewed and commented on my kids, even saying things like that my son is their favorite like he's a cartoon character, and said not ever again.

My sister has been respectful of this for the most part (occasionally she has tried to hint that such and such dance or prank would be so funny with them). She doesn't spend a lot of time around our kids though, because we live in different states. Here's where the trouble comes in. My sister is getting married.

Companies are paying her to use certain items and she is also getting discounts from some vendors. Obviously, this involves quite a lot of the wedding and the lead-up to it needing to be posted online. My sister had asked that my oldest daughter (10F) be a flower girl/junior bridesmaid.

Before we asked our daughter if she wants to do it we asked my sister to confirm that our daughter won't be present in any of the wedding content she posts online. My sister believes this is an unreasonable request. I said it's simple, just ask the videographer and her fellow content creator friends in the party not to film daughter and take photos with and without her.

But my sister feels like this will lead to things looking "weird" and "inorganic" and that it's an unreasonable request for her videographer and her friends. We said even if he accidentally gets her they can blur her face, and it shouldn't be that hard to avoid pointing your phone at one specific person. She disagrees, so we said then unfortunately daughter will not be participating in the ceremony.

My wife and I believe this should be easily doable and it shows that my sister at least partially wants my daughter involved simply because she wants a cute kid to be in the wedding content. However, my sister is framing it as us being terrible and forcing her to "choose" between her career and our family.

The thing is that as I said she's not super close with our kids...she's great when she's here and it's not like I expect a 29-year-old to be overly invested with kids or anything, but it does feel pretty inauthentic to now claim they're soooo close that it would be "heartbreaking" if daughter wasn't in it. I just don't view this as having to make a hard choice. AITA?

People had a lot to say about this.

Ducky818 wrote:

NTA. Your daughter is a minor and shouldn't be posted all over the internet. Besides the fact that she isn't mature enough to have a say, there are people out there that are willing to do nefarious things with her image. You're just protecting your daughter. Your sister doesn't get it.

Stranger0nReddit wrote:

NTA. Your daugher is not a prop. You are not making your sister "choose" between family and career- SHE is choosing to be selfish and difficult. It's absolutely reasonable for a parent to not want to exploit their children to random strangers on the internet, and you came up with great ideas to have your daughter be the flower girl while maintaining your boundaries with the social media crap.

The fact that your sister was not satisfied with those alternatives just shows this is just about pleasing her followers/sponsors and not at all about her wanting your daughter to play a special role in her wedding.

GaimanitePkat wrote:

NTA. The unregulated use of children in sponsored content is going to cause a generation of mental illness. Your daughter isn't a prop for your sister's social media videos. She can blur over your child's face, or put an emoji, or she tell her photographer/videographer to not include your child.

Is she having all the guests sign media release forms for when their faces get used in her photos too? Will they be compensated for having their likenesses in an advertisement?

Living-Highlight7777 wrote:

No, you're choosing the safety and well-being of your daughter over your sister's career. Sure, she has to make a choice on what to do with it, but it's really not as extreme as "family vs career."

If she doesn't want to go through the extra effort of making sure all the content creators follow those boundaries, that's fine; it'll be a busy and hectic enough day as it is. But she doesn't get to act like that is somehow offensive to her; that's absurd. NTA.

WhiteKnightPrimal wrote:

NTA. It's perfectly reasonable to not want your kid posted all over the internet, and your sister has been fine with this for a long time now. It wouldn't be hard to either blur your daughter's face or not include her in all this part of the wedding.

This isn't a choice between career and family you're forcing on her, it's a choice between being respectful and exploitative, a choice between having her niece as flower girl or not. However, it is a choice between career and family, as well, just not one you're forcing on her, one she's already made.

She had a choice between respecting her family or putting her career so far above family that she bulldozed boundaries and risked losing her family entirely. And she's already chosen her career. Stand your ground. Your sister is totally TA here.

OP is NTA, he's just being a good parent.