It ain’t always easy being the fun aunt. You get the opportunity to spend a lot of money on your nieces and nephews and spend quality time with them, but you don’t have the authority to parent them. If your siblings or your partner’s siblings have parented them well, they should be able to understand that when an authority figure says «no,» they mean it and not fight it, but that’s not the case for many children. I’ve seen loads of parenting TikToks that advise moms and dads not to outright say no to their kids but to redirect them to a more desirable option. That might work when your kid is two, but what if they’re eight and literally can’t take «no» for an answer without having a full-blown meltdown? That’s the reason why one aunt decided to stop including her brother’s stepdaughter in her special days with her niblings.