AITA for skipping prom photos?
For some backstory, I have a foster sister who’s lived with my family for almost 2 years now. We’re both 16, and today was our high school prom. She was going, but I never really cared much about events like that anyway.
Important detail: I LOVE Billie Eilish, and everyone around me knows how much her music has helped me. I was super excited about her movie coming to theaters, and prom day happened to be the same day I planned to see it. My plan was to still go to my sister’s pre-prom photos first so we could take sibling/family pictures, then I’d walk to the theater after since it was basically down the street.
Unfortunately, I got strep throat. My mom told me I couldn’t go to the movie because I was sick, but I still needed to be ready for photos the next day. I pointed out that if I was “too sick” for the theater, then it didn’t make sense for me to go take pictures with a bunch of people either. I said I was still willing to do photos, I just thought it felt unfair.
My mom immediately got upset and said, “Fine, I guess we just won’t do photos and I’ll never plan family events again.” She stormed out, and we didn’t talk again until the next afternoon.
The next day around 1:30, she saw I wasn’t dressed and said I was “clearly not ready to go.” I reminded her that she had canceled the photo plans the night before, and she rolled her eyes.
A few hours later, my mom told me she and my dad were going to take photos with my sister because my sister wanted parent pictures. My little brothers (5 and 9) supposedly didn’t want to go, so she said I needed to stay home with them. I asked when they were leaving, and she said 20 minutes, so I took a quick shower because I felt gross from laying in bed sick all day.
When I got out, everyone had left. I texted my sister asking if my brothers were with them, and she said yes. At that point, I assumed my dad just made the boys go, and if I had known sooner everyone was actually going, I would’ve gotten ready and gone too.
About 20 minutes later, everyone except my sister came back, and my dad came into my room saying he wished I would “act like part of this family” and stop avoiding family events. Every time I tried explaining that I thought the plans were canceled and that nobody told me they ALL ended up going, he interrupted me and said I was just making excuses.
Then he told me I could “redeem myself” by going with my mom to take prom photos at the school, but I said that felt awkward since I wasn’t even going to prom and my mom was just taking pictures there anyway.
Now everyone’s mad at me, and I genuinely can’t tell if I handled this badly or if this whole situation got blown out of proportion. So… AITAH?