A mom’s creative response to a boundary‑breaking family member has stunned the internet.
In a post to the “AITAH” subreddit, user Existing-Court-6526 asked whether she was wrong for sending her mother fake images of her newborn after repeated requests that the older woman stop sharing real photos on social media.
Newsweek has contacted /u/Existing-Court-6526 for comment via direct message.
The poster explained that when her first son was born six years ago, she shared photos with only a small, trusted group—including her mother—and made it clear that nothing was to be posted publicly.
Despite that agreement, her mother uploaded the pictures to Facebook for everyone to see. As a result, the poster stopped sending her any photos at all.
As the women live on different continents, sharing pictures was the primary way the poster’s mother could see her grandson outside occasional visits.
After the poster recently welcomed her second child, her mother begged for photos again. This time, the poster said she made her mom promise not to share them and warned she would know if she did. Instead of sending real images, she generated a set of fake baby photos and sent those instead.
Within a week, the images appeared on the Facebook page of the poster’s aunt.
When confronted, her mother insisted she hadn’t posted them herself—a defense that fell apart when she couldn’t explain how the aunt obtained the photos.
The situation escalated when a cousin noticed the images weren’t real and pointed it out, leading the poster’s mother to angrily demand genuine photos.
The poster refused, saying her mother had proved she couldn’t be trusted. That decision has caused tension within the family, with some accusing the poster of being overly strict or cruel, while others fully support her stance on protecting her children’s privacy.
At the time of writing, the post had received more than 6,500 upvotes, with many Reddit users backing the poster.
One commenter called it an “absolute power move,” praising her for enforcing boundaries in a humorous but effective way. Another joked that it would have been even better if the fake photos had gone unnoticed indefinitely, applauding the strategy as both efficient and entertaining.
Others shared their own work-arounds. One parent described sending only carefully framed photos—pictures taken from behind or with creative obstructions—to a relative who overshared. The poster replied that she loved the idea.
Several commenters expressed regret about posting baby photos online, noting that once images are shared, they can circulate forever.
One particularly heartfelt suggestion encouraged the woman to ask her 6‑year‑old to draw pictures of the new sibling instead—”pictures made with love,” as the commenter put it.
One user put it bluntly: “Consequences matched behavior trust was broken, not the algorithm.”
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