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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Ok-Beautiful-8531 on 2023-08-09 17:34:04.

My niece (I’ll call her Ella) is 14 and quite close with me. (I’m 28, we are like a cross between sisters and a mother-daughter type relationship.) My older sister (I’ll call her Anna) is honestly a very emotionally distant mom, she doesn’t act warm or loving to my niece (although she has not been neglectful or abusive at all). She is very invested in her career and didn’t want children from when we were young, Ella was an accidental pregnancy.

The other day, Ella was feeling sad because she’s been fighting with her friends, and she called me to talk. She said that she’d tried to talk to her mom but Anna told her that she was busy and didn’t have time to listen to her whine. And Ella asked me why her mom didn’t seem to want her. This caught me by surprise and I just answered without thinking, I said that Anna didn’t actually want children.

Ella wasn’t even surprised though. She just said “okay”, like I just confirmed what she thought all along. But then my sister called me and was really angry that I said that. She said I was trying to screw up her relationship with her daughter and that she was a good mom, so I didn’t have a right to say such things. But it’s true. Anyways, AITA? What I said probably hurt my niece, but she knows I didn’t say it unkindly and that I was just telling the truth. The only person really upset with me is my sister. So am I the asshole?

Edit: My niece has actually asked this before, and I gave an evasive answer that she saw through in a second. So I guess I felt like she deserved some honesty, because she’s been beating herself up about not being good enough to be loved- and it’s not her fault, it’s her mom’s, so I said so. I think word for word I said something like “your mom never really wanted to have children when we were younger… so she does love you, but I don’t think she’ll ever be the best at the emotional support, and the things moms are supposed to do.”