A family heirloom turned into a family headache when one mom tried to keep a long-standing tradition on track. She expected a simple prom request from her 17-year-old daughter, but the conversation quickly opened up an issue she had never really considered before.

Posting on Reddit under the name u/familyheirloom321231, the mom explained that her family passes one specific necklace down to the firstborn daughter. Her daughter asked to wear it to junior prom, and the answer seemed easy at first, until her older child, Jessica, said she should be the one to receive it.

Now the necklace, the family tradition, and a painful sibling conflict are all tangled together. Read on.

And here is where things start to get complicated. You see, Susan is the middle child. The oldest child, Jessica, came out as trans a few years ago.

As the oldest daughter, Jessica thought that she should receive the necklace, and the mom admitted she had never considered it before because she spent 13 years viewing Susan as her oldest daughter.

“This made us all quiet, and I didn’t really know what to say as I’ve never really thought about it since I always planned on giving it to Susan,” she wrote. “After thinking for a few seconds, I told Jessica that I have always planned on giving it to Susan and that it wouldn’t be fair, but since circumstances have changed, I am willing to go with you to a jewelry store and get you something equally special.”

Mom’s attempt to soothe a difficult situation didn’t go so well.

“This did not satisfy Jessica, as she became progressively ruder to me,” she said. “Jessica being rude to me and our fighting led Susan to say some very transphobic things to Jessica (which made her walk away and cry) that I don’t wish to repeat.”


“I’m at an impasse. My [spouse] and I really don’t think giving Jessica the necklace would be the right thing to do. AITA?”

People are mostly sympathetic to her problem.

“You’re all in a difficult situation,” wrote u/PooPulls. “Your trans daughter feels it’s yet another instance of her being considered less than a woman. Your female-born daughter feels it’s being unfairly removed from her, and you didn’t consider this possibility because who can really foresee this?”

“This was Susan’s birthright, and it’s been coming to her her whole life. You can’t take that away because of the other child’s transitions and life journey,” added u/rhetorical_twix. “Susan is your firstborn daughter. Jessica, by transitioning, became your second daughter after birth.”

This gets just as messy as the AITA argument over prioritizing a brother over a partner during an heirloom dispute, where the conflict hits hard for the person choosing family over partner in a family heirloom inheritance dispute.

And many used the opportunity to advocate against practices where the oldest children receive the family heirlooms.

“As a younger sibling in a family with a long history of passing down something (a name) to the firstborn… I’m not a fan of these traditions in general,” wrote u/tonytwostep. “In my opinion, it makes the firstborn (and their subsequent firstborn) feel like the ‘true’ inheritors of the family history; it forges a close relationship between the parent and the firstborn, at the expense of your relationship with the other children.”

“But in all seriousness… traditions that solely focus on one child over the others are kind of stupid. You’re just asking for your other kids to start to resent you and the Chosen Child,” u/batnat711 chimed in.

The bottom line is that everyone agreed there are ‘No A-holes here,’ just a challenging and stressful situation for a loving family.

Before you decide who “deserves” the necklace, see what happened when someone skipped a cousin’s wedding over the same kind of heirloom fight in Family Heirloom Drama: Choosing Between Wedding Attendance and Tradition.