Dads Ban Niece From Fishing Trip, Get Called ‘Dinosaurs’ By Family

For over a decade, a family’s biannual fishing trip was a cherished tradition. It was a time for brothers to reconnect and for their kids to bond over a shared love of the outdoors. But what was once a wholesome getaway has now turned into a bitter family feud, all because some teenage boys felt “awkward” around their female cousin.

One of the dads took to Reddit to ask if he was in the wrong for telling his brother to leave his 17-year-old daughter at home. The answer he received was a resounding, deafening “yes,” with his own nephew perfectly summing up the situation by calling him and his brothers “dinosaurs.”

Let’s get into the messy details of this family fallout:

Oof. You can just feel the sting of rejection from a mile away, can’t you? My heart absolutely breaks for Selene in this story. Imagine being part of a tradition for your whole life, a tradition built around a hobby you genuinely love, only to be told one day that you’re no longer welcome simply because you’re a girl.

And what’s worse? The exclusion is being justified by the very men who are supposed to be her loving uncles. The dad who wrote this says he wanted to make his son “feel heard,” but in doing so, he sent a loud and clear message to his niece that her feelings don’t matter at all. Her presence, the very thing that made their family trip inclusive, is now being treated as a problem to be solved.

This Wasn’t Just Awkward, It Was Exclusion

Let’s be honest, the moment the boys said they couldn’t “speak freely” or “behave how they want” around Selene, huge red flags should have gone up for these dads. Instead of seeing a crucial teaching moment, they saw an inconvenience. They had a golden opportunity to teach their sons how to be respectful young men around women, and instead, they chose to build a “boys only” clubhouse.

This taps into the old, tired, and incredibly harmful “boys will be boys” trope. This mindset excuses poor behavior from boys by suggesting it’s just their nature. Research from the American Psychological Association has shown that this kind of thinking reinforces harmful gender stereotypes and teaches boys that they aren’t responsible for their actions, especially around girls. By caving to the boys’ request, these dads didn’t just exclude their niece, they failed their sons.

This situation also highlights a classic parenting mistake. According to a Pew Research Center survey, parents often have different expectations for raising sons versus daughters, sometimes without even realizing it. The uncles prioritized their sons’ desire for a “rowdy” trip over their niece’s right to be included in a family tradition she was already a part of.

Her father, James, did the absolute right thing by standing with his daughter and refusing to attend a trip where she was not wanted.

The community had almost no sympathy for the OP.

The verdict was a deafening YTA, with Redditors calling out the dads for teaching their sons that excluding women is perfectly fine.

Many users pointed out the simple, obvious solution that the OP completely missed.

How to Handle a Moment Like This

It’s clear that the dads in this story dropped the ball in a major way. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, where your kids want to exclude someone, it’s a moment to lean in, not to give in.

Instead of immediately agreeing, the first step is to get curious. Ask the boys, “What do you mean you can’t ‘speak freely’? What kind of behavior are you talking about that isn’t okay around Selene?” This isn’t an interrogation; it’s a conversation. It helps them examine their own motives and gives you a chance to explain that true respect means being a good person, regardless of who is watching.

The solution here was painfully simple: if the boys and their dads wanted a special “guys only” trip, they should have planned one. They could have organized a separate camping weekend or a different event, leaving the beloved, inclusive family fishing tradition intact. You can create new traditions without destroying old ones.

In The End…

This wasn’t a story about teenage awkwardness. It was a story about a failure in parenting. These uncles chose to validate their sons’ discomfort instead of teaching them a valuable lesson about respect and inclusion. They sent a message that when boys feel “weird,” it’s a girl’s job to disappear. Thank goodness for James, the dad who refused to let that happen.

What do you think? Did these dads make a terrible mistake, or are people being too hard on them for listening to their sons? Let us know in the comments.