A woman has shared how she's very fond of her 'sweet' sister-in-law, Melissa, who has made quite a name for herself as a popular social media influencer.
Melissa, who has recently moved to their city, has earned a fair bit of online fame, and even sometimes gets commissions from well-known make-up brands.
The woman's 13-year-old daughter, Ana, naturally adores her cool aunt, being very into make-up herself, and enjoys learning her top beauty tips. It would now appear that she's now keen to follow in her glamorous footsteps.
Despite initial reservations about Melissa's career path, her family eventually came to accept her ambitions. She's said to be very good at what she does, and earns just as much as her brother, who followed a much more traditional path of school and work.
However, regardless of Melissa's success, the concerned mum fears Ana won't see the risks of dropping out of school early, just as her aunt did, and is trying to encourage her to get some qualifications under her belt.
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Taking to Reddit, the worried mother wrote: "Recently, Melissa has started telling Ana about how she became successful after dropping out from school and you only need confidence to succeed, not a degree, and that what you study at school doesn't really have much value in real life.
"While I agree that education is not everything, Ana is very easily influenced and takes things at face value. Two days ago, at dinner, she spoke about how she hates school and wants to leave as soon as she can.
"I don't have anything against Melissa or her job, but I don't want Ana to resent school and undermine the importance of education, because dropping out of school doesn't work for everyone."
The poster - who goes by the username u/berylliumboron - decided to call Melissa and talk to her about this, telling her that, as Ana was at such an impressionable age, she needed to be careful when talking down the importance of finishing school.
Unfortunately, Melissa took this the wrong way and felt she was 'insulting her intelligence'. She ended up hanging up on her, and the pair haven't spoken since.
Although the poster feels she has her daughter's best interests at heart, she now worries whether she may have gone about things the wrong way.
However, her fellow Reddit users felt she had indeed acted sensibly, given how important it is for aspiring influencers to have backup careers in mind.
One person advised: "I think this can be a springboard for an important conversation about Ana thinking for herself. Explain that while Melissa was successful as a dropout, that’s not the norm, and she’s speaking from her own experience only.
"She’s going to be bombarded with comments like this as she grows older and needs to be able to develop her own critical thinking skills to separate fact from opinion."
Another said: "Respecting Melissa's job and respecting education aren't mutually exclusive. You can do both. She didn't find her education worthwhile? Great, no problem.
"It doesn't make that automatically true for everyone else. And it certainly doesn't give her the right to convince your daughter that her education isn't worth it. You've now set the boundaries as Ana's parent and Melissa needs to respect that."
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