Having a baby is stressful, especially for first-time parents. It’s a time when people feel vulnerable and out of control of their bodies, the future, and how it’s all going to turn out. No matter how many books a person reads, one can never be fully prepared when the time comes.
We try our best, though, while loving our babies with all our heart. When expecting, gender reveal parties can be a way for couples to share their joy with friends and family and in a small way, it feels like having control over a mostly uncontrollable situation.
But sometimes parents get a little too wrapped up in the outcome and before we know it, the disappointment is written all over their face. One dad-to-be recently threw a fit at his baby’s gender reveal party and his sister-in-law called him out on his bad behavior. Now, she’s wondering if she’s in the wrong and posted on Reddit to get a consensus.
At the gender reveal party, the dad-to-be was so disappointed that he was having a girl that he sat in the corner angrily mumbling to himself.
The original poster was upset and disappointed in her brother-in-law’s reaction to the gender reveal and concerned about how it made her sister feel. So she went to Reddit’s AITA community seeking guidance.
“Last week my sister was having a gender reveal party," she wrote. "When the sex was revealed to be female, her husband got all disappointed and basically sat in the corner angrily mumbling to himself.”
According to the OP, this obviously made everyone feel really uncomfortable and her sister was distraught after seeing her husband’s reaction to the baby she is carrying. So the sister-in-law decided to intervene on behalf of her sister and talk to him, because, frankly, she thought he was being ridiculous. She thought she could help move past it. But that’s not how it all played out.
What exactly is proper etiquette for guests when a parent-to-be is visibly traumatized that their gender reveal didn't turn out as they hoped?
“I asked him why he was so upset, and he was like, 'Really? Obviously I don't want a daughter, I wanted a son.'"
When the OP asked why the genitals of his baby mattered so much, the dad-to-be called her a creep. OP responded with, "Come on man, are you really gonna just throw a tantrum? Do you even care how your wife feels about this?"
There's no arguing with a misogynist.
OP's brother-in-law got so angry that he yelled, "How dare you try and tell me what to do in my own home?" followed by a string of expletives. At this point, OP lost her temper because he was acting out of line in front of everyone and she knew it would bother her pregnant sister.
OP decided to sound off and tell the dad-to-be a hard truth: If he plans to raise a child, he needs to grow up. This only added fuel to the already out of control fire the gender reveal party was turning out to be.
In the end, dad-to-be got even more mad and refused to listen to reason. OP decided that if her words weren’t going to change anything for the better, she’d remove herself from the party. But then her sister got mad at her and blamed her for the entire situation.
Shouldn't the goal be a healthy and happy baby? Why does what's between its legs even matter?
OP wants commiseration and validation that sticking up for her sister and her niece by reprimanding her brother-in-law was the right thing to do. It was.
Most Redditors agreed with the OP that her brother-in-law was being excessive in his reaction. After all, shouldn’t he just be happy that his baby is healthy? Public Redditor opinion pretty much saw dad-to-be as a misogynist.
One commenter said: “I mean, with the way he's behaving about having created a female, I'm sure he'd be very agreeable to sterilization (and a divorce) … seem to be a reasonable solution here.”
The Redditors have spoken: dad-to-be is TA.
"I've known men like this," noted another commenter. "They have mistreated their daughters and/or have divorced their wives even before the baby is born. The sister really needs to pay attention to this."
There was no shortage of advice from commenters, but most of it boiled down to the same thing: “Don’t let him breed!”
“I’d give him nothing but stats about how awesome women are forever," commented another person. "His misogynistic a– can choke on them.”
One commenter offered this last piece of sage advice, “I think if you specifically want one gender and will be mad if you get the other, you shouldn't have any kid.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
