Aibu or is it okay for someone else to announce the birth of your child?

[Wolfpac]

My In Laws are first time grandparents and had announced the birth of our child on Social Media after DH specifically told them not to and that we would do it once we get home from the hospital the next day.
Would you mind if that happened or Am I Being Unreasonable?

For starters when we ask someone not to do something especially as exciting as this for US we have been waiting eagerly just as much as they have it should be our news to tell and they should respect our decision. If we had told them it was okay to do so then they can but we told them not to.

Honestly? I’d still pick your battles - there’s a lot of years ahead until adulthood. And this is a happy time, not worth getting upset about. TBH I don’t even notice who has made announcements.

OP what is the actual problem about someone other than you telling people?

I think it’s more on social media. The first picture, name, weight announcement should be from the parents. It is their baby after all. There’s nothing wrong with a yay I’m a grandparent post but at least wait for the parents to announce it first.

I’d be upset if after two days of labour someone else other than DH and I decided it was their job to announce our baby. I did the work! You don’t get to make that announcement!

Also, how do you know the parents want it announced? Baby and Mum could be ill, there could be complications. Have some thought beyond your excitement.

Crackercrisp- Spot on. We had already told them a couple of months prior that we want to announce it ourselves and they thought it was fine.
Then I think almost immediately they messaged the family and called DH GP' which he really wanted to do himself since they are close. Then an hour after we told them they posted "bundle has arrived"and tagged us all and we had no idea until DH got home due to the crap signal in the hospital. We just wanted to breath a little and enjoy the moment before we rush off ringing others or making an announcement on facebook.
I understand that back in the day they obviously didn't have these platforms to tell others like this so had others pass on the news,but times have changed and I felt that we had made ourselves clear a couple of months prior and on the day of. Obviously they got mild amnesia and forgot all about.
All is forgiven but I won't forget that's for sure!

Move on instead of stewing on it, just enjoy being a mum.

They are always going to be around so saying all if forgiven but not forgotten means you will always hold a grudge, for something that in the overall scheme of things is irrelevant.

No-one else cares who makes the first announcement. People reading it probably won’t notice and surely half your friends aren’t friends with your in laws anyway?

Yep it’s irritating and annoying but unless there’s a massive backstory about really bad lack of boundaries then it really doesn’t matter.

Haven't read the thread. Don't use Facebook. I didn't know that "announcing" was a thing. I presume people write about things that excite/interest them at whatever random time suits them following receipt of the information. It wouldn't cross my mind that there's some sort of etiquette requiring you to hold back until someone else has done something.

Yanbu. Having experienced this myself (sil posted on fb the birth, the gender and name of our first child and it was how a lot of my husband's family found out as it was within 2 hours of the birth and we were busy being together instead of phoning every aunt etc) we weren't even on social media at that point and she knew how we felt about social media. As you can tell we have still not forgiven her especially as the way she posted it made it all about her.

Becky- my thoughts wow that's horrible. That's how I felt as well they made it all about them. Everyone was congratulating the in laws, for what? They didn't do any of the hard work 🤣
Again it's only Facebook but we had told them not to say anything. We also just wanted to live in the moment and be a family rather than worrying about others at that point in time everyone else could have waited until the next day.

Agree to keep away from F/B just on principle. At least a birth is a joyous thing.

I know of two families who learned that family members had died (and even more heartbreakingly, taken their own lives) via facebook.

The "friends" who found their bodies were s eager to be part of the drama that they posted online as soon as they'd phoned the emergency services (at least I HOPE they phoned the emergency services first).

The world and his wife knew before the police had even knocked on their doors. Shameful.

I think FB is confusing to the older generation.

The ILs are probably only in their 40/50s. Hardly past it.

FB and the internet has been around for quite a while now.

SchadenfreudePersonified- An absolutely horrible way to find out how silly of them to do that. I understand people want to spread the word quickly about something but people should also stop and think if it's the right time to do so. Amazes me that people would notify others of a death so quickly I read a previous post on this threat earlier that's similar...

WigglyBlossom- They are almost 70 and know full well what they were doing and how the internet/facebook works. Judging by the way they acted when my husband confronted them they knew what they did.

I'm in the minority too but it wouldn't bother me. A picture yes, as we don't post pictures on social media, but telling others wouldn't bother me.

I don't get the whole gender reveal, huge pregnancy announcements etc though and don't think most things warrant the fuss others give.

Out of order but I would put it behind me. It's happened now .

Sometimes I see things on MN and, as the mum of three boys, I think ‘I will learn from this, and do my best not to treat any future DIL this way’ - but this is not one of those occasions - NOT, I hasten to add, because I would do what the OP’s PIL have done, but because it wouldn’t even occur to me to share their news unless and until they told me I could!

I hope that, when the time comes, I will have as good a relationship with my DILs as I had with my own lovely, late MIL - I couldn’t have asked for a better example of how to be a wonderful MIL, and I miss her so much. If I am honest, I had a better relationship with her than I have ever had with my own mum, which is sad.

I do understand how exciting it is when grandchildren are born, and I am sure I will be beside myself - but that would be no excuse for overstepping boundaries. No matter how excited I am, I will still remember that I am the grandmother, not the mother, and that puts me in a very different position. And I wouldn’t expect to be as close to my DIL as her own mum is - that would be madness.

My Dp told my mum as soon as he knew we were both safe. She told whoever she wanted. He also told his Mum - and she told the family who told their friends and family. I rang or messaged a few of my friends when I was out. No drama, no big announcement, people are not that interested really.

So what you had a baby. News spreads - "Oh I heard Painted had her baby" - "Oh good - what was it" "A boy - Little Johnny - both fine" "Good - anyway must go, nice to see you"

DS's birth was announced by DH's uncle by fucking marriage

I mean seriously, WTF. DS is not related to him in any way bar a shitty bit of paper. He's the second Uncle by marriage too, not even around when DH was a child.

Full name and everything. MIL told her sister. The attention seeking fucker then put it on Facebook.

I’d be furious!

@paintedhorizons I agree with you completely, and don’t understand the drama other posters seem to feel about this issue.

I think it is unfair to dismiss people who do care about this - we are all different, and it is entirely normal for some people to care passionately about something that other people don’t care about at all.

Just because you didn’t feel it was important to be the ones who shared this news doesn’t mean that people are wrong to want to get to share it when their dc are born.

I’ll be honest and say it didn’t bother me - dh and I told immediate family, and close friends and were happy for the news to spread naturally from them - but I can see that, for some people, it really matters that they get to tell people - and it may not be logical, but they feel that, if other people share the news first, it takes a bit of the shine off for them - and I think it is a bit uncaring to dismiss their hurt feelings.

Knowing that it does matter to some, I don’t think it is a big deal to make sure it is OK to share someone’s big news before broadcasting it - I’d rather check, and be told ‘of course you can, what a daft question’ than not ask and hurt someone’s feelings.

We live overseas, and FaceTimed BIL when DS2 was born. SIL couldn’t be arsed to get off her phone to congratulate us, but then announced it on FB before we had finished calling everyone else! I made DH text his brother to tell her to take it down

LadyCassandra- She definitely was being an attention seeker how rude of your SIL!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius- Very understanding of you definitely agree with all your points. We both have a lot of friends who DO care and actually wanted to hear from us not by someone else to the pp who said that no one cares. When the time comes I hope I'm a good grandmother and an even better MIL! Definitely have learned from this thread and the other threads of boundaries!

The point is that the IL had been asked not to do something
And they did it anyway

I’d be really upset

Yeah it was quite upsetting. Never thought they would do it even when we made our selves clear I think the excitement got the better of them but oh well what's done is done I have learnt for next time!