Family fall out over ‘baby shower’

[Neverendingsummer26]

I’m pregnant with my first child and due next month. My mum & sister were really keen to throw me a baby shower but it wasn’t something I wanted so I politely declined their offer. I know they were really disappointed but nothing more was said about it.

My birthday is also next month so a couple of weekends ago I organised a dinner with all my friends as probably unlikely I will be able to celebrate this year.

I had absolutely no prior knowledge of this but my friends decided to turn my bday dinner into a bit of a baby shower with decorations and a few games and then a few of them put photos all over social media (I’m not on it myself). My sister saw the posts and she & my mum are absolutely livid with me, saying I’ve deliberately excluded them and always prioritise my friends over family.

Since then I’ve not heard anything from my sister although I have found out that she is now going on a work trip the week of my due date which I know she’d previously said no to as she didn’t want to miss meeting my baby.

I obviously appreciate that it could look like I did leave them out but I honestly had no idea what my friends were planning and I’m actually starting to get really annoyed that my last month of pregnancy is being over shadowed by this. AIBU to think I did nothing wrong and my mum & sister need to move on now ? After it all kicked off initially I said they could organise me a family one for the 3 of us but they didn’t want to

Just explain that you had no idea it was happening and it was a complete surprise and then leave them to it.

They’ll get over it eventually.

That’s great until OP is complaining in a few years’ time that they show no interest in her child 🙄

I didn’t want a baby shower when I was pregnant and nobody believed me, so I ended up having 3 surprise ones thrown by different groups.

So even if the OP did tell her friends she didn’t want a baby shower, they probably assumed she didn’t want the hassle of organising it and thought she wouldn’t mind when it was happening.

That’s fine - just that I have seen people cut their family out then whine when they don’t take an interest.

As long as someone is okay with the family not including the child in anything or bothering to ‘meet’ them etc, it’s all good

I couldn’t be friends with people who ignored my express wishes and didn’t understand that I meant it.

It always amazes me how people in here go scorched earth over everything. Bin them off, don’t let them see your kids. It’s mind boggling.

No - I was replying to a post by someone else (the one I quoted), not to the OP

Congrats on the pregnancy OP, and don’t worry too much about this, it’ll blow over.

Since you asked for opinions I voted YABU, if I were your sister or mum and saw pics of the baby shower you’d told me you didn’t want and weren’t having - I’d be massively hurt. (To me it’s also odd that you celebrated your birthday without inviting your family, which suggests to me it’s not about the shower...).

Thing is, to deny your family something that would give them pleasure to do, your preference against having a baby shower must have been quite strong. If it was that strong, surely your good friends would know about it and not throw you one?

Your family are also in the wrong for not accepting the logical explanation and letting it go, for the sake of your baby and peace of mind.

I think you misunderstood , expressing amazement and saying it is mind boggling means I feel the opposite

Sounds a bit odd to me. You organise a very early birthday dinner, but that dinner doesn’t include your DH / DP or any men, and then it suddenly becomes a surprise baby shower. Surely if you had turned down the offer of a baby shower from your family, you would have at least mentioned it in passing to one of your friends. DDIL’s friends invited me and lots of relatives from our side of the family to her baby shower.

Well I think we have different readings of what 'livid' might mean. I am taking it to mean 'hurt and upset' - which would be reasonable and a sign of a loving sister, not a horrible witch.

You may of course be right and they've been showing up threatening the OP and her unborn child with violence and subjecting her to abuse and hatred... in which case yeah she should get a restraining order.

But as most families aren't like this I'm going to assume 'hurt and upset' in which case you do not cut off your own parent before the birth of your child over a disagreement about a party and to suggest this as a course of action is utterly unhinged.

Well it was the sister with the blanking not the mum. And it was a week and a half ago, so within a reasonable amount of 'wound-licking' time. Not cool (I hate pass-ag) but families take all sorts. There have been various communist projects over the years to break family structures and they've all failed as fundamentally, it's better to have imperfect family structures than no families at all. The OP will shortly need her imperfect mum more than ever. She doesn't need you throwing fuel on the (silly) fire.

I guess that depends on the reasons. If I’d made a big deal of being morally opposed to baby showers, or something like that, then absolutely, phase them out. But my reasoning was to do with the fact I had GD and didn’t want anyone to go to the effort of throwing a baby shower that I couldn’t eat anything at. As it was, each group just did a low key one and they all researched what I could have to make sure there were options for me, so while I agree that generally, wishes should be respected, in my case it turned out to be quite thoughtful.

However I have no idea what OP’s reasons were, how clearly she communicated it, and why her friends went ahead anyway, so I’m muddying the waters with my experience here!

Fair enough - I would hope my friends would respect that if I said I didn’t want something, I would mean it. But then they know that is what I am like.

All the horror in the world. This drama is so unnecessary; your mother and sister need to calm the fuck down over such trivia.
Forget all about it OP, and just focus on yourself and your new baby,

You can’t make up your own meanings for words…🙄
Livid means angry, not ‘hurt and upset’.

Ouch

Im surprised you didnt get straight into your kum and sister to warn them what your friends had thrown you a suprise shower. I can see why they are super hurt.