'AITA for confronting my brother about not letting me touch his newborn kids?'
"AITA for confronting my brother about not being able to touch his newborns?"
Either-Web-7383 writes:
My brother (28M) and his girlfriend (24F) just had twins. Prior to the birth, they sent a paragraph in the family group chat expressing their rules for visiting them in the hospital: “Please do not carry the babies for now.”
The day after the birth, I (23F) and my sister (24F) were talking to the mom. I asked if her stance on the babies being touched or carried still stood, and she said it did. She continued by saying that people in our family work construction and smoke cigarettes (which does not apply to me or my sister), and she didn’t want to risk the germs.
She gave her cousin as an example. He had just come from work (construction) and wanted to touch the babies, but she said no. I asked if she would have allowed it if he had showered beforehand, and she shook her head no.
Last night, I was showing my boyfriend the photos I took of the twins when I got a notification from the family group chat. I clicked it immediately. It was a video with the caption, “Uncle came to visit the babies!” The video showed the mom on the hospital bed with a baby in the bassinet next to her.
Her brother was standing over the bassinet, reaching in and touching the baby’s head, as you hear the mom saying, “Isn’t her head soft?” Then the video suddenly disappeared. The message and video were unsent. Seconds later, a photo with the same caption was sent instead.
The photo showed the same situation, except her brother had his hands behind his back and the mom was holding the bassinet. I immediately called my sister to tell her, and we were both angry. We texted our brother, saying we saw the video, but he never responded even though he was active in other chats.
Some background: throughout the pregnancy, they repeatedly said they didn’t want anyone touching the kids. My brother told me he was struggling to find the words to tell our mom that she wasn’t going to be allowed to hold or carry them.
There have been times where my brother tells us one thing, but then after hearing his girlfriend’s opinion, he changes his mind. Meanwhile, the twins’ maternal grandmother is carrying, feeding, and touching the babies.
I can understand only trusting your own mother, but it still feels unfair to our mom, who is just as much a grandmother. And then there’s her 17-year-old brother, who they constantly complain about going clubbing until 5 a.m. every night. Yet he gets to touch the babies. My sister works an office job, and I’m not even working right now. I only traveled here to visit for this reason.
Present: My sister and I confronted my brother over the phone today (he was alone). He just said that her brother was able to touch one of the babies because he simply asked, and “the mother allowed him to.” He said we could have showered and asked too.
We told him no, because we were respecting the boundaries they had made so clear. I’m upset because why do her mom and brother get to touch the babies, but not our mom or us, his sisters? Am I the a*%^ole for confronting him about this?
Here are the comments from the post.
Competitive_Night_11 says:
YTA. You don’t have a right to touch other people’s babies. Even if they allow other people to. They don’t owe you an explanation either. Lay off your brother and try asking how you can be helpful. Being a new parent is a lot.
Yernar125 says:
YTA - Why do you care so much who touched kids that aren’t yours? Why is touching an infant so crucial to your happiness? Please get a hobby of some kind and let the parents decide how they parent.
MaggieLuisa says:
YTA. They’re allowed to decide in a case-by-case basis what they’re comfortable with. They don’t have to be ‘fair’ or justify their decisions to you. Assume for now you can’t touch the babies, don’t worry about what anyone else is doing, and next time you’re with them in person if you really want to hold a baby, ask politely, and don’t argue with whatever the answer is.
Swirlyflurry says:
YTA. A lot of people (especially first-time parents) don’t want others touching their newborns. A newborn’s immune system is not ready to be bombarded by even the normal, every-day pathogens that you and every other person on this planet has.
Your brother even said that he would have made the same exception for you that they did for gf’s brother: the difference is, gf’s brother asked. You never asked. You just talked behind your brother’s back about his rule and festered in your hurt feelings.