'AITA for telling my sister that having cats is not the same as having children?'

"AITA for telling my sister that having cats is not the same as having children?"

I (26f) have a sister that I'll call Jenna (23f). We're not extremely close, mainly because she was always closer to our younger brother (22m), but we still see each other pretty often.

Last week, we were both invited by our mutual friend that I'll call Mary (25f) to her baby shower. The baby shower was super fun and it was a great occasion to reconnect with some friends from college that I hadn't seen in a while. Everything was going wonderfully.

Towards the end of the baby shower a lot of the guests had left and Mary, my sister, 2 other friends and I ended up talking for a while. Those two other friends both have children, and I have a daughter, so we were all giving Mary advice, telling her what to expect, and talking about baby stuff.

Jenna was the only one in the group who didn't have children and wasn't expecting, so I guess she was feeling a bit left out. Because of that, she kept talking about her experience as a cat mom.

Every time someone would tell a story, or talk about something they experienced with their children, she'd say that she experienced something similar with her cats. When we were talking about how being a parent can be exhausting she kept talking about how having 3 cats was also hard work. No matter what we said, she was always bringing it back to her and her cats.

At one point, one of my friends was talking about how much responsibility it was to raise children, and Jenna just replied "Having cats is a huge responsibility too!". I simply told her that that was not really the same thing and she got really defensive.

She said that it was the same thing, and started to talk about all the ways that having cats can be demanding and a huge responsibility and said that we were basically shaming her for not having children.

I tried to tell her that it wasn't an insult and we weren't saying that it wasn't demanding or anything, but that you can't compare having pets and having children. I have both cats and a baby, and it's nowhere near as exhausting to have a cat as it is to have a baby.

She said that we were disrespectful and invalidating her experience and didn't talk to us again until we left. She hasn't talked to me since. I get that she was feeling excluded from the conversation and maybe tried to find a way to insert herself in it, but also I feel like it makes sense for us to be talking about children since it's a baby shower.

Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up but I also don't feel like what I said was really wrong, and I'm feeling like she might be overreacting a bit. But I don't really know how to feel about it so I thought I'd get another perspective on this. AITA?

Edit: I just realized that I didn't make it really clear that when I told her it wasn't the same, it was meant as a joke! Not a very funny one maybe, I'll give you that, but I really wasn't being mean! It was supposed to just be a light way to reply to her not at all an insult

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

DustOne7437 said:

Parent and pet owner here. While some of the responsibilities are similar, parenting a child who will go out and shape the world and our futures is a whole different ball of wax than caring for my animals.

OP responded:

That's exactly what we were talking about! We were saying that it was a lot of responsibility to know that the first few years of the child's life are very important and shape the kind of person they'll be, which is why I said that it wasn't the same for cats!

OldSaggytitBiscuits said:

NTA, your sister sounds like a delusional brat. I have cats, specifically because they're less work than children. I love them like kids, but they're not human beings. The fact that she got upset about people pointing that out is a problem...for her.

OP responded:

That's the thing! I love my cats and I consider them as part of our family, but that doesn't mean that having cats is the same thing as having a child!

Sea-Instance-1198 said:

To defend your sister a bit, its probably annoying as hell if you three were all just talking about kids none stop and she probably felt excluded so tried to relate any way she could.

OP responded:

I get that! But also the story kind of makes it seem like this was the only thing we did. We had spent the whole day together (from around 10 in the morning to 6pm) and had done a lot of different things! There were many activities planned for everyone during the baby shower, and we also got to catch up with a lot of friends.

We didn't really talk about babies at all until the very end of it, when a lot of people had left. In reality we talked about it for maybe 30 minutes at best. I get that she felt excluded regardless and that was absolutely not the intention, but also I kind of feel like it's normal and expected to talk about children at some point during a baby shower.

myironlions said:

Soft ESH. You make the point that talking about kids is absolutely relevant to the event. Very true, and I totally get how equating pets to kids in this specific manner is eye-roll-worthy. However:

Talking about kids could have just as easily have been sharing funny things they’ve done or how much richer life is with more loved ones in it - topics on which a “cat mom” could just as easily contribute without it being out of place, and that would have been fun, relevant, and inclusive.

I’d bet dollars to donuts the mom-to-be is tired of all the “expert advice” from “experienced parents,” (every child is different and pregnant women are constantly being subjected to judgement and superiority in the guise of “help”).

So while I think your sister was generally clueless for pushing so hard to equate being a cat-mom to a human mother, is it possible that both of you might have been a bit more focused on your own personal interests rather than the needs do others here (just in very different ways)?

Among friends and family, we often extend others grace, and perhaps this would have been an excellent opportunity to do that. I wonder if the mom-to-be was at all humoring her friends who wanted to validate their own experience under the guise of “helping” her with advice.

And OP responded:

My friend did ask for advice! We were talking about how exciting it must be for her to be having a child and she told us that she was super excited of course but also very nervous, and asked for advice, or how we dealt with some stuff!

I absolutely get that sometimes advice is annoying. I was pregnant not that long ago and some people were really judgmental about some choices we made, and would say that they were just trying to give advice. But at the end of the day I'm really glad I had a bunch of friends and family members who gave me real advice! If it's solicited I feel like it's okay to give advice!