When this woman is upset with her dad, she asks the internet:
"AITA for refusing to be my dad's wife's birthing partner?"
My dad and his wife are having a baby together. But my dad is going to be out of town for work around the time the baby comes. He's scheduled to be gone for 3 weeks and his boss won't let someone take his place.
So my dad's wife decided I (17f) could be her birthing partner. Only I don't want to be. I don't even want to be left alone with her for 3 weeks. I don't like her.
I'm probably too hard on her because she put her foot in her mouth a lot when I first met her and when she and first moved in especially when it came to my relationship with other family members, but I tolerate her existence in the house for my dad but I'm not excited for the baby and supporting her?
Not something I can say I would do well. It's not like I care about her. She didn't expect me to say no and told me it would be so cool to see my baby sibling born and a great bonding experience. I told her I don't want to bond with her and she cried.
To clarify the stuff about her putting her foot in her mouth a lot. My mom died when I was 10. My parents had me young and stayed together until I was 5. They cheated on each other a lot.
She would ask dad and his side about mom cheating where I could hear and you'd think my mom was the only one who cheated the way she'd ask. My name is from a different culture. My mom's culture.
But she made the assumption my parents tried to be "different" and she commented on it the first time we spent an entire day together. I corrected her and then she said it was odd to use a name from the mother's culture instead of the father's culture.
Then stopped herself. I was in dance classes at the time and we were doing a Mother's Day dance with moms. I invited my grandma (paternal) and she assumed I was embarrassed to be going with her and told grandma I wanted to go with her instead.
That wasn't true. But by the time I found out grandma had other plans and couldn't make it so I didn't go. After she and dad got married she swapped out some of the photos I had of mom in there with some different ones of mom and she did it without asking me or dad.
All because they were photos of when mom was sick. But they were happy memory photos. She got mad at my aunt (paternal) and told her to stop talking about when my parents were together because they weren't happy memories and didn't even apologize when told I had asked.
She also invited herself along to some days out with my aunts (paternal aunt and maternal aunt came together for me and would give me girl time) and didn't even bring money and expected my paternal aunt to pay.
But anyway, the whole birthing partner thing is now a sore issue and she told me I can't let her do this alone and family needs to stick together, I'm almost an adult, etc. She even yelled a little when I told her I didn't want to help her. AITA?
streetleng writes:
NTA - if you are not comfortable in the role then you should not be put in it. I would assume your father travels a lot or it would be odd that out of the blue he has to be gone. That is unusual to not grant some leave when a baby is due.
I am not sure I believe it. My take on the whole thing is that everyone needs to stop being petty and try to be a family. The one person who is 100 percent innocent in all of this is the new baby. That does not mean you have to watch he/she being born.
jeepercreep writes:
NTA. My suggestion is to not emphasize the fact that you're not excited about the baby, because when you put your foot down on this, people will try to blame it on unreasonable jealousy of the new sibling when that's not your main reason at all.
I suggest saying something like "I'm really excited to meet the baby, just not while they're making their way through the birth canal. I don't think I'm old enough or mature enough to be your birthing partner--you need an adult, ideally one who has been through this before.
I'm flattered you would ask me, but I don't think it will be a bonding experience, I think I will never be able to look at you and unsee what went down in the hospital. I'm going to go stay with grandma while dad is away so you won't be responsible for me during that time and can have some alone time to bond with the baby."
Don't leave it open for discussion. Make your position known as final.
diphy writes:
NTA. I'm not sure where her own family is, but she shouldn't be expecting you to be her birthing partner. I'm not sure how she's going to manage labor without any support though.
willmist writes:
NTA. She's done absolutely nothing that would make you want to share this experience with her, and you have no obligation to do that if you don't want to be there. She sounds like an insensitive nightmare and I'm sorry you have to deal with that.