Man throws 'parody' baby shower for himself, doesn't invite pregnant ex, she gets upset.

Raising a kid with anyone is hard, even if you love each other to pieces and are perfectly ideologically aligned. But raising a kid with an ex is a special type of challenge, as you're navigating all the massive challenges of parenthood with someone you no longer want to partner with.

For some exes who co-parent, the parenting disagreements can start before the child has even arrived on earth.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he was wrong to throw a baby shower for himself without inviting his pregnant ex.

He wrote:

AITA for having a 'baby shower' and not inviting my pregnant ex?

So my ex and I are currently expecting a baby and she's 26 weeks along. I am the last/only person in friendship group and family (in my generation and above) who hasn't had a kid yet so everyone's quite excited and they decided to throw me a baby shower just for bants. They'd told me they wanted to throw me one and asked if they should invite my ex. I said no because well no.

We've agreed to co-parent but we can and should keep some things separate if not necessary to include one another and this was just with my friends and family. So they threw me this baby shower and it was honestly quite some fun. It was all just jokes and bants. We had a great lunch, had some drinks, treats, and the gift giving. It was more of a celebratory party of me finally joining the parent club than anything.

We took a bunch of funny parody-type pictures of typical baby shower photoshoots like one with my stomach out and my friends were feeling the 'baby' and one of me under baby shower banner with all the balloons and gifts etc. These were obviously posted and my ex saw them and didn't like it, to say the least.

She thinks I'm a dickhead for having a baby shower 1) at all because I refused to throw her one or help contribute and 2) without her since I'm not the one pregnant and apparently the photos were sexist and insulting. I get it but also don't think it's that big of a deal. AITA?

The internet was quick to give OP a real piece of mind.

Starlit_pies wrote:

I'm going to go against the grain here, and say YTA. You may contribute equally to baby's upbringing in the future, but at the moment she is doing the majority of work, and would be doing it for some time.

Maybe even after the birth of the baby, if she's breastfeeding. I understand that a future single father deserves a party with his friends and family, and a celebration of his parenthood.

But calling his party 'a baby shower' as well, refusing to invite her, refusing to contribute to her party and 'parody photos' - all that taken together feel to be in extremely bad taste to me. I think she feels like OP, his friends and family are mocking her, and undervaluing what she is going through and is about to go through. And I think she would be right in that.

pbd1996 wrote:

YTA. You say you want to co-parent, but this is the very first event involving your child and you are already fighting/not co-parenting. You should’ve included your ex as this is a “baby shower” not a “baby daddy shower.” The gifts are for your baby, not for you. Imagine when your child grows up, and you show him/her pictures of the shower. What if he/she asks where their mommy is in the pictures?

You will literally have to tell your child “Well, even though it was a baby shower, it was really for me. So I didn’t invite your mom, even though she was pregnant with you.” You absolutely should’ve invited her and had a co-parent baby shower. If you felt you needed additional celebration for being a father, you should’ve done something else (a barbecue, a vacation, a dinner, a brewery, etc.)

AKA you should’ve done something that wasn’t in the form of a baby shower. What makes me the most sad for your ex is, it sounds like nobody is throwing HER a shower. So she had to watch everyone throw you a baby shower, while her and the baby get nothing.

EDIT: Some of you are spending so much energy disagreeing with my comment/asking me questions. I’m not the one who asked if I was the @$$hole- if you think OP is NTA then leave HIM a comment saying so!

NonniSpumoni wrote:

Oh, my dude, I am an old woman and am okay with getting downvoted. But such YTA...you have a 'parody' shower. WTF...how fun for you. Really, while another human being, that you don't even like or deal with incubates your child. Alone. Without the support of said child's father and his friends and their gifts....she gets...reads notes....nothing.

But she gets to read about your exploits all over social media. How fun. I can't wait to see your parody labor photo shoot, your parody post-partum shoot, your parody milk coming in shoot, your parody colic shoot. It seems you're taking this whole parenting thing super seriously. You realize that this other human; the one carrying your child, is going to be in your life until you die, right? Not 18 years.

Until. You. Die. Weddings, graduations, visitations, illnesses, grandchildren, your partners are her business, her partners are yours. This is not a great start. I hope someone got you a parenting book. I can recommend some. And maybe some counseling for you and your new life partner. Because she is a life partner.

You can trivialize her, make fun of what's happening. But a human is coming. That human and human gestating deserve more respect. Is she eating healthy, what are you doing to support her? Causing stress is not support.

jessicaskies wrote:

I’m gonna go with YTA. The baby shower and the photos will look like you’re making fun of her. No offense, but you don’t really deserve a baby shower just because you’ve got someone pregnant like yeah have a night out before you become a dad, but an entire baby shower and refusing to help your ex have one is quite sh#$%y.

She’s carrying YOUR child and that’s 9 months of her body going through so much trauma and you refusing to help with any kind of baby shower even as an ex is kind dickish. You’ve got 9 months where you aren’t even with her while she grows your child like I think she deserves something for that instead of you getting the baby shower when you’re doing absolutely nothing for the kid till it’s born.

alexrez123 wrote:

NTA. The purpose of a baby shower is to support the new parent and for your support network to help you out with purchasing items that will be necessary for raising your baby. Your baby is going to be raised in two separate homes, so I think it’s great that your friends and family decided to rally around to support you as a single parent instead of just leaving you to figure it out by yourself.

It’s really touching actually because it shows they’ll probably be there for you when the baby comes too. Of course, your ex is in the picture as a co-parent and hopefully, you can support each other well in that moving forward, but you are allowed to celebrate and prepare for your baby without her. It would be a vastly different story if you were still together.

I’m guessing her POV is that she should be celebrated for going through the pregnancy and childbirth and I can see where she is coming from in that. But I think if she had been invited to this shower she might also think she had a claim to whatever gifts your friends and family brought to help you prepare. It could have turned into a worse situation if she were invited.

Clearly, OP was the deeply immature AH in this situation.