In our cultural tradition, a whole system of small holidays and rituals has developed around newborns, which look very cute and interesting. For example, a baby shower or a gender reveal party.
But its actually true only in one case - if the main people in the baby’s life, their parents, do not object to throwing such parties. But sometimes relatives and friends consider themselves entitled to act contrary to the parents’ opinion. As it happened, for example, with the author of our story today.
More info: Reddit
The author of the post is an expecting mom whose son is due in November
Image credits: Luis Quintero (not the actual photo)
However, the spouses decided not to throw any gender reveal party, and just told it to their parents
Image credits: u/ThrowawayGenReveal
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
The author's father has a girlfriend of 3 years, who got incredibly upset over the mom-to-be's unwillingness to have a party
Image credits: u/ThrowawayGenReveal
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
So, a few days later, this girlfriend tricked the author into a party with some friends and relatives as guests
Image credits: u/ThrowawayGenReveal
The mom-to-be revealed the baby's gender straight in the doorway and left in anger, but the woman's dad later called her out for being 'disrespectful' towards his partner
So, please meet the Original Poster (OP), an expecting mom whose son is due this November. And so, when the author and her husband shared the good news with their parents and their partners, the mom-to-be's dad and his girlfriend of 3 years were very upset that the spouses wouldn’t throw any gender reveal party.
The thing is that the couple doesn't care much about their baby's gender, and they don't want to make a lot of fuss about it. The original poster said more than once that she did not want any party on this occasion, and didn’t change her mind even after a lot of persuasion from her dad's partner.
However, a couple of days later, when the woman’s father was out of town, his partner invited the OP to their apartment - and when our heroine entered, she saw that the whole room was decorated with pink and blue balloons, and about a dozen joyful people had gathered around her.
There was the girlfriend's own mom (whom our heroine honestly doesn't like at all), her MIL and several friends. The author's mother, however, wasn’t there. And, as the woman later found out, the girlfriend lied to her friends that she had changed her mind about having a party.
However, the party ended as suddenly as it began. Standing in the doorway, without even touching the cake, our heroine loudly announced: “It’s a boy! You guys can go home now.” And, turning around, without looking back, she walked away.
A couple of hours later, she received a call from her angry dad, who, upon returning home, found his tear-stained girlfriend there, incredibly upset by the failure of her ‘brilliant’ idea. According to the man, his daughter could at least have cut the cake and pretended to enjoy the party - just out of respect for his partner’s efforts. But the author still was adamant in her opinion.
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
“There are always people around us for whom only the fulfillment of their own desires is important - even contrary to the opinions of others,” says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment over this situation. “And they skillfully (or not so skillfully) try to disguise the realization of their own desires as helping other people.”
“Just judge for yourself - this woman was repeatedly told that there was no need to throw a party, but she wanted it so much that she even resorted to an outright lie towards her stepdaughter's friends. It’s quite possible that she was sincerely confident that she knew what was better for the mom-to-be."
"And another telling touch to the overall picture is that she didn’t invite her boyfriend's ex. Although, of course, if you approach organizing this kind of party, then the baby’s grandma should be present. And then, apparently, there was an attempt manipulating the woman's father's opinion in order to present herself as a victim in his eyes. Well, it looks very ugly," Irina summarizes.
In fact, the commenters on the original post also completely agree with our heroine’s reaction - simply because her dad’s girlfriend grossly violated all conceivable personal boundaries. “This smacks of her trying to ‘prove’ that she cares about you more than your mom, especially seeing how either your mom wasn’t invited or she turned down the invitation to respect your wishes,” one person wrote.
To this, by the way, the author replied that she contacted her mom - and yes, she wasn’t invited at all. In any case, responders are purely outraged by the behavior of this woman. "Dad's GF sounds like someone who enjoys bulldozing boundaries. Wait until she expects to be in the delivery room with you!" another commenter added wittily. However, we hope that it won’t come to that... And what do you, our dear readers, actually think here?
Most of the commenters were sure that the dad's girlfriend had violated the author's personal boundaries and praised her for her response
