Woman tells couple not to allow kid in delivery room for birth, aunt gets angry at her.

The act of giving birth is an amazing feat.

But it's also a messy and gross bodily function that looks a lot more like a gory horror scene than a whimsical miracle. As with any intense experience, people have radically different views around how magical or horrific giving birth is, both for the mom and the onlookers.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she's wrong for telling a pregnant couple they'll 'traumatize' their kid if they let them watch a live birth.

She wrote:

AITA for 'ruining the birth of their child' for a couple I don't know?

I (24f) was unfortunate enough to witness my brother's birth when I was 6. Front row and all, I was the first person to carry him in the hospital room. To be honest, I don't remember anything expect how horrific that memory is. My parents have apologized and we have made peace with it, they thought it would be cute for me to see my brother first, it wasn't, they said sorry and we moved on.

The rest of my family hasn't moved on. They still think it's absolutely bonkers I don't think it's a magical moment. Fast forward to now, I'm visiting my aunts and uncles during one of their reunions and a couple that's friends with one of them are talking about how excited they are about the birth of their kid. I say nothing.

They keep talking until I heard how they are also planning to have their first kid in the delivery room with the mom to have 'an experience like I have.' My aunt goes pale and before she could deflect I said 'If what you want is traumatize that kid for life, be my guest.' The couple is silent and my aunt quickly shifts the topic about other birth and baby things and my uncles ask me to go eat something over there.

I understand when I'm being dismissed so I ate some more food and left for the night. After that, my extended family is blowing up my phone about how I ruined the birth of their kid for the couple and how now they are feeling like s#$t and bad parents. I think I saved another poor kids eyes but it also wasn't my place since I don't know them. So, AITA?

Edit because it's getting hard to follow:

My extended family manages the hospital ward. I don't know if kids are banned or not, but if they are I assume they don't do anything about it.

My story gets shared with anyone who listens as an example of an excellent sibling bonding opportunity.

They are all are very much aware of my thoughts on birth and that particular memory.

The people of Reddit jumped in with their honest thoughts.

MercifulOtter wrote:

NTA. I honestly can't fathom wanting your child to witness their parent in pain just for them to see the 'miracle of birth.' That's extremely traumatizing for a child. You were honest with them about the experience. They needed to know it isn't all sunshine and daisies for the child experiencing this.

headdeskreact wrote:

NTA. They made an incorrect assumption about an experience you had, and were getting ready to make significant decisions based on that wrong assumption. Correcting them was absolutely the right thing to do. If the rest of your family can't handle that, it's on them.

Plantsnob wrote:

NTA and anyone that doesn't think birth is traumatic is bonkers. It involves lots of pain, lots of blood, and in many cases a lot of medical intervention to deal with or prevent major complications.

Woman produces hormones that help them deal with the trauma of producing a whole human. Everyone else present has to just deal with it and adults can make that informed consent but a kid really doesn't get to and it sounds like the adults need that reality check.

Valuable-Wallaby-167 wrote:

NTA your family has clearly been lying about how that experience was for you, frankly mad that they've been sharing it at all. You've not ruined anything for this couple, you've given the truth about your experience, what you may have ruined is their faith in anything your family tells them. I wonder how annoyed your family would be about your honesty if you hadn't showed them up.

It would have been better if you had gone 'actually my experience was this...' because your phrasing was a bit harsh towards the couple, but it's really easy to pick apart someone's wording in hindsight, it's much harder to get it right in an emotional moment.

Major_Barnacle_2212 wrote:

NAH. You didn’t ‘ruin’ the birth. If that caused them to rethink it so severely, they probably feel there’s truth to it. If they felt they were right your words wouldn’t matter. It would shock me if a random person’s comment was more powerful than the birth of a baby.

Hotel_Chicken wrote:

NTA. My mother told me that if I ever have a child, I shouldn't be on that side of the curtain since apparently my father witnessed my birth and found the experience horrific. It's bonkers to me that parents would want their child, not teen or young adult, literal child to watch a birth.

People aren't fully unanimous with their votes, it's definitely leaning towards NTA.