Woman snaps on sister hosting gender reveal, 'I don't wanna go to your stupid party.'

There's nothing that poisons a family gathering quite like an unresolved sibling tension. In a perfect world, all bitterness and patterns of jabbing each other would fall by the wayside as we enter adulthood. But that's simply not how human feelings work, they have to actually be addressed to resolve.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she's wrong for telling her sister that gender reveal parties are tacky and attention-seeking. She wrote:

"AITA for telling my sister gender reveal parties are tacky and attention-seeking?"

My sister (25f) has always been a bit of an attention seeker. She would always announce her grades, new jobs, raises, etc. whenever the family was together. It killed me when she used to tell the entire family she got a 100 on her test in a class that we were taking together even though she knew I only got a C- or D+ and they would ask me how I did after her announcement.

She was always the golden child and I (26f) was the screw-up. We're both pregnant right now, both of our first kids. She's married with a great job and a house and I'm on my own in a studio right now. A couple of weeks ago I got an invitation to her gender reveal barbecue/pool party. I didn't want to deal with her showing off to the entire family in front of me so I told her I won't be coming.

She asked why so I told her that I didn't want to deal with her friends and our family. She insisted it would be fun so I told her that gender reveal parties are tacky and I don't want to deal with it. She, again, insisted that it would be fun and just to think of it as a barbecue with colored cookies.

I snapped at her that I didn't want to go to a stupid party to watch her show off to our family just like she did when we were younger. She hung up on me and now our parents are upset at me for being rude to her.

People weighed in with all their thoughts on the dynamic.

Acrobatic-Bit4846 wrote:

YTA - your sister is sharing her life milestones with her family, that’s not attention seeking at all. Stop being jealous and bitter.

Disastrous-Nail-640 wrote:

YTA. Your example isn’t an indicator of a golden child btw. It’s completely normal for a child to want their parents to know they did well. You expected her to hide her accomplishments because you didn’t do as well? And you think she’s the problem?

Talk about jealous and selfish. I don’t like gender reveal parties either. But this has nothing to do with that and everything to do with your jealousy. Grow up.

Alarmed_Listen5588 wrote:

As the little sister that got A's to an older sibling that got D's, I understand your frustration as I had to watch my teachers and parents berate my sibling as to why they couldn't meet the same grades. For a long time, my sibling loathed me and would yell at me as to why I felt the need to show them up. Why did I always have to do better. Why couldn't I just fail for once. I'm going to tell you what I told my sibling.

I told them that they were not the main character of my life. I got top grades for me. So I could get into the college I wanted to go to. So I could shape my life the way I wanted it to go. I didn't make teachers be sh#$ty to them. They were just sh#$ty teachers. I didn't make our parents be sh#$ty parents, they just were. I suspect that you feel that your sister is the root cause for how your life is going. She's not.

She's the root cause for how her life is going. You are the root cause for how your life is going. This post isn't about a gender reveal party although I do agree they suck. This post is about how you compare yourself to your sister. You're going to be a Mom soon. You need to stop thinking about her and start thinking about you. You can change where you are and where you'll be in the future.

No, it won't be easy. Make little changes in your life and it can affect many things. If you want to go back to school. Don't think I can't afford it. Think if I take 1-2 classes at a time it might be less stressful and more affordable. I'll need a babysitter tho, I can take online classes and adjust my schedule.

But I'm soo tired after work...aren't you tired now? Having the life you want is not easy and rarely given to you. Even Paris Hilton had to go thru some sh#$ty times and worked really hard to get where she is now.

Strange-Badger7263 wrote:

YTA. There was no need to insult her you could have just stuck with I don’t want to go. I agree with your sentiment that’s gender reveals are dumb but she doesn’t. If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all.

Tdluxon wrote:

YTA. Gender reveal parties are pretty common these days, it's not like she is doing anything out of the ordinary. Don't go if you don't want to, but the comments are just bitter and jealous.

OP is definitely TA, and needs to figure out how to grow up and stop projecting their childhood onto her sister.