Man Calls His Sister 'Evil' For Naming Her New Baby After The Daughter He Lost—'She Doesn't Deserve To Be A Mother'
The problem is, his sister always wanted to name her baby "Victoria," the name of their grandmother.
KatarzynaBialasiewicz / Getty Images via Canva, Mariia Korneeva / Shutterstock Losing a child is a horrible thing for any parent to handle. Dealing with grief is difficult, but your loved ones’ support can make it more manageable. However, one man and his wife had the opposite happen.
He took to Reddit’s “r/AmItheA--hole” (AITA), a subreddit dedicated to people asking others if they acted appropriately in a situation. There, he shared that he got into an argument with his sister over her choice of a baby name, which reopened grief that he and his wife were starting to get over.
He called his sister ‘evil’ for naming her new baby after the daughter he lost.
The 30-year-old man and his younger sister, Layla, had a grandma, Victoria, who passed away when they were in high school. They are now both married, him to Pam and Layla to Greg. One day they started to talk about baby names, and both thought it would be a good idea, if the baby’s a girl, to name the child after their grandmother.
“We didn’t really fight about this per se and just agreed whoever had a daughter first could use the name,” he wrote.
A year ago, Pam got pregnant, “which was very exciting” for the couple. They had a gender reveal and, on discovering they were going to have a daughter, decided to use the name “Victoria.” Layla was not angry whatsoever and even joked with him about getting the name first.
“My sister was not upset about this and jokingly said something along the lines of you beat me to the punch,” he wrote.
Just a few weeks after their reveal, Layla also announced that she was pregnant. All was fine until every parent’s worst nightmare struck. “Sadly, late into the pregnancy Pam miscarried and lost the baby. This was incredibly difficult on us and Pam suffered especially bad, both physically and mentally,” he wrote.
He clarified that his wife gave birth to their daughter, but she was stillborn. She was still named “Victoria” and buried with a gravestone that read her name.
Thankfully, his family supported them through the difficult time but asked Layla for some space since it was difficult to see her pregnant, which must have been understandably triggering. But the strong couple persevered, and when Layla’s gender reveal party came around, the couple felt they were mentally in a good enough place to go.
Unfortunately, their wound was about to be reopened.
The plan for the reveal was that Greg’s family would hold a banner in his and Layla’s garage. When the door opened, everyone would see the baby’s name and gender.
“When the garage opened me and my wife were shocked to see a banner that said ‘Welcome baby Victoria Greg’s last name,’” he wrote.
He was taken aback, and his wife started to cry. He asked his sister why, and she responded that “since [they] weren’t using the name [it’s] only fair she should get to.” He called his sister an “evil human being who doesn’t deserve to be a mother” and took his wife to the car.
Despite both of his parents being surprised by Layla’s name choice, his mother and most of his family demanded that he apologize to her since she also has a “high-risk pregnancy.”
People overwhelmingly support him and condemn his sister.
In the replies to the thread, one person suggested she might not understand how he feels because she has not lost a child. It’s a hard thing for any person to wrap their mind around if they have not experienced it themselves! However, they don’t excuse her actions, calling them “horrible.” In addition to that, they suggested cutting off the people that think that he should apologize.
“I would stop talking to any family members that are mad at you for a while. None of them really cared about your loss,” they wrote.
Another person pointed out that the idea of using their grandmother’s name is to “honor” her. “How exactly is it honoring your grandmother to provide you and your wife with fresh pain at every baby milestone?” they commented.
The subreddit gave his post the official label “Not the A-hole.” Hopefully, he can move on from this traumatic experience, and his sister will do the forgiving, not him.
Ethan Cotler is a writer living in Boston. His writing covers entertainment, news and human interest stories.