Cousins skipped family Christmas because my husband and I don’t like babies.

I thought you guys would understand my frustration here. This story will be a little long, apologies in advance. Names changed for privacy.

On New Years Eve, my aunt Rita, who my husband and I were staying with, babysat for my cousin Ryan’s 6 month old baby, Ryder. Once we found out she was babysitting, we quietly made plans to be elsewhere.

Timing happened to line up in such a way that we were getting ready to leave as Ryan was bringing Ryder into the house. After he walked through with the car seat, into another room where we didn’t think he would hear it, my husband quietly said “alright, baby’s here, time to leave.” Rita heard that, she laughed, we laughed, Ryan left, then we left. Keep in mind, Ryan actually left before we did. He was just dropping Ryder off.

Ryan’s brother, Nelson, also has a kid, a 2 year old named Mellie. This is important for later.

On New Years Day, the whole extended family got together at aunt Allie’s house for a belated Christmas party. Ryan didn’t come at all, saying he had overbooked himself and was busy. Nelson showed up briefly with Mellie to Allie’s house, saying he was primarily there to use the bathroom(wtf but whatever I guess).

Nelson left pretty quickly, and later Rita chewed out Allie, saying Nelson left because he was uncomfortable since no one was talking to him(everyone was talking to him or giving cookies to his baby).

Everyone went to Buffalo Wild Wings around dinner time, because a planning snafu left us with only dessert foods at Allie’s. Nelson and Mellie showed back up there, and Mellie was the belle of the ball. Husband and I were irritated, because you couldn’t have a conversation with half the people there because they were too busy playing pass the dirty diapered baby across the table, but we just sat at the other end of the table and talked to the people not entangled in that. No comments were made, no glaring occurred, we just sat away from them.

Yesterday my mom started chewing me out over text for being rude to Ryan on NYE and making Nelson uncomfortable at the Christmas party, something along the lines of “I didn’t know the baby’s here let’s leave comment was made in front of Ryan”.

As you may recall, Ryan was at the other end of Rita’s house and presumably out of earshot when the comment was made. She claims that the comment is the reason Ryan skipped the Christmas party, and that Rita had to convince Nelson to go, and our presence made him uncomfortable after Ryan told him the story, so that’s why he didn’t stay long at Allie’s.

I asked her a few times what we did that was so mean to Ryan or Nelson that they couldn’t go to the party, and she just said that comment was rude and we shouldn’t be mean to them for choosing to have children. I asked how we were mean to them for choosing to have children. We didn’t tell them to take their baby and get out, we didn’t glare at their babies, we just left when a baby was dropped off. We also didn’t leave the Christmas party when the toddler arrived, and talked to Nelson as normal at Allie’s.

I guess I’m just frustrated that I’m in trouble for avoiding babies to the best of my ability, which apparently caused another instance of “if you don’t want to be around my kid as much as possible then you must hate me”. Like if you ask a parent to not bring their kid to a party you’re hosting they whine that you uninvited them too. Plus, if we had left because an adult we had beef with showed up, no one would have batted an eye. But it was evil and cruel for us to leave when Ryder was dropped off because BAAAYBEEEE.

I’m so sick of having to play nice and pretend I want to see babies, lest I get yelled at for being mean. I am allowed to not like babies and to avoid them. I don’t even avoid the parents, and wouldn’t have left Rita’s so hastily when Ryan brought Ryder if Ryan had been staying to visit. But he wasn’t, so I don’t see how us also leaving was a slight to him or made it seem like we didn’t want to see him. He wasn’t staying!

Ultimately I told my mom that Nelson and Ryan are adults and if they want to skip family parties because two of the fifteen people in attendance don’t want to play with their kids, then that’s on them and not me.

Because no, I don’t like kids, and yours is not an exception. You can get butthurt over it and avoid me, that just makes my job of avoiding your baby easier for me. Also, if you are so bereft of an identity of your own that me not liking babies equates to hating you, then I probably actually don’t want to see you. If your whole personality is mommy/daddy to the degree that you and baby are one and the same, I’m glad you stayed home.

I can’t stand the idea that every party has to be centered around whatever screaming goblin happens to be there, and that if you aren’t totally cooperative with that then you have no manners.