Family birthdays are supposed to be about cake and celebration, not unsolicited life advice and guilt trips.

But when one grandma decided to turn her birthday bash into a pro-grandkid campaign, she got more than she bargained for.

After pushing her grandson to justify his decision to remain child-free, things spiraled into a clash that left her in tears and the family in turmoil.

AITA for making my Grandma cry because I do not want Children

To give a bit of context before I start with explaining what happened. My family consists of me (M20), my sister (F24), and my mom and dad. We moved countries when I was 10-years old due to a few legal issues my dad got in, and have lived in the country we are now in ever since.

To cut a long story short, my mom became emotionally abusive to me and my sister, which left me with a lot of issues and a warped perspective on dating, marriage, and having children.

Sounds like your mom gave you baggage, but forgot to pack any coping skills.

That brings us to what happened yesterday. It was my grandma’s birthday, and they had come to visit us for it (grandma and grandpa).

Things had been going fine so far, until the topic of what I wanted to do after University came up. I shared my plans of wanting to move to another country and then maybe settling down there or keep moving. That made my grandma ask me about kids, and why I had never dated before.

I explained to her my reasons, and she seemed to understand it (or so I thought). Later on, when everyone had a bit to drink, the topic came up again but with them first focusing on my sister, before it shifted back to me.

Ah, nothing like a family gathering where a little alcohol turns your life plans into everyone else’s debate topic.

My grandma asked me, again, whether I was sure I didn’t want kids, and I confirmed to her that I didn’t. She then went on this sort of rant of how as a man I had to have kids, and I couldn’t just play video games all my life (I study game development and have made a few games already which did quite well on Steam).

I was getting slowly uncomfortable and tried to change topics, but she didn’t stop. It eventually got to a point where she called me dramatic, and said I was overreacting and to man up, and how, yes, my mom and dad did have issues, but they still did a good job raising us and deserved grandkids.

At this point I kind of lost it and I told her that me even talking to my parents right now and not planning on cutting them off after I left was already me giving them more then they deserved, and that if she wanted grandkids she should’ve raised her daughter (my mom) better (from what my mom had told me, my grandma and grandpa had also been pretty shitty parents).

When grandma’s pitch for grandkids turns into a roast, you hit her with the “parenting starts at home” reverse card.

I then left to go upstairs and only heard them arguing downstairs. It eventually died down and my grandma and grandpa went back to their hotel, and later on my sister called me to inform me that my grandma had started crying after I had left, and my parents were partially blaming me for it now and wanted me to apologize, but they had called her cause they knew she and I had a really close bond.

My sister agreed that I was in the right after my grandma had been so insanely pushy about this topic, when I had made it clear it made me uncomfortable, but I am not sure whether what I said and did was the correct thing to do.

So, I wanted to come on here and ask people with no bias whether you all think I overreacted and shouldn’t have made my grandma cry, or whether I was in the right to set my boundaries straight.

Most Redditors applauded the boundary-setting and agreed OP is not the AH here.

This person says Grammy is pushing a little too hard here.

This person says there aren’t really any AHs here…it’s over, let it be done.

This person says your body, your choice. The end.

This family dinner left more than leftovers behind…

Grandma asked for grandkids but got generational trauma instead.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.