Baby showers are supposed to be about celebrating a new arrival, not clearing out someone else’s storage unit.

This expectant mother accepted her sibling’s offer to throw her a shower and help with the registry, only to find that “helping” meant crossing off every item she’d chosen and replacing it with hand-me-down boy gear from her nephews.

Dinosaur books, baseball onesies, trucks — all of it waiting to be boxed up and handed over instead. Having grown up forced into hand-me-downs herself, she wasn’t about to repeat the cycle with her daughter.

So instead of complying, she told her sister to cancel the shower entirely. The rest of the family didn’t take it well.

Read on to find out where things stand now.

AITAH for telling my sister to cancel my baby shower

I (36F) am the second daughter in my family.

I grew up on my sister’s (Meg) hand me downs, and never got to express my own identity until I was 15 and got my first job so I could finally go shopping for myself.

She never felt like her fashion sense matched that of her family’s.

My mom and Meg are very girly and trendy (nothing wrong with that, just not for me), and I always felt uncomfortable in their clothes, especially because they didn’t always fit right.

So when she finally started being more independent, it upset her family.

My mom was upset when I stopped accepting hand me downs and would just ignore me any time I brought home something I loved.

I am currently pregnant with my first, a daughter.

Meg already has 2 sons, and has kindly offered to throw me a baby shower.

Then came all of Meg’s completely unsolicited advice.

She wanted to help me with my registry, which I accepted since she’s been through this already, but when we started looking at my registry she kept saying things like “you don’t need to register for that, you’ll just take ours!” and “don’t put that on the registry, we’re giving you [son’s].”

She said this for almost everything, including things like the changing pad and crib sheets.

This mom-to-be was growing increasingly fed up with this.

Finally I said I don’t know why she wants to throw me a baby shower if I can’t even register for any gifts, and she should just cancel it.

Meg got really offended and said I don’t appreciate what she’s doing for me.

Meg continued to make it a whole thing.

She accused me of thinking I’m too good for her son’s things, and said I need to grow up and realize I can’t have everything my way, which I thought was kind of hypocritical.

I don’t mind getting some hand me downs, but she wants to box up EVERYTHING, including things like clothes, books, and toys for me to take.

The thing is, her hand-me-down items didn’t even make sense.

She has all traditionally “boy” things: blue with baseballs, books about trucks, and SO. MANY. DINOSAURS!

She wanted me to take all of that off my own registry (I registered for a lot of things with rainbows, florals, and little animals on them) and instead only take her hand me downs, because she said other people shouldn’t have to buy things I could get for free.

She feels particularly sensitive about this, especially considering her upbringing.

I understand that girls can (and do!) like those things, but I want my daughter to be able to find her own identity without being pushed into someone else’s like I was.

I’m actually planning to get a mix of everything, yes dolls and flowers but also cars and things like that.

At this point it’s not even about the registry, I don’t care about people buying gifts.

I’m having a lot of fun picking out and buying things for my daughter, and we can afford it.

Of course, her mother takes Meg’s side.

My mom is on Meg’s side and said I should just take the hand me downs and be grateful, which I heard a lot as a kid!

She said she won’t buy anything for my daughter, since she already spent the money on my nephews and doesn’t want to spend it twice.

My husband is of course on my side, and even said we can throw our own baby shower without the registry just to celebrate with our friends.

She knows Meg means well, but she still isn’t a fan of her execution.

I know Meg was trying to be nice by throwing the baby shower, but I’m really upset about the idea of my child not being able to be herself because of hand me downs.

AITA for telling her to cancel the party?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about siblings who treat every social outing like a weird competition.

It sounds like her and Meg just aren’t on the same page about anything.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

This commenter suspects Meg actually has an ulterior motive.

This new mom’s aversion to hand-me-down items is completely understandable.

Since she’s the one actually expecting, she should get more say in which items she actually wants.

The first baby is a big deal, so she needs to make sure her experience isn’t ruined by dogma.

A baby shower where everything on the registry gets replaced with someone else’s old stuff is more of a glorified garage sale than a celebration.

Growing up, this woman already knew well what it felt like to be denied her individuality. So the last thing she was going to do was carve out the same path for her daughter.

Ultimately, her family needs to understand that she deserves to have more agency over her own baby shower, and if her family can’t accept that, then showing them to the door is the right move.