'I told him the day he was born was the worst day of my life': 62-year-old sister who helped deliver her younger brother 55 years ago gets upset when he tells the story of his birth at her 40th anniversary party

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Oct 13, 2025 8:00 PM EDT

For many older-sibling toddlers, the day their younger sibling is born is the worst day of their lives. They realize that they are no longer the center of their parents' world and must share their love and affection for the rest of their lives. 

Toddlers aren't emotionally mature enough to realize that their parents love them and their new sibling equally, and that it's not a competition. Parents need to give a newborn baby more attention and supervision than a two or three-year-old, and that can make their older kids feel bad. 

The same can be said for kids who are much older than toddlers. One of my best friends was the youngest until she turned 10, when her younger sister was born. Having a significant age gap between siblings can be really tough, especially when you're used to being the youngest and suddenly your mom is preoccupied with a new baby. 

No matter your family situation, kids can have a difficult time transitioning when they get another sibling. It's a perfectly normal part of family life. 

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  • Woman in white jacket sitting on bench during daytime
    via Christian Buehner

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The woman in this story wasn't traumatized by merely having younger twin brothers. She was traumatized that she had to bring one of them into the world at the tender age of seven. When her brother told the story of his birth at her 40th wedding anniversary party, it upset her because to him it was a funny story, and to her it was anything but.

  • Am I the bad guy for telling my brother that the day he was born was the worst day of my life?

    Context: I (F) was born in 1962 in a rural area before ultrasound machines were everywhere, and the nearest town was not that close to us, and babies were born at home and delivered by the same midwife.
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • A road with houses along it
    via Danny De Vylder

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • So, when I was 7, my mother got pregnant with twins and had no idea she was carrying two babies, and the midwife, who had just delivered the first baby and probably did not realize there was one more to come, had to be immediately driven by my father to another farm where she was needed. Which means that, when
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • my mother's contractions started again, I was then alone in a farm with her and the first newborn baby, and it was up to me to deliver my youngest brother with my mother instructing me. this was hands down the worst and scariest moment of my life because I feared both my mother, and the baby wouldn't make it. Well, thankfully it all worked out.
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • Now here's what happened: last weekend my husband and I were celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary and we had a party and people were making speeches and talking about us. But when the mic got to my brother (who of course has no firsthand memory of his own birth and only knows what he was told about it), he took the chance to
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • tell this story as if it was a fun anecdote (...and then my dad got home and there were two babies instead of one! So funny! Anyone, thanks, sis, for helping me come into this world'). And everybody thought it was fun and sweet but to me it was the opposite. It brought back some memories that are not at all positive to me.
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • My mood completely shifted after that, and I think my brother noticed at once because he came to talk to me afterwards and asked if he had said something wrong. And then I told him this is not a funny story to me and that the day he was born was indeed
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • the worst day of my life, and not something I'd like to think back in a happy moment celebrating my marriage. And he went quiet and then said 'wow, I was trying to honor you and that's how you thought of my speech?'.
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • Middle aged man wearing a white baseball cap and a white t-shirt
    via Abstral Official

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The thing is I wasn't saying that him being born was a bad thing, I love my brother. It was just that the circumstances of his birth made the occasion traumatic for me and that he should know better than talking about it as a 'fun fact' if he had put himself in my shoes. But now I think I should have kept quiet and said nothing, either it bothered me or not.
    via u/throwaway453199280
  • koifishyfishy YTA for how you phrased that. Idk how else someone should take being told "the day you were born was the worst day of my life". Had you said "the day you were born was very traumatic for me, I was so scared that you and Mom wouldn't make it", that would've conveyed a whole different sentiment.
    via u/koifishyfishy
  • Different-Breakfast Right, even "scariest day of my life" would've worked much better than what she said.
    via u/Different-Breakfast
  • koifishyfishy Agreed. There were so many other ways to convey what that day was like without telling someone their birthday was the worst day of their life.
    via u/koifishyfishy
  • Soft-Statistician326 YTA, gently. It's been decades. I get that it was traumatic for you, but first off, everything turned out ok, and second you've had years to process this. If it still bothers you now, you could benefit from therapy.
    via u/Soft-Statistician326
  • You should've let it go. To him it's a great story of his birth. It probably feels like a fundamental part of his family story. Maybe sometime you can talk to him about how scared and worried you actually were and while you love him, you don't enjoy the story. But please, NEVER frame it as the "worst day of your life" to him ever again.
    via u/Soft-Statistician326
  • ACERVIDAE It's been 63 years. This woman has had plenty of time to go to therapy that she clearly desperately needs.
    via u/ACERVIDAE
  • sunflowersandink A lot of people here seem to think therapy is some sort of magic bullet that will make all bad feelings go away, and like... that's not how this works. That's not how anything works. It was a bad memory for her from childhood that appears to bother her only when it's specifically brought up to her face in a lighthearted manner.
    via u/sunflowersandink
  • That's completely fine. That is a perfectly reasonable and normal human response - nothing here indicates that she has some form of PTSD or that this memory is impeding her regular life in a way that therapy would be able to help manage. Every person you ever meet is going to have some memory in their past that's going to upset them if brought up unexpectedly, especially by someone who's laughing about it.
    via u/sunflowersandink
  • I'm all for people seeking out therapy, most of us could use it. But at a certain point "go to therapy" stops being useful advice, and just becomes a reddit stock phrase that demonstrates a pretty limited understanding of trauma and of what therapy is actually useful for - as of now, therapists don't have a magic mind altering therapy machine they can stick their patients in. But I do agree with the YTA votes, because that was a jackass way to communicate her distress to her brother.
    via u/sunflowersandink
  • Ok-Charge-4748 I fear you might be the one with the misunderstanding about what therapy does??? Therapy isn't solely for trauma. It can help people gain perspective and self awareness. Therapy helps people be more empathetic.
    via u/Ok-Charge-4748
  • And no, behaving the way she did is NOT a normal human response. And it isn't just her wording that made her the asshole. Ask yourself why her brother was so in tune with the change in her face and came up to ask her what he did wrong? Idk. The way she tells the story so callously tells me that people probably walk on eggshells around her. People like that need therapy.
    via u/Ok-Charge-4748
  • sunflowersandink Ironically, speaking of self awareness - I think you are projecting a ton of your own feelings and experiences into this story, and I'm not sure you realize it. It is very, very normal and human to speak about an experience of yours in a moment of heightened emotion and come across like a jackass because you fail to correctly bridge the gap between your experience and the person you're talking to. If you have never been upset, and tried to explain yourself, and done it in a way
    via u/sunflowersandink
  • Her brother, a person who has known her his entire life, was probably paying attention to her face because he was giving a speech for her at her party. That's not hypervigilance, that's literally just the consequence of knowing a person well enough to tell when they're upset, which many siblings do. No, this story does not tell you that people walk on eggshells around her, because there is quite simply not enough information in it to make those kinds of generalized assumptions about her life and
    via u/sunflowersandink
  • Which is a very common thing to do on reddit, much like whipping out "go to therapy" really any time someone talks about their feelings or relationships at all. Being common doesn't make it any less weird.
    via u/sunflowersandink

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family dynamics family drama pregnancy brother birthday siblings Party birth story family pregnant twins sibling sister mom delivery brothers
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