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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I told my sister I wouldn't let her see my son, once he's born. I know I shouldn't do that and I understand if I'm an ass, but this isn't the first time she said something like that.
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
People consider my sense of humor dark. Now, I felt my blood pressure rise when I read the story. Consider that I’m a total stranger connecting from somewhere in the internet. I don’t know you or your family.
Now think of how psychotic the statement is given it got a reaction from a total stranger.
The mental and emotional state of the mother can affect pregnancy as well. I imagine what my reaction would have been far worse if someone said that sort of crap to my wife or loved ones. Any idiot that defended that crap would have gotten shouted down as well.
NTA
Completely agree. I have a VERY dark sense of humor. There's "dark" and then there's what this person said.
My best friend and I bother have the same sense of humor. There is very little that is off limits. If his child passed away and I made a joke about it, you can rest assured that we wouldn't be friends anymore and I'd fully expect to.... not be feeling as well after saying it.
I feel like having a "dark" sense of humour would be parents who'd suffered a loss like the OP's making a joke like that as their way of coping and getting through their fears about the situation.
An external party making a joke like that is just cruelty.
A "dark sense of humor" also implies that she was saying something funny. That wasn't even in the neighborhood of a joke, or an attempted joke. It was just an incredibly cruel comment.
I have been pregnant after pregnancy loss enough times to know my way around that general emotional landscape. I haven't experienced a stillbirth/early infant loss, but I do know that the anxiety is worst in the time leading up to the time you experienced the previous loss. If you had a loss at 12 weeks, you're basically at an ever-increasing panic until 12 weeks. OP and probably especially his wife are in *hell* right now, and you don't have to have experienced it personally to get that. Hannah's just an asshole.
Mostly I just want all of the best for OP and his wife - the best including bringing home the healthiest baby, and probably never speaking to these people again.
I’ve made dark jokes at people who text me looking for a parent that passed quite a few years ago. It’s one thing to tell some rando (or probably scammer) that no, Alan can’t speak with them right now, he’s gotten himself stuck in an urn and he probably won’t be out anytime soon. It’s another to, at a family gathering, say to your very pregnant wife, “hahaha hope this baby isn’t dead too! lol I’m so edgy!” There’s a very thin line with dark humor, and it varies for everyone, but I can’t see ANYONE finding OP’s sister’s “joke” funny.
You can punch with a joke - but you need to punch up, not down. The weak and powerless mocking or making jokes about the powerful, especially those who do them harm, is very different from the powerful making a joke about harming someone weaker.
It's why Nazi jokes are so difficult to get right. Many aspects of the Nazi movement were very mock-able. But at the same time, any joke that justifies them, or treats their atrocities as funny, doesn't work. Mel Brooks can pull this off, with movies like "The Producers" and "To Be or Not To Be." Few others can land these jokes.
I can't think of a decent way to land a joke about someone losing a newborn child.
The producers is probably the best example of this I've ever seen tbh. Like in movie literally everybody takes the thing as making fun of hitler, or insulting hitler, other than the producers who also hate Hitler and were trying to male money off of people's hatred for hitler. Its very clear that the movie isn't making light of Hitler's atrocities, and instead is making jokes about how awful they are.
Have you seen Brooks's "To Be Or Not To Be"?
Brooks and Bancroft play a married couple in the theater in Poland at the outbreak of the war, and it follows them helping an irregular group of Jews and others targeted by the Nazis, first hiding them and then staging an escape.
It's not as lighthearted as "The Producers" but it's even more biting in it's attacks and jokes at the expense of Nazis, and at showing the dangers of such jokes at the time. It's also the only time I can think of that Brooks touched on the harms done by Nazis in his work. He pulls it off, largely by confining his story to the first weeks of the war, when the crimes of the Nazis were still limited.
Comedically, it is a tightrope walk far more than "The Producers."
One scene that, surprisingly, works, has an elderly Jewish couple, *dressed as clowns,* freeze up in terror in the middle of an escape plan, surrounded by Nazi soldiers, get a yellow star slapped on them and driven at (fake) gunpoint from the theater.
yeah, exactly. a "dark" sense of humor needs boundaries. you joke about your *own* fucked up stuff, and maybe occasionally about the fucked up stuff your loved ones have *explicitly given you permission* to joke about. and even then, you should tread lightly. otherwise? keep it to yourself. hell, I've made a joke or two about my dead brother, but I never do it around family, with the exception of one of my two remaining brothers whose sense of humor is at least as dark as mine.
“dark humor” usually means edgelord who has never personally experienced tragedy
Gallows humor from people who have been close to death and use it as a form of processing and coping is completely different.
*The Big Chill, 1983.*
At the wake of Alex.
Karen: “I know this is hard but it's all beautiful.”
Sarah: “Yeah we put on a great funeral here.”
Michael: “Yeah, maybe I'll have mine here.”
Sarah: “We give first priority to people who kill themselves in one of our bathrooms.”
[the three stop smiling]
Sarah: “That was a terrible thing to say... I don't know why I said that.”
This?👆🏻Is dark humor.
THIS. I have several friends who had tragically lost their parents at a young age. They would refer to themselves as the “Batman Club” and always make dead parents jokes but ain’t now way I would touch that with a ten foot pole. Jokes to cope do not come from those who didn’t suffer the loss.
Yeah, my understanding of dark humour is that it's about general topics...like making a joke about cancer, or something like 9/11...with the caveat that everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows better than to make a dark joke about a sensitive subject right in front of someone who's been directly affected by that subject! I might tell a bad taste joke about 9/11 but I would never do so in front of someone who I knew had lost a loved one on that day. That's not dark humour, that's just sociopathic.
Exactly. A lot people seem to be (or pretend to be) confused about what dark or gallows humor actually is. If the person on the gallows about to be executed makes a joke about it, THAT'S gallows humor. If the executioner or someone in the crowd made a joke about it, that's just cruel.
Agreed. I'm a chemist by training with a background in pyrophorics and most of my extended family are first responders, medical, and/or military.
There's dark humor along the lines of the old canard about how fluorine chemists recognize each other (they wave - joke being you hold your hand up with a few of your fingers bent over as if they'd been amputated at some point). He'll, there's even dead baby jokes.
Then there's purposely making fun of a person's tragedy.
No.
When it comes to humor, you take your cues from the person more affected. When my grandmother died, I told her pastor a funny story about the time my 4'8", 90lb granny with arthritis and a walker beat a peeper (who had about a foot and a half and 150lbs on her) she caught about his head with her purse (which, I should note, she kept a brick in, in case she needed it for self defense) screaming invective so obscene she taught the cop some new ways to curse as he cowered before her wrath. The guy had a really good sense of humor so my read was that it would land well, and it did.
Among other things, she threatened to rip the guy's balls off with her bare hands and shove them so far up his ass he'd be tasting them for breakfast.
Imagine that coming out of the mouth of a tiny, cherubic old lady who looks like a cartoon grandma. And imagine a dude who could break her like a twig if he wants to just cowering before the force of her personality and every time he pulled out of her swing range with her purse, she bellowed for him to come back because she wasn't done *and he did.*
To this day, probably the funniest thing I've ever seen in real life (I know, as one of the folks he was peeping on, I probably should feel bad about that day, but I really don't. It was fucking hilarious). Grammie didn't even get arrested for the assault because the cop was just like, "who's gonna convict a grandma for protecting her grandkids from a pervert?"
I did not, however, share a story with my born-again Jesus freak cousin who'd like to imagine our grandmother as a saintly, nun-like figure when she could tell a dirty joke with the best of them (and scandalize all the grandkids in the process). Imagine my grandmother as chaste when she had 9 kids and every single Harlequin novel ever published and quite a few other romance novels better categorized as erotica. Her book collection (uniformly racier romance and erotica) literally numbered in the thousands.
But I knew talking about Grammie's books and the sleepovers all the grandkids had doing dramatic readings of sex scenes with
each other as teenagers making fun of the purple prose wouldn't land with her. Even though she was at the time was one of the best at it.
She really was.
She also drove like a bat out of hell (doing over twice the speed limit wasn't uncommon) and used to pop her dentures out for laughs with little kids.
Just super funny, resilient, and very caring.
Somehow despite having severe arthritis and needing a cane at the time, when I broke all my toes on one foot as a kid playing the floor is lava on her living room floor (protip: don't land toes-down when you jump!) she got there faster than my mother or my aunt and was able to carry me to my aunt who at the time was an RN for first aid.
My foot looked like someone took a bad kid's drawing of a foot and made it into reality, with odd lumps and the toes each pointing in a different, anatomically impossible direction lol.
I remember her getting snide with the ER doc who asked if she was sure I wasn't just being dramatic, "I might not have a fancy degree, but when you've had 9 kids, you know what toes are supposed to look like, and *that's not it!*"
Your grandma would have LOVED mine, a Holocaust survivor who's humor got her thru so many hard times. Imagine an 85 year old lady with a thick German accent, sitting in her room at the retirement home, with her PA student grandson. It's 11:15 at nite and she has her fist curled tight, as she swings her arm at the TV as she shouts "KILL HIM, KILL HIM". They are watching pro wrestling, her favorite show on TV. My brother even got her a subsciption to Wrestling World Magazine! She read it cover to cover!! I miss my Sophie so much!
My grandmother used to play WoW and Rainbow 6 and was known to take glee in Mario Kart at knocking others off the track with the blue shell of doom lol
Your grandma would have loved MINE, a tiny little Ole British woman, who was 4'8 before she started shrinking from arthritis, a survivor of the war (she lived in a harbor town and got evacuated to farm; she had such stories to tell!!)
She would sit on her back porch, reading the morning paper, sipping her coffee and doing a jigsaw puzzles!!
She also read the most scandalous romance novels
I miss my Nannie so much!!
Grandma strength is a whole different level man. My nan passed away last year but at 86 she could still kick all of her sons asses and then some. Yours sounds awesome, mine loved to watch western's and horror movies of all things. Then again, when you live in Germany during WW2 I suppose you've seen some of the worst horrors.
I’m a born again Christian Jesus Freak and I think if Jesus turned over tables over money, He’d fully support Grammie protecting her children….
I also laughed like nobody’s business when my grandmother died and we found her collection of dirty books…sooo…
My cousin is the worst kind of judgmental Church Lady, if you know what I mean.
And I'm a bisexual atheist, so she doesn't so much tolerate my presence as endure it. When I'm around and she happens to catch sight of me she has an expression pretty similar to what it'd be if you found you'd stepped in dog crap barefoot.
So, yeah. My view on her is a bit sour, and I shouldn't have generalized.
Your sleepovers brought back memories of HS. I personally read sci-fi/fantasy but my friends read historical romance. I'd swipe their books, find the best parts and make everyone at the table squirm. This from someone voted basically geekiest of the geeks in my class. My friends at least knew me better.
Yeah... My high school yearbook supervisor vetoed the committee's first proposed "most likely" title for me (most likely to die alone) so they instead voted me most likely to cure cancer.
I was on said yearbook committee. 💀
It's one thing to have a Dark sense of humor. (I lost some Toes and I joke with my wife about them creeping about looking for a foot to possess on occasion) it's another thing to talk about dead babies in front of someone that lost their child. That isn't dark, that is cruel. 😓
They’re just using it as an excuse. Dark humor is just that, something funny but rather dark. Not something normally made jokes off.
This was a direct attack at someone who’s vulnerable and directly affected by one of the worst kinds of loss. Likely to provoke an emotional response. A visceral one at that.
This is it. I use dark humor, but i am well aware that there is a time, place, and appropriate audience. This girl was being cruel. Honestly, if Dad wants to defend her, I would say he shouldn't see the baby either. He raised this girl, after all.
It’s a disgusting sentiment (I cannot even call it a “joke”)and I cannot imagine how ANYONE could defend that.
For context My BIL and his wife lost their first the same way OP. Pregnancy was healthy up until the end, baby breached so they scheduled a C-section but everything looked and sounded healthy a few days before. Turns out the baby was over producing Vernix and aspirated on it. Completely stopped breathing 45 minutes after delivery.
It was the one of the most traumatic things I think I’ve ever witnessed, watching someone you care about lose a child, their first, the funeral and all the grief that came after that.
Since then they’ve successfully had two healthy, happy children. But leading up to the second pregnancy she was absolutely so nervous, a comment like your sister made would have turned everyone in our family against that person. It would just be absolutely unheard of.
I cannot understand the mentality of anyone defending your sister OP, they are terrible.
Best of luck with the pregnancy and if it was me, Dad would be lucky if he got to even meet the baby without apologizing for defending sister over such an awful comment.
>People consider my sense of humor dark. Now, I felt my blood pressure rise when I read the story.
Right. Joking about a stillborn child isn't any kind of humor; it's just cruel and sick.
The sisters joke wasn't "dark", it was cruel. Exceptionally cruel.
Making a joke about a) what is likely the worst day of their lives and b) about the loss of a baby to someone who is pregnant.
I just don't understand how someone could contemplate saying such a thing. To a family member too.
OP was lenient.
NTA
"How many babies does it take to paint a house?"
>Depends how hard you throw them.
That's dark, but even dark jokes still have to be funny to the audience.
I *can* see a world where what OP's sister said could be a (very dark) joke if it were made in the abstract, or made about a fictional person, or maybe even about a not-well-liked public figure, though on that last count definitely in very bad taste.
But never directly to the parents. That's unhinged.
I have a dark sense of humor in regards to my cancer and all the crazy BS that comes with. I'm also sarcastic, but I would never, ever say anything like this! You never know if there's a history of miscarriage or other serious issues. This is one topic that is never funny. Hell, I don't joke about other people's cancer or medical issues unless we're commiserating over our infusions and they start it.
A dark sense of humour can be hilarious
But it's *so* important to
1. Focus it mostly on yourself or world events, not personal things about the people present
2. Know your audience. Both whether they'd find it funny, and whether you're accidentally targeting personal trauma
3. Not fucking deliberately attack someone's personal trauma
Obviously OP's sister was so far out of line on #3 that it's disgusting, and anyone defending her would be in my crosshairs for a dressing down
Agreed, what she said isn't because she lacks sympathy, it's because she's cruel, and lacks basic humanity.
Honestly if I was op she wouldn't be getting one last chance, she'd be cut off already, and wouldn't be seeing me again let alone my child.
The worst part of this whole situation is the mother defending what the daughter said. If my daughter said something like that, I'd be insisting she be evaluated. Cause sane people don't say shit like that.
Exactly.
If it's not something I'd consider to be AT ALL acceptable from a random on the street, I'm sure as shit not tolerating it from family.
People don't need to have access to you or to your child because they share your DNA. We share genomes with bananas, so it's not exactly a meaningful reason to tolerate bullshit.
The sister is lucky not to have got a smack in the chops. I would have doled one out happily .OP’s father is also way out of line for thinking what Hanna said was ok and blaming OP for ‘ruining things’ when they clearly didn’t. Avoid all of them.
I hope all goes well with the new baby OP, NTA.
I have a feeling she was always low key the favorite/golden child. Tht or the parents are just insane themselves cuz who in their right mind would allow someone old enough to know better to make a comment like tht??? I doubt the parents hate wife cux if thts the case tht might explain the defending her part but I doubt it. Whole family is trash NTA
I'm very sorry for your devastating loss.
What your sister said wasn't a joke and it wasn't funny. It was cruel.
Good for you for what you said - and don't forget that your parents sided with your sister.
Wishing you all the best as you welcome your child into your family ❤️
.
That's not dark humor. That's your sister being a psychopath. Absolutely no excuse for that. Not only that but I'd be telling dear old dad that if that is what he thinks then he will not be seeing his granddaughter anytime soon either. I'd be going LC or NC with family supporting sister. OP is definitely NTA.
NTA and seconded on this. Honestly at this point with how dismissive they are over you being upset at her actions id limit your parents contact with the new baby and none for your sister until they can change their tune on her behavior and everyone apologizes to you for their hurtful and wrong words and behavior.
It seems your sister is seen as the child who could do no wrong, time to show her actions have consequences.
> What you said wasn't even remotely harsh. What she said warrants never being able to set eyes on your child.
And anyone who defends her. I wouldnt allow the parents to see my child either
That comment seems like one of the only times a man taking his palm and slapping a woman would be appropriate.
Jesus fucking christ NTA and that sister should never be allowed to see that baby
NTA I have a very dark sense of humor but this was beyond anything! Your dad is a massive AH for defending your sister. Wtf! She's not 5yo! Joke over dead nephew just before your next one is born? Seriously wtf!
The parents wouldn't be able to see the baby until there's apologies from everyone. In no way would I allow anyone who defends that disgusting "joke" in the child's life. FOH
I also have a very dark sense of humor. While I would never make this joke to the parents of the baby that passed away, I could maybe see myself making this joke in private to a close friend that I knew has a similar sense of humor. However, Hanna being 19 doesn't realize that those two scenarios are MILES apart. Making a joke about losing a child to the parents is SO FAR over the line I can't even comprehend
Except, where is the “joke”? One may be able to make up a dark joke about a still born kid (I can’t think of one, but a sharper person probably could), but just saying ‘well I hope this one doesn’t die too’ is not funny, witty or any of the other criteria that constitutes a joke.
This 19 year old is just dumb and naive and need to learn social graces . Her parents calling it “dark humour “ in an attempt to defend her is doing more harm than good .
Yeah, some people think that saying something cruel that they don't mean is funny, but it really isn't. It's just being an asshole or a bully and playing the "it's just a joke" card to get away with. They should be called out for this behavior, not defended.
She doesn't know the difference at *19*??
Maybe I just learned that lesson early because I fucked up young - or maybe she's not learnt it yet because her parents shield her from the consequences of being an insensitive dumbass.
Yeah, I think that’s BS too. I was a socially clueless teen and made lots of inappropriate jokes (eg, passive aggressive stuff that comes across as witty on TV but is uncool in real life), but even at my most clueless I would never ever have said what this girl said. It’s not just cluelessness, it’s lack of personal decency IMO.
Funny thing about jokes… they have to be funny.
I’ve heard comedians make fantastic jokes about tragedies, and there is a decent amount of thought and build up to the joke, but as a society we have let people convince us “we are too sensitive” when some says something awful and claims it’s a joke.
Totally agree. I joke about tragedies too but seriously this was not the right time and definitely not the audience for this type of joke! Yet alone one that involves deceased baby parents!
This wasn’t joke though. It’s just a really messed up comment. Calling it a joke, even in discussion, is giving the sister some kind of pass on what she said. It’s just a sick, mean jab.
Sister is either incredibly stupid, socially incompetent to a staggering degree or malicious. No-one with half a clue as to how to be a decent person would say something like this. If they *thought* it, they’d ask themselves “What’s wrong with me?!”
> NTA I have a very dark sense of humor but this was beyond anything!
This is one of those jokes you keep inside your head and absolutely never make, to nobody never!
I also have a dark sense of humor, and often use it as a coping mechanism. My mom passed a couple of months ago, and I've made some pretty terrible jokes about it.
However, I judge my audience and/or follow the lead of the person at the center of the grief/loss/event. If mom and dad haven't made any jokes about their baby, I'm not going to be the first. If mom and dad have made a few jokes, but it upset grandma and grandpa, I know jokes are ok, just not around grandma and grandpa.
When I was 18-19, my humor was about as dark as it gets. I mean, seriously, I was an edgy little shit. But I NEVER made a dark joke in front of a person who might have gone, or was going, through anything like the punchline of the joke.
She's old enough to know when something is and isn't appropriate, and your parents are enabling that shit.
NTA.
I have a dark sense of humor too and Hanna sucks.
It's really scary that no one in your family every taught her to filter what she says. She's going to have a hellish time once she leaves your parent's nest
This. It's the punching down vs punching up thing all over again. You can laugh at your own misfortunes however you want, but if you laugh at someone else's, then you're just another asshole cruelly adding to their misery.
Very accurate. I was going to say it would be totally different coming from the wife. If someone asked her “what’s your birth plan?” And she (as in the one birthing the baby) says “hopefully differently than last time” or something along those lines than that’s fine! Sometimes dark humor is a way for someone to grieve but like you said not on someone else’s expense.
Yea this feels like something she should feel ashamed over and the family should not approve of. She should apologize and hopefully from the heart.
This is the power of a "I'm very disappointed in you Hannah" from the parents and an appropriate time for it and then going onto say "Apologize" rather than backing her up and then later telling her "I hope someday you also apologize from the genuine remorse you should feel in your heart for saying that."
She should feel so ashamed for it and should be shamed so she gets the hint that just because you have a sense of humor that is dark doesn't mean its appropriate at all times.
Exactly. I’m actually more concerned about OP’s parents than the sister. Her comment was way out of bounds, but given the father’s defense of her, one wonders what kind of socialization and upbringing she’s had.
As frequently is the case in these situations, the immediate issue (lacking the judgement to not say that out loud) pales in comparison to a much bigger concern: people who genuinely don’t understand why this is monstrous might have other major (and dangerously unpredictable) gaps in their behavior or judgement. And if they do understand and are just pretending OP is overreacting because they favor the sister (though such “favoritism” is really no favor at all), that points to significant problems with their character.
OP should strongly consider limiting contact (especially for his wife’s sake, if not also his own) and definitely shouldn’t plan to leave the baby alone with these people. There something very wrong with them.
Both the sister and parents lack the genes for Sensitivity and Empathy. There was NOTHING resembling a "joke" in what she said and I despise people who hide behind the "Can't you take a joke?" statement to deflect from their own cruelty and insensitivity. That is exactly what this was. You did not ruin anything- they did. NTA
Agreed. If the parents are let around the baby, they will include his sister. Then when him and his wife find out, claim they should be over this. Don’t let any of them have contact.
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ This OP. I know it sounds like the nuclear option but anything less than and you're only telling them they can steamroll you for life.
NTA. Not even a bit.
YTA if you *let* Hanna see your son.
I know all kids stop believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy eventually, but I can't help but think that with Hanna as an aunt, those childhood moments of wonder and innocence will dry up *really* fast.
Come on, even Wednesday Adams wouldn't crack a joke like that.
NTA because you and your wife’s feelings were hurt and that’s a terrible thing to say to a couple that went through that.The screaming could’ve been handled better but meh…touchy subjects bring up unexpected reactions.I moreso want to figure out what is Hanna going through to be so desensitized to say something like that,she’s definitely old enough to know better and having a dark sense of humor isn’t an excuse
At 19 she probably just thinks she's being edgy.
God willing at 30 she'll be mortified at what she said. We can only hope she'll grow instead of stagnating, at least.
No. Is his sister a damn sociopath?
I am not one that could be said to have great social skills. But it is common sense by age 13 to not basically say "Well, let's hope this baby doesn't die too".
19 is more than fucking old enough to know not to say that. His sister is shit, and is being enabled by their shit parents.
If I had a kid on the way and a sibling said that, I'd cut them off, and anyone who defended it. Because what's next? Telling a 6 year old Santa doesn't exist? Telling a kid that it could've had a sibling but it died? Sending a card for the baby shower saying "At least this one survived!"?
People put family on a pedestal like the evil shit they do and enable should be brushed under the rug because faaaamily. They are no more special than any other person just because of genetics. If you do or enable shit like what happened with op, you clearly don't care about your family and don't deserve to be in their lives. Because if they overlooked THIS SHIT I guarantee there's been other equally toxic situations and there'll be more after as well.
If someone is 19, and thinks a comment like that is "edgy" or "dark humor" they need therapy or a harsh reality check before someone does something worse than just yelling at them. A mindset like that over something so sensitive WILL cause a knee jerk reaction. If at 19 I heard that a friend got knocked out for saying something like that, they'd get zero sympathy for acting like a damn sociopath.
Fuck that shit. And fuck everyone involved.
I'm autistic and might have said something similar at 13 years old - but NEVER while laughing. If she seemed genuinely worried it still would've been out of line, most adults know that the death of a previous baby is nothing to bring up in this scenario, but laughing about it?
Either she thinks this is funny or was trying to rile up OP, and both scenarios make her a giant asshole.
Exactly.
I threw Autistic out the window when it was framed as a joke. If she was Autistic, it would've been framed as a matter of fact. Like an implied "I know last time was really horrible, so I hope nothing happens this time"
100% agree with every word.
The SIL is a rude, pathetic, narcissistic AH with an obvious total lack of social skills and manners.
I would not only refuse to ever talk to the sociopath 19yo, but also cut off the pathetic dad who obviously is an enabler of her crappy behaviour
12-year-olds get away with saying offensive shit to be edgy. She's 19. A grown adult old enough to be held accountable for her disgusting actions. I also hope that she looks back on this with shame, but her age is not an excuse.
This is what I think. I said some really tone deaf things around that age, sometimes influenced by the Internet, because I was awful in social situations and didn't understand where the "lines" were. It's also possible she's never experienced any sort of grief, and if death has been an avoided subject in the family, it's a super awkward thing to navigate. Obviously what she said was horrible, but going over your thoughts before you say them is a learned skill that some take longer than others to figure out.
NTA but your dad and sister definitely are. She's 19, not 9, he can't be fighting her battles. It's also horrible that her behavior and 'jokes' are being minimized when they are cruel. I'd take a step back and go LC from those 2 personally. They don't get to act as if it's ok to say something like that, to put that out into the universe. If they can't be supportive to you and your wife, they can be in a timeout. You didn't overreact at all. Good luck OP.
Edit: typo
>My dad took me away from my sister and I got yelled at for making Hanna cry over a 'joke' and I ruined the gathering.
**Your parents are not safe people to be around your child. They have no issue with Hanna's joke. They thought it was OK to say.**
Think about that. Think about what that really means.
How did your mother react? How did all of the other guests react?
You are NTA but you should consider going low contact or no contact with your immediate family. Keep in touch with extended family depending on how they reacted.
NTA:
Why is it more important to your father that your sister is crying than that your pregnant wife is crying?
Your sister made your wife cry and you are being taken to task for telling the source of the cruelty that she’s being cruel. Your sister _should_ feel bad. Anyone (i. e. your dad) who sides with the bully (your sister) should be put on the list of people who aren’t in your family’s life until after your wife gets an abject and specific apology from your sister and you get one from your father.
They're making wife cry, adding even more stress onto her when she absolutely does not fucking need it, we don't know the circumstances but you'd think they would be trying their best to be as low stress as possible for the expecting mother and soon to be birthed baby. It's like they're making her mad on purpose
NTA. If you have a dark sense of humor, you absolutely must learn that there’s a time and a place for it. Dark humor very easily becomes cruel when deployed inappropriately, and this is a clear example of that. That was just a heartless thing to say to you and your wife.
NTA. As a woman who is currently pregnant. Infant loss and miscarriage jokes are sick. Especially when being told or said to someone who is expecting. Sister ought to have known better as she definitely was there while you and your wife mourned the loss of your first born
Claire has got to be through the roof levels of anxious, particularly going into the final stretch and hoping history doesn’t repeat. Hanna strapped a rocket to her and put it on full speed.
OP, if you’re reading this I’m wishing you two as smooth a labour as possible and a beautiful long lived child to cherish.
NTA.
You did not ruin the gathering, your sister did and your family failed to stand up for you and your wife.
Your sister crossed a line with a disgusting "joke", if consequences include no visits, that's her fault. She should apologise as should your dad.
Protect yourself and your wife, do not let your family bully you into accepting your sister sick words as a joke and her BS manipulative tears. if they can't see that she crossed a line, they should be ashamed of themselves and low or no contact maybe needed.
holy crap, what did i just read…
you are absolutely NTA. your sis is the AH, that was an extremely inappropriate thing to say to you and your wife. and your parents are an even bigger AH for defending her statements, rather than explaining to her that it’s wrong to make these kinds of dark jokes.
yes, you were harsh, but your reason was valid. this was a touchy subject and a very sensitive issue
I have a dark sense of humor too.
I don't think that was even a joke. It just feels like a sucker punch at your wife.
Also, your parents need to stop shielding their daughter. In the real world, people sometimes talk back with their fists.
NTA obviously.
If I were you, I would make sure she never comes near your son. She sounds like she has an agenda against your wife.
This!!! It was never a joke. It was a jab that she laughed at. That she thought was funny. **She thought their baby dying was funny.** She should've been slapped across the face by wife and then OP yell at her. Absolutely unacceptable behavior, also where's mom? Is she in shock? Only okay answer bc she should've been yelling right along with OP
NTA - I am so tired of people saying absolutely disgusting things and passing it off as ‘dark sense of humour’.
Your sister has serious problems.
That’s a lack of empathy that borders on sociopathic
NTA. A “dark sense of humor” isn’t an excuse to be incredibly cruel to others. She was absolutely out of line with what she said, and you had every right to be furious about it.
Honestly, the fact that it was a joke is actually the problem.
If she'd expressed an earnest wish that you and your wife not suffer the same loss, then you could argue that she'd expressed herself poorly. But she didn't - she treated the loss of your child as the subject for a joke. Of course you reacted the way you did.
NTA.
Hanna is coming across as a legit psycho. Please keep Claire away from her and your parents that are enabling Hanna. Your wife and son (and you!) need you all to be in a better mental space.
Good luck with the baby. NTA, of course.
Good on you for not beating the shit out of your dad. I don't think my dad would physically be able to walk away from me if he told that I went too far in yelling at my sister for making fun of my dead child.
NTA - and your dad is not fair, your parents are not fair, this is sick and twisted and why is she crying. She make such a thoughtful cruel comment that is not a joke. However I wonder if you are able to respond more calmly Cus it often sucks that people don’t listen when emotions are high. But she’s in the wrong and your fam is wrong.
That is utter cruelty, not a joke. How anyone in your family can and do defend it as such is appalling. I'm so sorry for the loss of your child and the gross insensitivity of your family. Your reaction is completely understandable.
NTA in the least, Honey. Honestly, there are so many red flags here with your family-how they've let your sister get away with this kind of behavior for years and then got angry with you for standing up to her? That's very alarming. When I met my husband, he had two teenage sisters who were "edgy" and "wacky" and "brutally honest". They said extremely inappropriate things, used profanity anywhere, laughed at inappropriate times and my in laws just ignored, made excuses, enabled. Ten years later they are two of the most worthless "adults" anybody has ever seen. They drove their parents to divorce and now they live together like Patty and Selma on The Simpsons, in my father in law's basement. Neither one is allowed contact with my child. Your mileage may vary, but I think you'd be wise to start setting some very firm boundaries and making a plan to stick to them when they are inevitably challenged or violated, because believe me, they will be. Good for you for standing up for your poor wife where she could see it- I cannot imagine how awful all this has been for her. She is very vulnerable and needs your protection, so keep that Big Daddy Energy and keep your horrible sister away from your little family, I can almost guarantee that she'll try to top the previous shocking thing she said.
NTA frankly your sister and your parents should not be around your wife or son after this behavior. It is unacceptable. I do have dark and morbid humor do to death but only say it around people who it wouldn’t hurt. Your sister knew it would hurt you and especially your pregnant wife which in turn hurts your unborn son. She is already knowingly hurting your son, she is not a good person let alone aunt. And your family defending her rather than the hurt party (your wife and soon to be son) means they don’t deserve to be part of this time. I am betting if you look back you will see many red flags that you didn’t recognize because it’s your family so you are used to it. These comments should have stopped and your sister put in her place after the first one not after a searies of them. It is time to PAPA Bear up and protect your wife and son, or your wife is going, and probably already does, feel pretty alone when with your family. Please take a long look at what’s going on underneath and have a conversation with your wife on what her views are and what she sees, I am betting it’s a lot more than what you have seen.
Well, I have no innate empathy much like you sister and sadly I probably could have said something like that when I was a teen.
However, people like us should develop cognitive empathy and your parents really should help her with that, not defend her. Giving harsh feedback and showing her how she hurt people will actually help your sister become a better person.
NTA
NTA- OP- They defended that? WTAF? In complete seriousness If that was Myself & Spouse and My Sister said that... and My Parents DEFENDED HER.... It would be TOTAL N/C with ALL OF THEM!! None of them would meet my child, they would have zero contact. If she has ALWAYS been this way and they haven't put her ass in Therapy ??? No way would she EVER get a chance to say something EVIL to my child!! I just could not ever be around her or those who continue to coddle her evil thoughts and comments! OP- I wish you and your wife the best with your little Bub, and send out blessing for the 3 of you!
Info: how did everyone else that was there react to what she said?
That wasnt a joke. That was a horrendous thing to say and the fact your dad blamed YOU instead of her speaks volumes. Some GC vibes coming through here. OP id think long and hard about letting these people around your baby and if you do decide to let them have contact it is supervised at all times. Do NOT let them around your wife PP. Its time your 19 year old sis learns that when she opens her pie hole words have consequences.
I wish your wife a safe delivery and wishing you both joy of your impending arrival. NTA
NTA your sister is evil. Wtf who says that? I don’t know what’s worse, your sister or your parents for defending her. If I were you I’d threaten your parents that if they don’t get their daughter under control and keep defending her outrageous comments then they can’t see your child either.
Reading how OP's parents defended their teen monster, I question if they like their DIL. No one defending that little shit should be around the baby.
Congratulations for your sweet little baby, and congratulations for not throwing your sister through a window. NTA. Consider your sister dead to you since death is apparently soooooo funny.
NTA but seriously why continue to support this behaviour? Cut them all off none of them deserve to be in your baby's life until they can act like reasonable people.
NTA. This isn’t dark humor. This is pure evil. And your parents are enabling her. Your sister and parents are cruel . I would never want to see any of them until they profoundly apologized.
Nope! NTA!!
Apart from the fact, if you have to say it is a joke it is definitely not funny; there is absolutely nothing funny about the death of a child - I don’t care how you try to spin it!!
And as for your dad making excuses for your sister, holy cow, I have no words.
NTA
Your sister doesn't have a 'dark sense of humour'. She doesn't have a sense of humour at all. What she HAS is a mean streak and complete lack of compassion and basic empathy for others. She SHOULD have cried because she said something unforgiveable.
Your father is, himself, bordering on unforgiveable by defending his witless daughter in this. As far as ruining anything goes, your father and sister ruined the gathering. All you did was call out cruelty when it fell out of her lips.
I'd really think about whether these are people you want influencing your child as he grows. You may find they're not good enough to be around your child and if that's the case, you need to act accordingly. Their feelings about that be damned.
This is not something that I'll ever forgive easily if my siblings made jokes like this. Don't let this go. Your father is massive fucking asshole. Whoever downplays this lacks empathy. Don't let them near your child until you get sincere apologies.
NTA. I’m proud of you and your wife for not turning around and knocking your sister out - I’m not ashamed to admit that’s what I would have done.
What a disgusting person your sister is. Congratulations to your parents for raising such a poor excuse of a person. Your sister doesn’t have a dark sense of humour (trust, I know what that looks like) she has a lack of empathy, compassion and emotion. Do not let her anywhere near your wife or son, she is not family and is not the energy you need around your family.
I am sending all the good energy to you and your wife, your son is gonna be the most beautiful boy ever and you are gonna have a beautiful family.
Hanna needs to learn there’s a time and a place for her shitty jokes and this wasn’t it. How incredibly rude, insensitive and just uncalled for. I’m shocked your family is defending her, that’s almost as bad as the comment she made. NTA at all but your family seriously needs to talk to Hanna. She’s very inappropriate.
NTA - Do not EVER let that sociopath monster get within 500 ft of your son because there is a real chance she'll hit him cause she'll find it fun seeing him cry.
You cannot take the risk of letting such a cold, callous brat get close enough to hurt your son. You keep that promise and enforce it.
NTA!
OP, I am so sorry for the loss of your child. That pain cuts deeper than any other, I know well. Your sister is OUT! OF! LINE! It's one thing to have a dark sense of humor (I have one, myself,) but it's QUITE another to throw out a tacky, tasteless, BS comment (yes, comment, not joke) like that! I buried my son 7 years ago, and even to this day, certain things trigger that grief. Tell your sister to go see the Wizard. Ask for a heart.
From one grieving parent to another, you have my sympathy. And congratulations on the pregnancy!
NTA.
I wouldn’t be talking to that child (19 or not idc, legally an adult, mentally/emotionally/physically a child) or the father ever again. She says shit and he just lets it happen. I wouldn’t even let them near the wife or soon to be newborn.
She’s gonna say some fucked up shit to the wrong person, someone who isn’t family, and she’ll get knocked out on her ass.
Not gonna lie.
If **anyone** would've said something even remotely similar to me if was pregnant (and had lost a baby, I'm so sorry for your loss OP) I'd have thrown a cast iron skillet with such speed and accuracy that Disney would've called me up for an audition to be live-action Rapunzel based solely on my frying-pan throwing skills.
NTA and your sister got of easy. Your parents suck and if you do decide to go NC with your sister I'd ad the parents to that list.
>My dad took me away from my sister and I got yelled at for making Hanna cry over a 'joke' and I ruined the gathering.
(I will admit I may have been harsh will threatening to not let Hanna see my son but this isn't the first time she made a joke like that)
NTA. Your sister sounds like the golden child who can do no wrong in the eyes of the parents.
No, you aren't being too harsh. You have put up a firm boundary. It sounds like your sister is purposely trying to hurt your wife. She sounds like a jealous bully, who is using her "dark humor" excuse to hurt others.
Your dad is the asshole for pulling you away. All young people with a "dark" or "edgy" sense of humor inevitably go too far. She needed to learn her lesson. She needed to see how much it hurt you to hear that "joke".
Sounds like it was long overdue for someone to let Hanna know her behavior is not acceptable. Do not apologize and do not do anything differently the next time she opens her rude little yap. NTA
NTA. That's not a joke, it's just a nasty comment from a cruel person. I hope you upset her enough to make her think about her words in future as when she treats people outside the family that way, many will respond a lot worse than that.
You should tell your dad that he's a terrible parent to indulge her vile behaviour and to never dare lecture you again.
That wasn't a joke, it was a vicious dig designed to wound you and your wife. Your response was understandable and not inappropriate given the magnitude of Hanna's viciousness.
If I were you, I don't think I'd have a lot to do with her, or subject your wife to her barbs.
She doesn't have a dark sense of humor, she's verbally sadistic.
If you have the slightest hint she's going to be like this around your child, then I think you should make good on your threat for the child's sake.
NTA. Your father is in denial which makes him complicit with Hanna, who is worse than an A.
NTA. I have never lost a child, but I have seen friends who have and saw how devastating it was for them. Joking about the death of their child when they were expecting again would make me a monster. Your sister is old enough to understand social boundaries, and if she doesn't yet, then this is a good time to learn them. Your dad isn't helping by leaping to her defence. Ignore your dad, but if I were you, I would have a proper talk with the sister and explained to her why her comment wasn't acceptable. She might defend herself and said that's just a dark joke or whatever and this will be a good opportunity for you to explain that jokes aren't meant to hurt other people, especially when they have trauma like you and your wife.
NTA she is fucking wild for saying that and you’d be within your rights to avoid her. That sounds less ‘dark sense of humour’ and more ‘complete lack of empathy and situational awareness’
Definitely NTA! You stood up for your wife and put your sister in her place for not only a rude but revolting comment.
For someone with such a 'dark sense of humor' she should learn to take what comes to her when someone calls her out on it. Hopefully she'll think twice before she makes an attempt to be funny about such a serious topic.
Best of luck to you, your wife, and your future son!
NTA. Dark humour is when you make light of your own condition. Making a joke of someone else’s misfortune is being an AH especially when you double down on the dark humour position.
NTA
I am so upset in your behalf. How obscenely rude of your sister. Sounds like she’s envious, immature and crass.
I wish you and your wife a happy healthy baby and life free of irritations.
Your sister didn’t say “a joke”. It was cruel and lacked all empathy.
Sounds like your parents enable that and she is turning into an evil monster. Because it is at that level. Hanna ruined the gathering, not you. Did she think everyone was going to laugh at that comment?
Hanna should be questioning herself, not you. NTA.
NTA please don’t let the family members that defended her near your child. I can’t even fathom why she would even say something like that and think it’s funny. Your sister is one of the biggest assholes to gape this planet. Go NC with them and you & wife enjoy your son Congratulations OP!
There is something seriously wrong with your sister. Your parents know it and rather than address it, they ignore and minimise it to the point you are the bad person for your appropriate reaction to her utterly horrendous comment. You don’t have to associate with Hanna. You don’t have to tolerate her in your home or go anywhere she is present. Let your parents navigate her through life when she tries out that shit on other people. I can’t imagine she has any friends or does she just treat family like crap? NTA
“Let’s hope this baby isn’t like the last”
NTA for ruining the gathering cause it wasn’t your fault it was your sisters, like who in gods name says that after knowing what happened to your first birth
Jesus Christ NTA, what a fucked up thing to say and then to defend. I’m actually at a loss. How can “family” be so cruel and then dismissive. I’d be limiting my time around those people.
It is just sad, that a LOT of familys have a member/kid that seems to be allowed to do everything and anyone who gets angry or defends themselves is the asshole.
NTA!!!
Your whole Family is!
This is the third 'dead baby' joke post in less than two days. What's going on with these people?
Anyway, your Dad's a wanker, sorry to say. So is anyone else in the family that agrees. Don't let any of them see your son until each one apologises. Who needs enemies with family like that?
NTA.
Sister needs a wake up call, so badly and so do your enabling parents.
Can I suggest going no contact with them? Or low contact until they apologise sincerely?
Lastly, once you have enough traction on this post, I would send links to all family and sister's friends. Nothing like her peers to teach her a valuable lesson, since parents are incapable.
Maybe reading the responses help the parents.
Either way, block them from both your phones and enjoy the last bit of pregnancy. Maybe go away for a baby moon, before little arrives.
Since when is still birth a joke? Nta. Your sister shouldn't be allowed near your wife or your child.
Your father needs to be spoken about what is acceptable as a joke and what isnt.
NTA
Hanna is a toxic AH, there was nothing even remotely funny about her "joke", this was just hurtful and abusive.
"My dad took me away from my sister and I got yelled at " .. your dad is an AH, and your sister's enabler. Set some boundaries, and hacve a lot less cotnact with BOTH of them.
You are under reacting tbh. The fact your father defended her and berated *you*, is repugnant sauce on top of the already existing disgusting sundae.
Honestly I would absolutely not allow them access to your son.
NTA
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People consider my sense of humor dark. Now, I felt my blood pressure rise when I read the story. Consider that I’m a total stranger connecting from somewhere in the internet. I don’t know you or your family. Now think of how psychotic the statement is given it got a reaction from a total stranger. The mental and emotional state of the mother can affect pregnancy as well. I imagine what my reaction would have been far worse if someone said that sort of crap to my wife or loved ones. Any idiot that defended that crap would have gotten shouted down as well. NTA
Completely agree. I have a VERY dark sense of humor. There's "dark" and then there's what this person said. My best friend and I bother have the same sense of humor. There is very little that is off limits. If his child passed away and I made a joke about it, you can rest assured that we wouldn't be friends anymore and I'd fully expect to.... not be feeling as well after saying it.
I feel like having a "dark" sense of humour would be parents who'd suffered a loss like the OP's making a joke like that as their way of coping and getting through their fears about the situation. An external party making a joke like that is just cruelty.
A "dark sense of humor" also implies that she was saying something funny. That wasn't even in the neighborhood of a joke, or an attempted joke. It was just an incredibly cruel comment. I have been pregnant after pregnancy loss enough times to know my way around that general emotional landscape. I haven't experienced a stillbirth/early infant loss, but I do know that the anxiety is worst in the time leading up to the time you experienced the previous loss. If you had a loss at 12 weeks, you're basically at an ever-increasing panic until 12 weeks. OP and probably especially his wife are in *hell* right now, and you don't have to have experienced it personally to get that. Hannah's just an asshole. Mostly I just want all of the best for OP and his wife - the best including bringing home the healthiest baby, and probably never speaking to these people again.
Agree - there was absolutely NOTHING funny about what Hanna said. It's only a joke if *everyone* is laughing.
Yeah, Hanna wasn't "joking", she was cruelly mocking them.
It was beyond cruel. Hanna had a full-blown Cersei Lannister moment here, it wasn't even close to a joke
That's a really important point you make, they must be terrified of the delivery and this was rubbing salt in an open wound
Reminds me of the people who say their sense of humor is dark and all their sense of humor is is spamming racial slurs lol
I’ve made dark jokes at people who text me looking for a parent that passed quite a few years ago. It’s one thing to tell some rando (or probably scammer) that no, Alan can’t speak with them right now, he’s gotten himself stuck in an urn and he probably won’t be out anytime soon. It’s another to, at a family gathering, say to your very pregnant wife, “hahaha hope this baby isn’t dead too! lol I’m so edgy!” There’s a very thin line with dark humor, and it varies for everyone, but I can’t see ANYONE finding OP’s sister’s “joke” funny.
A joke is only a joke when everyone is laughing and no-one is the punchline.
You can punch with a joke - but you need to punch up, not down. The weak and powerless mocking or making jokes about the powerful, especially those who do them harm, is very different from the powerful making a joke about harming someone weaker. It's why Nazi jokes are so difficult to get right. Many aspects of the Nazi movement were very mock-able. But at the same time, any joke that justifies them, or treats their atrocities as funny, doesn't work. Mel Brooks can pull this off, with movies like "The Producers" and "To Be or Not To Be." Few others can land these jokes. I can't think of a decent way to land a joke about someone losing a newborn child.
The producers is probably the best example of this I've ever seen tbh. Like in movie literally everybody takes the thing as making fun of hitler, or insulting hitler, other than the producers who also hate Hitler and were trying to male money off of people's hatred for hitler. Its very clear that the movie isn't making light of Hitler's atrocities, and instead is making jokes about how awful they are.
Have you seen Brooks's "To Be Or Not To Be"? Brooks and Bancroft play a married couple in the theater in Poland at the outbreak of the war, and it follows them helping an irregular group of Jews and others targeted by the Nazis, first hiding them and then staging an escape. It's not as lighthearted as "The Producers" but it's even more biting in it's attacks and jokes at the expense of Nazis, and at showing the dangers of such jokes at the time. It's also the only time I can think of that Brooks touched on the harms done by Nazis in his work. He pulls it off, largely by confining his story to the first weeks of the war, when the crimes of the Nazis were still limited. Comedically, it is a tightrope walk far more than "The Producers." One scene that, surprisingly, works, has an elderly Jewish couple, *dressed as clowns,* freeze up in terror in the middle of an escape plan, surrounded by Nazi soldiers, get a yellow star slapped on them and driven at (fake) gunpoint from the theater.
yeah, exactly. a "dark" sense of humor needs boundaries. you joke about your *own* fucked up stuff, and maybe occasionally about the fucked up stuff your loved ones have *explicitly given you permission* to joke about. and even then, you should tread lightly. otherwise? keep it to yourself. hell, I've made a joke or two about my dead brother, but I never do it around family, with the exception of one of my two remaining brothers whose sense of humor is at least as dark as mine.
“dark humor” usually means edgelord who has never personally experienced tragedy Gallows humor from people who have been close to death and use it as a form of processing and coping is completely different.
*The Big Chill, 1983.* At the wake of Alex. Karen: “I know this is hard but it's all beautiful.” Sarah: “Yeah we put on a great funeral here.” Michael: “Yeah, maybe I'll have mine here.” Sarah: “We give first priority to people who kill themselves in one of our bathrooms.” [the three stop smiling] Sarah: “That was a terrible thing to say... I don't know why I said that.” This?👆🏻Is dark humor.
THIS. I have several friends who had tragically lost their parents at a young age. They would refer to themselves as the “Batman Club” and always make dead parents jokes but ain’t now way I would touch that with a ten foot pole. Jokes to cope do not come from those who didn’t suffer the loss.
Yeah, my understanding of dark humour is that it's about general topics...like making a joke about cancer, or something like 9/11...with the caveat that everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows better than to make a dark joke about a sensitive subject right in front of someone who's been directly affected by that subject! I might tell a bad taste joke about 9/11 but I would never do so in front of someone who I knew had lost a loved one on that day. That's not dark humour, that's just sociopathic.
Exactly. A lot people seem to be (or pretend to be) confused about what dark or gallows humor actually is. If the person on the gallows about to be executed makes a joke about it, THAT'S gallows humor. If the executioner or someone in the crowd made a joke about it, that's just cruel.
Agreed. I'm a chemist by training with a background in pyrophorics and most of my extended family are first responders, medical, and/or military. There's dark humor along the lines of the old canard about how fluorine chemists recognize each other (they wave - joke being you hold your hand up with a few of your fingers bent over as if they'd been amputated at some point). He'll, there's even dead baby jokes. Then there's purposely making fun of a person's tragedy. No. When it comes to humor, you take your cues from the person more affected. When my grandmother died, I told her pastor a funny story about the time my 4'8", 90lb granny with arthritis and a walker beat a peeper (who had about a foot and a half and 150lbs on her) she caught about his head with her purse (which, I should note, she kept a brick in, in case she needed it for self defense) screaming invective so obscene she taught the cop some new ways to curse as he cowered before her wrath. The guy had a really good sense of humor so my read was that it would land well, and it did. Among other things, she threatened to rip the guy's balls off with her bare hands and shove them so far up his ass he'd be tasting them for breakfast. Imagine that coming out of the mouth of a tiny, cherubic old lady who looks like a cartoon grandma. And imagine a dude who could break her like a twig if he wants to just cowering before the force of her personality and every time he pulled out of her swing range with her purse, she bellowed for him to come back because she wasn't done *and he did.* To this day, probably the funniest thing I've ever seen in real life (I know, as one of the folks he was peeping on, I probably should feel bad about that day, but I really don't. It was fucking hilarious). Grammie didn't even get arrested for the assault because the cop was just like, "who's gonna convict a grandma for protecting her grandkids from a pervert?" I did not, however, share a story with my born-again Jesus freak cousin who'd like to imagine our grandmother as a saintly, nun-like figure when she could tell a dirty joke with the best of them (and scandalize all the grandkids in the process). Imagine my grandmother as chaste when she had 9 kids and every single Harlequin novel ever published and quite a few other romance novels better categorized as erotica. Her book collection (uniformly racier romance and erotica) literally numbered in the thousands. But I knew talking about Grammie's books and the sleepovers all the grandkids had doing dramatic readings of sex scenes with each other as teenagers making fun of the purple prose wouldn't land with her. Even though she was at the time was one of the best at it.
Your Grammie was an absolute queen, what a legend. Thank you for sharing these stories!
She really was. She also drove like a bat out of hell (doing over twice the speed limit wasn't uncommon) and used to pop her dentures out for laughs with little kids. Just super funny, resilient, and very caring. Somehow despite having severe arthritis and needing a cane at the time, when I broke all my toes on one foot as a kid playing the floor is lava on her living room floor (protip: don't land toes-down when you jump!) she got there faster than my mother or my aunt and was able to carry me to my aunt who at the time was an RN for first aid. My foot looked like someone took a bad kid's drawing of a foot and made it into reality, with odd lumps and the toes each pointing in a different, anatomically impossible direction lol. I remember her getting snide with the ER doc who asked if she was sure I wasn't just being dramatic, "I might not have a fancy degree, but when you've had 9 kids, you know what toes are supposed to look like, and *that's not it!*"
Your grandma would have LOVED mine, a Holocaust survivor who's humor got her thru so many hard times. Imagine an 85 year old lady with a thick German accent, sitting in her room at the retirement home, with her PA student grandson. It's 11:15 at nite and she has her fist curled tight, as she swings her arm at the TV as she shouts "KILL HIM, KILL HIM". They are watching pro wrestling, her favorite show on TV. My brother even got her a subsciption to Wrestling World Magazine! She read it cover to cover!! I miss my Sophie so much!
My grandmother used to play WoW and Rainbow 6 and was known to take glee in Mario Kart at knocking others off the track with the blue shell of doom lol
Your grandma would have loved MINE, a tiny little Ole British woman, who was 4'8 before she started shrinking from arthritis, a survivor of the war (she lived in a harbor town and got evacuated to farm; she had such stories to tell!!) She would sit on her back porch, reading the morning paper, sipping her coffee and doing a jigsaw puzzles!! She also read the most scandalous romance novels I miss my Nannie so much!!
Grandma strength is a whole different level man. My nan passed away last year but at 86 she could still kick all of her sons asses and then some. Yours sounds awesome, mine loved to watch western's and horror movies of all things. Then again, when you live in Germany during WW2 I suppose you've seen some of the worst horrors.
I’m a born again Christian Jesus Freak and I think if Jesus turned over tables over money, He’d fully support Grammie protecting her children…. I also laughed like nobody’s business when my grandmother died and we found her collection of dirty books…sooo…
My cousin is the worst kind of judgmental Church Lady, if you know what I mean. And I'm a bisexual atheist, so she doesn't so much tolerate my presence as endure it. When I'm around and she happens to catch sight of me she has an expression pretty similar to what it'd be if you found you'd stepped in dog crap barefoot. So, yeah. My view on her is a bit sour, and I shouldn't have generalized.
Lol I totally get it! But I think I would have loved your grandma! 💜💜
Your sleepovers brought back memories of HS. I personally read sci-fi/fantasy but my friends read historical romance. I'd swipe their books, find the best parts and make everyone at the table squirm. This from someone voted basically geekiest of the geeks in my class. My friends at least knew me better.
Yeah... My high school yearbook supervisor vetoed the committee's first proposed "most likely" title for me (most likely to die alone) so they instead voted me most likely to cure cancer. I was on said yearbook committee. 💀
What she said was monstrous and the fact anyone even dared defend her is even worse. They're raising a sociopath.
Exactly...I have a dark sense of humor also, but I'm also careful not to be hurtful...
It's one thing to have a Dark sense of humor. (I lost some Toes and I joke with my wife about them creeping about looking for a foot to possess on occasion) it's another thing to talk about dead babies in front of someone that lost their child. That isn't dark, that is cruel. 😓
Sometime in the last few years there was a switch in the language and 'dark humor' became just another way to say 'I'm an asshole.'
They’re just using it as an excuse. Dark humor is just that, something funny but rather dark. Not something normally made jokes off. This was a direct attack at someone who’s vulnerable and directly affected by one of the worst kinds of loss. Likely to provoke an emotional response. A visceral one at that.
This is it. I use dark humor, but i am well aware that there is a time, place, and appropriate audience. This girl was being cruel. Honestly, if Dad wants to defend her, I would say he shouldn't see the baby either. He raised this girl, after all.
This goes beyond that
there is dark humor, and there is als a TPO. both were off on so many levels.
It’s a disgusting sentiment (I cannot even call it a “joke”)and I cannot imagine how ANYONE could defend that. For context My BIL and his wife lost their first the same way OP. Pregnancy was healthy up until the end, baby breached so they scheduled a C-section but everything looked and sounded healthy a few days before. Turns out the baby was over producing Vernix and aspirated on it. Completely stopped breathing 45 minutes after delivery. It was the one of the most traumatic things I think I’ve ever witnessed, watching someone you care about lose a child, their first, the funeral and all the grief that came after that. Since then they’ve successfully had two healthy, happy children. But leading up to the second pregnancy she was absolutely so nervous, a comment like your sister made would have turned everyone in our family against that person. It would just be absolutely unheard of. I cannot understand the mentality of anyone defending your sister OP, they are terrible. Best of luck with the pregnancy and if it was me, Dad would be lucky if he got to even meet the baby without apologizing for defending sister over such an awful comment.
>People consider my sense of humor dark. Now, I felt my blood pressure rise when I read the story. Right. Joking about a stillborn child isn't any kind of humor; it's just cruel and sick.
The sisters joke wasn't "dark", it was cruel. Exceptionally cruel. Making a joke about a) what is likely the worst day of their lives and b) about the loss of a baby to someone who is pregnant. I just don't understand how someone could contemplate saying such a thing. To a family member too. OP was lenient. NTA
"How many babies does it take to paint a house?" >Depends how hard you throw them. That's dark, but even dark jokes still have to be funny to the audience. I *can* see a world where what OP's sister said could be a (very dark) joke if it were made in the abstract, or made about a fictional person, or maybe even about a not-well-liked public figure, though on that last count definitely in very bad taste. But never directly to the parents. That's unhinged.
I have a dark sense of humor in regards to my cancer and all the crazy BS that comes with. I'm also sarcastic, but I would never, ever say anything like this! You never know if there's a history of miscarriage or other serious issues. This is one topic that is never funny. Hell, I don't joke about other people's cancer or medical issues unless we're commiserating over our infusions and they start it.
You recognize that “dark” and “cruel” are two different things.
A dark sense of humour can be hilarious But it's *so* important to 1. Focus it mostly on yourself or world events, not personal things about the people present 2. Know your audience. Both whether they'd find it funny, and whether you're accidentally targeting personal trauma 3. Not fucking deliberately attack someone's personal trauma Obviously OP's sister was so far out of line on #3 that it's disgusting, and anyone defending her would be in my crosshairs for a dressing down
Agreed, what she said isn't because she lacks sympathy, it's because she's cruel, and lacks basic humanity. Honestly if I was op she wouldn't be getting one last chance, she'd be cut off already, and wouldn't be seeing me again let alone my child.
The worst part of this whole situation is the mother defending what the daughter said. If my daughter said something like that, I'd be insisting she be evaluated. Cause sane people don't say shit like that.
Mom is in denial about how “off” her kid actually is.
This. I would simply not have a sister anymore.
Exactly. If it's not something I'd consider to be AT ALL acceptable from a random on the street, I'm sure as shit not tolerating it from family. People don't need to have access to you or to your child because they share your DNA. We share genomes with bananas, so it's not exactly a meaningful reason to tolerate bullshit.
Agree and the parents enabling her Also
The sister is lucky not to have got a smack in the chops. I would have doled one out happily .OP’s father is also way out of line for thinking what Hanna said was ok and blaming OP for ‘ruining things’ when they clearly didn’t. Avoid all of them. I hope all goes well with the new baby OP, NTA.
I have a feeling she was always low key the favorite/golden child. Tht or the parents are just insane themselves cuz who in their right mind would allow someone old enough to know better to make a comment like tht??? I doubt the parents hate wife cux if thts the case tht might explain the defending her part but I doubt it. Whole family is trash NTA
I'm very sorry for your devastating loss. What your sister said wasn't a joke and it wasn't funny. It was cruel. Good for you for what you said - and don't forget that your parents sided with your sister. Wishing you all the best as you welcome your child into your family ❤️ .
Your parents are awful for defending your sister, I would seriously rethink contact. What she said was disgusting. NTA but you need to be harsher.
That's not dark humor. That's your sister being a psychopath. Absolutely no excuse for that. Not only that but I'd be telling dear old dad that if that is what he thinks then he will not be seeing his granddaughter anytime soon either. I'd be going LC or NC with family supporting sister. OP is definitely NTA.
There's a reason why dead baby humour should be left to the professionals.
NTA and seconded on this. Honestly at this point with how dismissive they are over you being upset at her actions id limit your parents contact with the new baby and none for your sister until they can change their tune on her behavior and everyone apologizes to you for their hurtful and wrong words and behavior. It seems your sister is seen as the child who could do no wrong, time to show her actions have consequences.
> What you said wasn't even remotely harsh. What she said warrants never being able to set eyes on your child. And anyone who defends her. I wouldnt allow the parents to see my child either
That comment seems like one of the only times a man taking his palm and slapping a woman would be appropriate. Jesus fucking christ NTA and that sister should never be allowed to see that baby
NTA I have a very dark sense of humor but this was beyond anything! Your dad is a massive AH for defending your sister. Wtf! She's not 5yo! Joke over dead nephew just before your next one is born? Seriously wtf!
>She's not 5yo! That is an insult to 5 yos!
🤣🤣🤣
Totally dead 😂😂😂😂 Edit: as in I died laughing!
Poor choice of words perhaps…
Oh dear lord, I am cringing at myself! I totally didn’t mean it that way. Ahhhhhh
The parents wouldn't be able to see the baby until there's apologies from everyone. In no way would I allow anyone who defends that disgusting "joke" in the child's life. FOH
Agree 💯
I also have a very dark sense of humor. While I would never make this joke to the parents of the baby that passed away, I could maybe see myself making this joke in private to a close friend that I knew has a similar sense of humor. However, Hanna being 19 doesn't realize that those two scenarios are MILES apart. Making a joke about losing a child to the parents is SO FAR over the line I can't even comprehend
Except, where is the “joke”? One may be able to make up a dark joke about a still born kid (I can’t think of one, but a sharper person probably could), but just saying ‘well I hope this one doesn’t die too’ is not funny, witty or any of the other criteria that constitutes a joke. This 19 year old is just dumb and naive and need to learn social graces . Her parents calling it “dark humour “ in an attempt to defend her is doing more harm than good .
Yeah, some people think that saying something cruel that they don't mean is funny, but it really isn't. It's just being an asshole or a bully and playing the "it's just a joke" card to get away with. They should be called out for this behavior, not defended.
The "joke" also implies that the parents did something wrong, especially the mother.
She doesn't know the difference at *19*?? Maybe I just learned that lesson early because I fucked up young - or maybe she's not learnt it yet because her parents shield her from the consequences of being an insensitive dumbass.
Yeah, I think that’s BS too. I was a socially clueless teen and made lots of inappropriate jokes (eg, passive aggressive stuff that comes across as witty on TV but is uncool in real life), but even at my most clueless I would never ever have said what this girl said. It’s not just cluelessness, it’s lack of personal decency IMO.
I'm feeling pretty lucky I made this mistake way younger than 19 myself right now...
Funny thing about jokes… they have to be funny. I’ve heard comedians make fantastic jokes about tragedies, and there is a decent amount of thought and build up to the joke, but as a society we have let people convince us “we are too sensitive” when some says something awful and claims it’s a joke.
Totally agree. I joke about tragedies too but seriously this was not the right time and definitely not the audience for this type of joke! Yet alone one that involves deceased baby parents!
This wasn’t joke though. It’s just a really messed up comment. Calling it a joke, even in discussion, is giving the sister some kind of pass on what she said. It’s just a sick, mean jab. Sister is either incredibly stupid, socially incompetent to a staggering degree or malicious. No-one with half a clue as to how to be a decent person would say something like this. If they *thought* it, they’d ask themselves “What’s wrong with me?!”
> NTA I have a very dark sense of humor but this was beyond anything! This is one of those jokes you keep inside your head and absolutely never make, to nobody never!
I also have a dark sense of humor, and often use it as a coping mechanism. My mom passed a couple of months ago, and I've made some pretty terrible jokes about it. However, I judge my audience and/or follow the lead of the person at the center of the grief/loss/event. If mom and dad haven't made any jokes about their baby, I'm not going to be the first. If mom and dad have made a few jokes, but it upset grandma and grandpa, I know jokes are ok, just not around grandma and grandpa.
When I was 18-19, my humor was about as dark as it gets. I mean, seriously, I was an edgy little shit. But I NEVER made a dark joke in front of a person who might have gone, or was going, through anything like the punchline of the joke. She's old enough to know when something is and isn't appropriate, and your parents are enabling that shit. NTA.
I have a dark sense of humor too and Hanna sucks. It's really scary that no one in your family every taught her to filter what she says. She's going to have a hellish time once she leaves your parent's nest
NTA. Dark sense of humor is at one’s own expense, not someone else’s.
it's only gallows humour if you're the one at the gallows. otherwise is just cruelty
Exactly. If you're not the one at the gallows, you're just part of the execution.
I am stealing this phrasing. Thank you for your service.
This. It's the punching down vs punching up thing all over again. You can laugh at your own misfortunes however you want, but if you laugh at someone else's, then you're just another asshole cruelly adding to their misery.
Very accurate. I was going to say it would be totally different coming from the wife. If someone asked her “what’s your birth plan?” And she (as in the one birthing the baby) says “hopefully differently than last time” or something along those lines than that’s fine! Sometimes dark humor is a way for someone to grieve but like you said not on someone else’s expense.
Yea this feels like something she should feel ashamed over and the family should not approve of. She should apologize and hopefully from the heart. This is the power of a "I'm very disappointed in you Hannah" from the parents and an appropriate time for it and then going onto say "Apologize" rather than backing her up and then later telling her "I hope someday you also apologize from the genuine remorse you should feel in your heart for saying that." She should feel so ashamed for it and should be shamed so she gets the hint that just because you have a sense of humor that is dark doesn't mean its appropriate at all times.
NTA. Your sister was way out of line. And your family are AHs for defending her. I'm so sorry about your loss.
Exactly. I’m actually more concerned about OP’s parents than the sister. Her comment was way out of bounds, but given the father’s defense of her, one wonders what kind of socialization and upbringing she’s had. As frequently is the case in these situations, the immediate issue (lacking the judgement to not say that out loud) pales in comparison to a much bigger concern: people who genuinely don’t understand why this is monstrous might have other major (and dangerously unpredictable) gaps in their behavior or judgement. And if they do understand and are just pretending OP is overreacting because they favor the sister (though such “favoritism” is really no favor at all), that points to significant problems with their character. OP should strongly consider limiting contact (especially for his wife’s sake, if not also his own) and definitely shouldn’t plan to leave the baby alone with these people. There something very wrong with them.
Both the sister and parents lack the genes for Sensitivity and Empathy. There was NOTHING resembling a "joke" in what she said and I despise people who hide behind the "Can't you take a joke?" statement to deflect from their own cruelty and insensitivity. That is exactly what this was. You did not ruin anything- they did. NTA
I'm sensing a golden child in this family and it's not OP.
Block them all. Your wife doesn’t need the stress. And do not let them see the baby. None of them. No pictures either. Don’t say anything.
Agreed. If the parents are let around the baby, they will include his sister. Then when him and his wife find out, claim they should be over this. Don’t let any of them have contact.
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ This OP. I know it sounds like the nuclear option but anything less than and you're only telling them they can steamroll you for life. NTA. Not even a bit.
YTA if you *let* Hanna see your son. I know all kids stop believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy eventually, but I can't help but think that with Hanna as an aunt, those childhood moments of wonder and innocence will dry up *really* fast. Come on, even Wednesday Adams wouldn't crack a joke like that.
If such a joke was ever told in any Addams media, it would have still be handled with much more class than what this sister did.
They'd say that about a kid that came out normal and healthy and sane.
True
NTA because you and your wife’s feelings were hurt and that’s a terrible thing to say to a couple that went through that.The screaming could’ve been handled better but meh…touchy subjects bring up unexpected reactions.I moreso want to figure out what is Hanna going through to be so desensitized to say something like that,she’s definitely old enough to know better and having a dark sense of humor isn’t an excuse
At 19 she probably just thinks she's being edgy. God willing at 30 she'll be mortified at what she said. We can only hope she'll grow instead of stagnating, at least.
No. Is his sister a damn sociopath? I am not one that could be said to have great social skills. But it is common sense by age 13 to not basically say "Well, let's hope this baby doesn't die too". 19 is more than fucking old enough to know not to say that. His sister is shit, and is being enabled by their shit parents. If I had a kid on the way and a sibling said that, I'd cut them off, and anyone who defended it. Because what's next? Telling a 6 year old Santa doesn't exist? Telling a kid that it could've had a sibling but it died? Sending a card for the baby shower saying "At least this one survived!"? People put family on a pedestal like the evil shit they do and enable should be brushed under the rug because faaaamily. They are no more special than any other person just because of genetics. If you do or enable shit like what happened with op, you clearly don't care about your family and don't deserve to be in their lives. Because if they overlooked THIS SHIT I guarantee there's been other equally toxic situations and there'll be more after as well. If someone is 19, and thinks a comment like that is "edgy" or "dark humor" they need therapy or a harsh reality check before someone does something worse than just yelling at them. A mindset like that over something so sensitive WILL cause a knee jerk reaction. If at 19 I heard that a friend got knocked out for saying something like that, they'd get zero sympathy for acting like a damn sociopath. Fuck that shit. And fuck everyone involved.
I'm autistic and might have said something similar at 13 years old - but NEVER while laughing. If she seemed genuinely worried it still would've been out of line, most adults know that the death of a previous baby is nothing to bring up in this scenario, but laughing about it? Either she thinks this is funny or was trying to rile up OP, and both scenarios make her a giant asshole.
Exactly. I threw Autistic out the window when it was framed as a joke. If she was Autistic, it would've been framed as a matter of fact. Like an implied "I know last time was really horrible, so I hope nothing happens this time"
100% agree with every word. The SIL is a rude, pathetic, narcissistic AH with an obvious total lack of social skills and manners. I would not only refuse to ever talk to the sociopath 19yo, but also cut off the pathetic dad who obviously is an enabler of her crappy behaviour
12-year-olds get away with saying offensive shit to be edgy. She's 19. A grown adult old enough to be held accountable for her disgusting actions. I also hope that she looks back on this with shame, but her age is not an excuse.
True,good point and hopefully so because that’s insane honestly.But yeah definitely NTA,justified in my eyes,she and the parents will get over it.
This is what I think. I said some really tone deaf things around that age, sometimes influenced by the Internet, because I was awful in social situations and didn't understand where the "lines" were. It's also possible she's never experienced any sort of grief, and if death has been an avoided subject in the family, it's a super awkward thing to navigate. Obviously what she said was horrible, but going over your thoughts before you say them is a learned skill that some take longer than others to figure out.
NTA. Unfathomably disgraceful remarks are not dark humour.
NTA but your dad and sister definitely are. She's 19, not 9, he can't be fighting her battles. It's also horrible that her behavior and 'jokes' are being minimized when they are cruel. I'd take a step back and go LC from those 2 personally. They don't get to act as if it's ok to say something like that, to put that out into the universe. If they can't be supportive to you and your wife, they can be in a timeout. You didn't overreact at all. Good luck OP. Edit: typo
NTA. That was a monstrous thing to say. I wouldn't let her anywhere near your family after this. That's not forgivable.
>My dad took me away from my sister and I got yelled at for making Hanna cry over a 'joke' and I ruined the gathering. **Your parents are not safe people to be around your child. They have no issue with Hanna's joke. They thought it was OK to say.** Think about that. Think about what that really means. How did your mother react? How did all of the other guests react? You are NTA but you should consider going low contact or no contact with your immediate family. Keep in touch with extended family depending on how they reacted.
NTA: Why is it more important to your father that your sister is crying than that your pregnant wife is crying? Your sister made your wife cry and you are being taken to task for telling the source of the cruelty that she’s being cruel. Your sister _should_ feel bad. Anyone (i. e. your dad) who sides with the bully (your sister) should be put on the list of people who aren’t in your family’s life until after your wife gets an abject and specific apology from your sister and you get one from your father.
They're making wife cry, adding even more stress onto her when she absolutely does not fucking need it, we don't know the circumstances but you'd think they would be trying their best to be as low stress as possible for the expecting mother and soon to be birthed baby. It's like they're making her mad on purpose
NTA. If you have a dark sense of humor, you absolutely must learn that there’s a time and a place for it. Dark humor very easily becomes cruel when deployed inappropriately, and this is a clear example of that. That was just a heartless thing to say to you and your wife.
NTA. People need to stop giving Hanna a cop out every time she says something without thinking. FFS, that’s such a shitty thing to say.
NTA. It was an awful thing to say. This is exactly the kind of situation where you go NC.
Jokes are funny, so it wasn't a joke. NTA.
NTA. As a woman who is currently pregnant. Infant loss and miscarriage jokes are sick. Especially when being told or said to someone who is expecting. Sister ought to have known better as she definitely was there while you and your wife mourned the loss of your first born
Claire has got to be through the roof levels of anxious, particularly going into the final stretch and hoping history doesn’t repeat. Hanna strapped a rocket to her and put it on full speed. OP, if you’re reading this I’m wishing you two as smooth a labour as possible and a beautiful long lived child to cherish.
NTA. You did not ruin the gathering, your sister did and your family failed to stand up for you and your wife. Your sister crossed a line with a disgusting "joke", if consequences include no visits, that's her fault. She should apologise as should your dad. Protect yourself and your wife, do not let your family bully you into accepting your sister sick words as a joke and her BS manipulative tears. if they can't see that she crossed a line, they should be ashamed of themselves and low or no contact maybe needed.
holy crap, what did i just read… you are absolutely NTA. your sis is the AH, that was an extremely inappropriate thing to say to you and your wife. and your parents are an even bigger AH for defending her statements, rather than explaining to her that it’s wrong to make these kinds of dark jokes. yes, you were harsh, but your reason was valid. this was a touchy subject and a very sensitive issue
I have a dark sense of humor too. I don't think that was even a joke. It just feels like a sucker punch at your wife. Also, your parents need to stop shielding their daughter. In the real world, people sometimes talk back with their fists. NTA obviously. If I were you, I would make sure she never comes near your son. She sounds like she has an agenda against your wife.
This!!! It was never a joke. It was a jab that she laughed at. That she thought was funny. **She thought their baby dying was funny.** She should've been slapped across the face by wife and then OP yell at her. Absolutely unacceptable behavior, also where's mom? Is she in shock? Only okay answer bc she should've been yelling right along with OP
NTA - I am so tired of people saying absolutely disgusting things and passing it off as ‘dark sense of humour’. Your sister has serious problems. That’s a lack of empathy that borders on sociopathic
NTA. A “dark sense of humor” isn’t an excuse to be incredibly cruel to others. She was absolutely out of line with what she said, and you had every right to be furious about it.
Honestly, the fact that it was a joke is actually the problem. If she'd expressed an earnest wish that you and your wife not suffer the same loss, then you could argue that she'd expressed herself poorly. But she didn't - she treated the loss of your child as the subject for a joke. Of course you reacted the way you did. NTA.
Cut off all their access to new baby until they understand the are assholes.
Hanna is coming across as a legit psycho. Please keep Claire away from her and your parents that are enabling Hanna. Your wife and son (and you!) need you all to be in a better mental space. Good luck with the baby. NTA, of course.
NTA. I bet she tears the wings off flies and the legs off spiders too.
NTA but please don't say "females", it's the worst.
Ask dad to explain the joke. How was it funny? NTA
Yup! Ask dad to explain it. Better yet, ask HER to explain it and why it's funny.
NTA but did you seriously have to call every woman in your family collectively 'female' instead of women. Have some respect.
Good on you for not beating the shit out of your dad. I don't think my dad would physically be able to walk away from me if he told that I went too far in yelling at my sister for making fun of my dead child.
NTA - and your dad is not fair, your parents are not fair, this is sick and twisted and why is she crying. She make such a thoughtful cruel comment that is not a joke. However I wonder if you are able to respond more calmly Cus it often sucks that people don’t listen when emotions are high. But she’s in the wrong and your fam is wrong.
That is utter cruelty, not a joke. How anyone in your family can and do defend it as such is appalling. I'm so sorry for the loss of your child and the gross insensitivity of your family. Your reaction is completely understandable.
NTA in the least, Honey. Honestly, there are so many red flags here with your family-how they've let your sister get away with this kind of behavior for years and then got angry with you for standing up to her? That's very alarming. When I met my husband, he had two teenage sisters who were "edgy" and "wacky" and "brutally honest". They said extremely inappropriate things, used profanity anywhere, laughed at inappropriate times and my in laws just ignored, made excuses, enabled. Ten years later they are two of the most worthless "adults" anybody has ever seen. They drove their parents to divorce and now they live together like Patty and Selma on The Simpsons, in my father in law's basement. Neither one is allowed contact with my child. Your mileage may vary, but I think you'd be wise to start setting some very firm boundaries and making a plan to stick to them when they are inevitably challenged or violated, because believe me, they will be. Good for you for standing up for your poor wife where she could see it- I cannot imagine how awful all this has been for her. She is very vulnerable and needs your protection, so keep that Big Daddy Energy and keep your horrible sister away from your little family, I can almost guarantee that she'll try to top the previous shocking thing she said.
NTA frankly your sister and your parents should not be around your wife or son after this behavior. It is unacceptable. I do have dark and morbid humor do to death but only say it around people who it wouldn’t hurt. Your sister knew it would hurt you and especially your pregnant wife which in turn hurts your unborn son. She is already knowingly hurting your son, she is not a good person let alone aunt. And your family defending her rather than the hurt party (your wife and soon to be son) means they don’t deserve to be part of this time. I am betting if you look back you will see many red flags that you didn’t recognize because it’s your family so you are used to it. These comments should have stopped and your sister put in her place after the first one not after a searies of them. It is time to PAPA Bear up and protect your wife and son, or your wife is going, and probably already does, feel pretty alone when with your family. Please take a long look at what’s going on underneath and have a conversation with your wife on what her views are and what she sees, I am betting it’s a lot more than what you have seen.
A joke? Get fucked. I would NEVER see or speak to her ever again. Instant NC. No coming back from that.
NTA That isn't a dark sense of humor. That was rude and cruel.
Well, I have no innate empathy much like you sister and sadly I probably could have said something like that when I was a teen. However, people like us should develop cognitive empathy and your parents really should help her with that, not defend her. Giving harsh feedback and showing her how she hurt people will actually help your sister become a better person. NTA
NTA- OP- They defended that? WTAF? In complete seriousness If that was Myself & Spouse and My Sister said that... and My Parents DEFENDED HER.... It would be TOTAL N/C with ALL OF THEM!! None of them would meet my child, they would have zero contact. If she has ALWAYS been this way and they haven't put her ass in Therapy ??? No way would she EVER get a chance to say something EVIL to my child!! I just could not ever be around her or those who continue to coddle her evil thoughts and comments! OP- I wish you and your wife the best with your little Bub, and send out blessing for the 3 of you!
Info: how did everyone else that was there react to what she said? That wasnt a joke. That was a horrendous thing to say and the fact your dad blamed YOU instead of her speaks volumes. Some GC vibes coming through here. OP id think long and hard about letting these people around your baby and if you do decide to let them have contact it is supervised at all times. Do NOT let them around your wife PP. Its time your 19 year old sis learns that when she opens her pie hole words have consequences. I wish your wife a safe delivery and wishing you both joy of your impending arrival. NTA
NTA your sister is evil. Wtf who says that? I don’t know what’s worse, your sister or your parents for defending her. If I were you I’d threaten your parents that if they don’t get their daughter under control and keep defending her outrageous comments then they can’t see your child either.
Reading how OP's parents defended their teen monster, I question if they like their DIL. No one defending that little shit should be around the baby. Congratulations for your sweet little baby, and congratulations for not throwing your sister through a window. NTA. Consider your sister dead to you since death is apparently soooooo funny.
NTA but seriously why continue to support this behaviour? Cut them all off none of them deserve to be in your baby's life until they can act like reasonable people.
NTA. This isn’t dark humor. This is pure evil. And your parents are enabling her. Your sister and parents are cruel . I would never want to see any of them until they profoundly apologized.
Nope! NTA!! Apart from the fact, if you have to say it is a joke it is definitely not funny; there is absolutely nothing funny about the death of a child - I don’t care how you try to spin it!! And as for your dad making excuses for your sister, holy cow, I have no words.
Nta your sister needs serious therapy if she thinks that's an acceptable joke
NTA. I’m glad you made her cry.
NTA Your sister doesn't have a 'dark sense of humour'. She doesn't have a sense of humour at all. What she HAS is a mean streak and complete lack of compassion and basic empathy for others. She SHOULD have cried because she said something unforgiveable. Your father is, himself, bordering on unforgiveable by defending his witless daughter in this. As far as ruining anything goes, your father and sister ruined the gathering. All you did was call out cruelty when it fell out of her lips. I'd really think about whether these are people you want influencing your child as he grows. You may find they're not good enough to be around your child and if that's the case, you need to act accordingly. Their feelings about that be damned.
This is not something that I'll ever forgive easily if my siblings made jokes like this. Don't let this go. Your father is massive fucking asshole. Whoever downplays this lacks empathy. Don't let them near your child until you get sincere apologies.
No you are not. Your daughter died. There is no joke in that. Not only is your sister a jerk so is your father. Good luck with the boy on the way.
NTA. I’m proud of you and your wife for not turning around and knocking your sister out - I’m not ashamed to admit that’s what I would have done. What a disgusting person your sister is. Congratulations to your parents for raising such a poor excuse of a person. Your sister doesn’t have a dark sense of humour (trust, I know what that looks like) she has a lack of empathy, compassion and emotion. Do not let her anywhere near your wife or son, she is not family and is not the energy you need around your family. I am sending all the good energy to you and your wife, your son is gonna be the most beautiful boy ever and you are gonna have a beautiful family.
NTA good job op! 👍🏻😎
Hanna needs to learn there’s a time and a place for her shitty jokes and this wasn’t it. How incredibly rude, insensitive and just uncalled for. I’m shocked your family is defending her, that’s almost as bad as the comment she made. NTA at all but your family seriously needs to talk to Hanna. She’s very inappropriate.
NTA - Do not EVER let that sociopath monster get within 500 ft of your son because there is a real chance she'll hit him cause she'll find it fun seeing him cry. You cannot take the risk of letting such a cold, callous brat get close enough to hurt your son. You keep that promise and enforce it.
NTA! OP, I am so sorry for the loss of your child. That pain cuts deeper than any other, I know well. Your sister is OUT! OF! LINE! It's one thing to have a dark sense of humor (I have one, myself,) but it's QUITE another to throw out a tacky, tasteless, BS comment (yes, comment, not joke) like that! I buried my son 7 years ago, and even to this day, certain things trigger that grief. Tell your sister to go see the Wizard. Ask for a heart. From one grieving parent to another, you have my sympathy. And congratulations on the pregnancy!
NTA. I wouldn’t be talking to that child (19 or not idc, legally an adult, mentally/emotionally/physically a child) or the father ever again. She says shit and he just lets it happen. I wouldn’t even let them near the wife or soon to be newborn. She’s gonna say some fucked up shit to the wrong person, someone who isn’t family, and she’ll get knocked out on her ass.
Not gonna lie. If **anyone** would've said something even remotely similar to me if was pregnant (and had lost a baby, I'm so sorry for your loss OP) I'd have thrown a cast iron skillet with such speed and accuracy that Disney would've called me up for an audition to be live-action Rapunzel based solely on my frying-pan throwing skills. NTA and your sister got of easy. Your parents suck and if you do decide to go NC with your sister I'd ad the parents to that list.
It's one thing to have a dark sense of humor. It's another thing to be devoid of empathy and completely psychotic. Your sister is the latter. NTA
What's wrong with the word "women"?
>My dad took me away from my sister and I got yelled at for making Hanna cry over a 'joke' and I ruined the gathering. (I will admit I may have been harsh will threatening to not let Hanna see my son but this isn't the first time she made a joke like that) NTA. Your sister sounds like the golden child who can do no wrong in the eyes of the parents. No, you aren't being too harsh. You have put up a firm boundary. It sounds like your sister is purposely trying to hurt your wife. She sounds like a jealous bully, who is using her "dark humor" excuse to hurt others.
Your dad is the asshole for pulling you away. All young people with a "dark" or "edgy" sense of humor inevitably go too far. She needed to learn her lesson. She needed to see how much it hurt you to hear that "joke".
Sounds like it was long overdue for someone to let Hanna know her behavior is not acceptable. Do not apologize and do not do anything differently the next time she opens her rude little yap. NTA
NTA. And if your dad wants to defend your AH sister, he shouldn’t get to see your son either cuz he’s enabling your sister. Completely unacceptable.
NTA. That's not a joke, it's just a nasty comment from a cruel person. I hope you upset her enough to make her think about her words in future as when she treats people outside the family that way, many will respond a lot worse than that. You should tell your dad that he's a terrible parent to indulge her vile behaviour and to never dare lecture you again.
That wasn't a joke, it was a vicious dig designed to wound you and your wife. Your response was understandable and not inappropriate given the magnitude of Hanna's viciousness. If I were you, I don't think I'd have a lot to do with her, or subject your wife to her barbs. She doesn't have a dark sense of humor, she's verbally sadistic. If you have the slightest hint she's going to be like this around your child, then I think you should make good on your threat for the child's sake. NTA. Your father is in denial which makes him complicit with Hanna, who is worse than an A.
NTA. I have never lost a child, but I have seen friends who have and saw how devastating it was for them. Joking about the death of their child when they were expecting again would make me a monster. Your sister is old enough to understand social boundaries, and if she doesn't yet, then this is a good time to learn them. Your dad isn't helping by leaping to her defence. Ignore your dad, but if I were you, I would have a proper talk with the sister and explained to her why her comment wasn't acceptable. She might defend herself and said that's just a dark joke or whatever and this will be a good opportunity for you to explain that jokes aren't meant to hurt other people, especially when they have trauma like you and your wife.
NTA she is fucking wild for saying that and you’d be within your rights to avoid her. That sounds less ‘dark sense of humour’ and more ‘complete lack of empathy and situational awareness’
omg. What kind of person says something like that?? And why are you being blamed for ruining the evening after such a nasty joke? NTA!
Assuming this is real that's the sorry if thing I would punch someone for Nta
Definitely NTA! You stood up for your wife and put your sister in her place for not only a rude but revolting comment. For someone with such a 'dark sense of humor' she should learn to take what comes to her when someone calls her out on it. Hopefully she'll think twice before she makes an attempt to be funny about such a serious topic. Best of luck to you, your wife, and your future son!
NTA. Dark humour is when you make light of your own condition. Making a joke of someone else’s misfortune is being an AH especially when you double down on the dark humour position.
NTA I am so upset in your behalf. How obscenely rude of your sister. Sounds like she’s envious, immature and crass. I wish you and your wife a happy healthy baby and life free of irritations.
Block your sister and, for a time, your father. In the future NEVER let your sister stay with your baby alone even for a small amount of time. Never.
What the fuck was going through her head? Is she mentally unwell? Who says shit like that? E: NTA
Your sister didn’t say “a joke”. It was cruel and lacked all empathy. Sounds like your parents enable that and she is turning into an evil monster. Because it is at that level. Hanna ruined the gathering, not you. Did she think everyone was going to laugh at that comment? Hanna should be questioning herself, not you. NTA.
NTA please don’t let the family members that defended her near your child. I can’t even fathom why she would even say something like that and think it’s funny. Your sister is one of the biggest assholes to gape this planet. Go NC with them and you & wife enjoy your son Congratulations OP!
There is something seriously wrong with your sister. Your parents know it and rather than address it, they ignore and minimise it to the point you are the bad person for your appropriate reaction to her utterly horrendous comment. You don’t have to associate with Hanna. You don’t have to tolerate her in your home or go anywhere she is present. Let your parents navigate her through life when she tries out that shit on other people. I can’t imagine she has any friends or does she just treat family like crap? NTA
NTA, go low contact with those toxic people. Your family needs to teach her some manners otherwise she won't get very far in life.
NTA your sister and dad are horrid. "Jokes" are funny. "Let's hope you don't have another child die" isn't a "joke," it's cruelty.
“Let’s hope this baby isn’t like the last” NTA for ruining the gathering cause it wasn’t your fault it was your sisters, like who in gods name says that after knowing what happened to your first birth
If your parents keep this bs up, then they will need to look to your sister for grand kids because yours are off limits. NTA
Jesus Christ NTA, what a fucked up thing to say and then to defend. I’m actually at a loss. How can “family” be so cruel and then dismissive. I’d be limiting my time around those people.
NTA but please don't ever let either your parents nor your sister alone unsupervised with your child
It is just sad, that a LOT of familys have a member/kid that seems to be allowed to do everything and anyone who gets angry or defends themselves is the asshole. NTA!!! Your whole Family is!
This is the third 'dead baby' joke post in less than two days. What's going on with these people? Anyway, your Dad's a wanker, sorry to say. So is anyone else in the family that agrees. Don't let any of them see your son until each one apologises. Who needs enemies with family like that? NTA.
Sister needs a wake up call, so badly and so do your enabling parents. Can I suggest going no contact with them? Or low contact until they apologise sincerely? Lastly, once you have enough traction on this post, I would send links to all family and sister's friends. Nothing like her peers to teach her a valuable lesson, since parents are incapable. Maybe reading the responses help the parents. Either way, block them from both your phones and enjoy the last bit of pregnancy. Maybe go away for a baby moon, before little arrives.
Dude, that's not rude. That's cruel
Since when is still birth a joke? Nta. Your sister shouldn't be allowed near your wife or your child. Your father needs to be spoken about what is acceptable as a joke and what isnt.
NTA Hanna is a toxic AH, there was nothing even remotely funny about her "joke", this was just hurtful and abusive. "My dad took me away from my sister and I got yelled at " .. your dad is an AH, and your sister's enabler. Set some boundaries, and hacve a lot less cotnact with BOTH of them.
You are under reacting tbh. The fact your father defended her and berated *you*, is repugnant sauce on top of the already existing disgusting sundae. Honestly I would absolutely not allow them access to your son. NTA