Internet slams mom refusing to attend daughter’s lizard’s gender reveal party

A mom has been slammed online after refusing to attend the gender reveal party for her daughter’s lizard, claiming it’s “ridiculous.”

She took to Reddit’s popular Am I The A**hole forum, where she explained the entire situation, under username ApprehensiveFix3425, revealing her daughter didn’t have, and didn’t want, children.

The mom claimed she was “supportive” of the decision, and says her daughter bought a blue tongue skink lizard, who she jokingly refers to “as her daughter.”

ApprehensiveFix3425 wrote: “I’ve found it weird but she says it’s because it’s the closest thing she’d have to a child and she feels a strong emotional bond similar to a child.”

After taking the skink to the vet she discovered its gender, so decided to throw a reveal party, saying her daughter had said it was “mostly a joke” and an excuse to get together with some friends.

But the single mom wasn’t impressed and declined the invite, despite not seeing her daughter for three months, saying: “It’s just a lizard and I’m a busy person.”

Her daughter phoned her, upset she didn’t show, with ApprehensiveFix3425 writing: “I told her she couldn’t actually expect me to come to a gender reveal for a lizard.

“She said that it wasn’t a real gender reveal, that was more of a joke and it was really just a small gathering to catch up with everyone.

“I told her if that was the case she should’ve just called it a gathering because I’m not coming to a gender reveal unless it’s for a real grand daughter.”

That struck a nerve, with her daughter accusing her of not being supportive of her life choices.

She continued: “I told her she can’t possibly expect me to treat a lizard as a grand daughter, she said she didn’t expect me too but it was clear I didn’t respect her bond with her lizard and her decision, and she just wanted to see me and my reason for coming was hurtful.

“I told her she was being ridiculous over a lizard, she claimed it wasn’t over the lizard and it was a gathering and not even centered around the lizard, but I stick by to what I said. It’s ridiculous to have a gender reveal for a lizard.”

Since being posted on Tuesday, the post has amassed more than 16,000 upvotes, as the mom added an update to clarify a few points.

She confirmed the lizard was a girl, called Ellie, adding: “My issue is that she said the party was a gender reveal, if she had called it just a party I would have come. But calling it a gender reveal makes it sound like it’s for the lizard, and I’m not going to that even if it is a ‘joke.'”

Although she claimed, while being supportive of her daughter’s decision not to have kids, she’s admitted showing “mild frustration.”

“I just didn’t want to go to a party with a lizard, and if it wasn’t for the lizard she should’ve called it a party instead of a gender reveal,” she added.

In the comments she claimed her daughter seemingly went all out, saying: “She bought a cake that says ‘It’s a girl’ and popped a pink sparkly glitter popper too, which I think is ridiculous, the lizard can’t appreciate or love this, it can’t even feel emotions.”

And the mom revealed her true feelings for Ellie, venting: “I will be honest I don’t have any particular feelings for the lizard. I think it looks like a snake and that freaks me out, and it is incapable of feeling emotions so I don’t know why she feels a bond with it.

“She even named it Ellie, a human name, so she can tell people ‘I have to get home to Ellie’ so she can act like she’s busy with a kid at home which I believe is an unhealthy way to cope with her social anxiety, she should learn to get comfortable with saying no instead of using a lizard as an excuse to neglect social obligations.”

But people claimed the mom was in the wrong, with Cake_agent2101 saying: “Yep. She is completely bitter that her daughter isn’t going to ‘give’ her grandkids.”

Tracy27 wrote: “Yeah, after it was clear that the ‘gender reveal’ was just a fun pretext for seeing human faces she loves, you became a true blue AH for continuing to be pedantic and petty about it just to punish her for not using her uterus as your dream factory. Get. Over. Your. Damned. Self. OP.”

Gnr_27 joked: “The word grandchild should be commonly replaced with grandlizard tbh.”

While Azh88 added: “Literally, it was obvious ops daughter just wanted to see her and then she flipped it and said the lizard isn’t her granddaughter.”

Newsweek reached out to ApprehensiveFix3425 for comment.

So far this year at least four people have lost their lives at such events, with two pilots dying in March in Cancun. They were flying a plane revealing the baby’s sex when the aircraft nosedived into the sea.

In March, Demetris Johnson, 21, attended a gender reveal party for a friend in Washington D.C. when someone opened fire and killed him.

While in February, dad-to-be Christopher Pekny, 28, is reported to have been assembling a device to be used in the grand reveal, when it detonated, killing him.