A WOMAN has told her condescending sister what she thought of the "Ivy League" names she picked for her twin boys.
She said the monikers were ridiculous and were only going to put the twins under a lot of pressure, and now her sister is giving her the cold shoulder.
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Now, as a result of her opinion-sharing, she has been uninvited from her sister's wedding.
Her brother said she should have just kept her mouth shut.
Therefore, the debacle has led to some self-reflection and she worried that she over-reacted.
She appealed to the online forum Reddit in an attempt to garner support and some understanding of her situation.
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"Am I the a**hole for not keeping my thoughts on my sister’s ridiculous baby names to myself?" she asked.
First, she gave some background to the whole family dynamic.
"I’m the youngest of three siblings. There’s me, my sister Katie, and my brother Ian.
"Out of the three of us, Katie is the one who 'made it' (her words)."
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Kate's trajectory was pure Ivy League: "She attended Yale Law School and is engaged to a neurosurgeon who attended Stanford medical school."
There was a sense that academic Kate looked down on her siblings over the years, even though they have been successful in their own right, running a long-standing family business.
"Katie looks down on me and Ian because we aren’t as ambitious/successful/credentialed as she is.
"Katie has expressed her astonishment that the family business is profitable even though someone who got Cs in high school and never went to college (aka me) has been running the day-to-day operations for 10+ years."
The announcement of Kate's pregnancy marked a turning of events when the couple revealed the names of their twin boys - Stanford and Yale.
Concerned about the repercussions such names would have on the boys, she had to speak up.
"I [said] it wasn’t right to give the boys ridiculous names that would put them under immense pressure to succeed from a very young age."
Kate was far from pleased with her sister's intervention.
"Consider yourself uninvited from our wedding until you sincerely apologize," was her response.
Now she was concerned that she should never have spoken out.
There were 3,500 comments on her post and the universal response was one of incredulity.
“I would have a HARD time forgiving my parents if they named me Stanford or Yale," said one person.
Another said it was a big no-no to their name choice: “Parents should be steered away from giving their children highly bully-able names.”
Several commenters suggested the boys might rebel: "I hope Stanford and Yale become tradespeople just to p**s off mom."
This Redditor was distinctly unimpressed: "This lady and her husband sound like name-dropping pretentious a**holes.
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"I’m sure the main reason for naming their kids that is so every time they introduce their kids to people they can say, 'This is Stanford and Yale, you know since my husband went to Stanford, and I went to Yale and we have such fond memories.'”
But one more person expressed gratitude: "It's actually a nice thing for her to do because it would alert me that I need to exit that conversation and walk away from her."
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