They say grief gifts are a minefield, but one Reddit user says her sister-in-law decided to walk into the middle of it holding a very distasteful doll.
Posting from a throwaway account on AITA, a subreddit where users submit their conflicts for a verdict on who was actually in the wrong, the woman wrote that she and her husband lost one of their twin sons at 6 months old, less than two months earlier. She and her sister-in-law had been close before it happened, and she says she never doubted her love for their deceased child.
Flash forward to the mother-in-law’s birthday party, which was a small gathering of immediate family. Partway through, the sister-in-law stood and gave a short speech about holding your children close, because you never know when the last time will be. Then she brought out a reborn doll, a kind of hyper-realistic creation that is sometimes given to grieving parents.
The original poster claims the baby doll was made to resemble her son, down to a single painted toenail, which is apparently a trick she employed to tell her twins apart. “She handed me the doll and basically said, ‘So you can have both your babies,’” she wrote.
Suffice it to say, the person was utterly shocked and at a loss for words. She didn’t want to cause a scene, so she took the doll then. Afterward, she pulled her sister-in-law aside and told her the gesture was deeply upsetting. That conversation went the way these conversations usually go, with the sister-in-law getting made and saying: “You think I’m trying to be funny?” or “You think I didn’t love my nephew?”
The aftermath and what the internet thinks
It’s worth bearing in mind that we can’t independently verify whether this story really happened, but per the OP, the doll stayed at the house, and she wrote about what she was feeling at that moment. “I know she was trying to do something for me,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that receiving a realistic doll that looks like my dead baby in front of my entire family, during a speech about losing children, was extremely upsetting to me.”
Reddit couldn’t help but agree. The most liked comment, with more than 17k likes, reads: “NTA, I’d have reacted more strongly to be honest. Very weird.”
One person asked: “Where is your husband in all of this?” And the OP wrote: “Quiet as can be.”
“I get that reborn dolls can be therapeutic for some people, but this is a gift that needs to be talked through with the mother, not just dumped on her as a surprise,” one user added.
“Those dolls are incredibly lifelike and many people find them deeply creepy,” another comment read.
The thread has so far garnered more than 1.7k replies, so it’s safe to say the internet has opinions about reborn dolls.
Published: Sep 10, 2026 02:15 pm