Woman Posting Message About Loving Her New Daughter Forced To Delete It Because She's 'Not Her Actual Mom'
People think she is being insensitive toward the birth mother.
@shelbysevierr / TikTok A woman on TikTok was slammed after she posted what was intended to be a sweet tribute to her family and how they came to be.
Many people believe that she is overstepping boundaries and being insensitive toward her stepdaughter’s biological mother, who passed away before her daughter could even remember her.
The woman paid tribute to her husband’s first wife, who died in childbirth, thanking her for ‘her’ daughter.
In the now-deleted TikTok video, Shelby Sevierr shares the bittersweet story of how her forever family began.
Shelby met her husband Steve just a few weeks after his wife, Brooke, died in childbirth with their first child, Savannah.
She begins her video by sharing a photo of Brooke while she was pregnant with her daughter. “That is my daughter in that cute belly, but this isn’t me,” Shelby wrote in a textbox over the video.
“This is Brooke, she’s our daughter’s mother.”
She reveals that Brooke and Steve were married for four years before her sudden death. In a now-deleted comment, Shelby reveals that she met Steve before his wife's death — at the woman's baby shower.
Shelby revealed that she attended the shower because "My best friend is his best friend's little sister."
Shelby shared of the first time she met Savannah, who did not look older than a couple of months old.
She claims that her bond with little Savannah quickly grew stronger after meeting Steve. “We hung out all the time while Daddy worked,” she shares.
She also praises Steve’s parenting skills, and says that “he learned how to be the best dad while grieving his wife.”
“We fell in love pretty quickly despite everything going on around us,” she adds.
A few months later, Shelby and Steve got married and had what she calls “the most fun wedding of all time.”
“Most people thought it was too quick…we did it anyways,” she shares.
After tying the knot, the two welcomed two more children, a son Bennett in 2020 and a son Cameron in 2021.
“They don’t make it easy but they sure are worth it,” Shelby says of her children.
Although the video was meant to be an enchanting recollection of how her family started, the mother was met with harsh reactions from other TikTok users.
People bashed Shelby for appearing insensitive toward her husband’s late wife who gave birth to her stepdaughter.
“She captioned the first picture like Brooke was a surrogate. So many of us thought that when we first saw the video,” one user pointed out.
“It feels like she made it out to seem like Brooke the birth mother had to die in order for her to have a happy ending it was so weird to me,” another user wrote.
One TikTok user responded to Shelby’s video with one of her own.
“The way I would claw my way out of the grave if I died during childbirth and my husband moved on a few weeks later and married a woman who reduced me to an incubator and referred to me as “our daughter’s mother,” the user shared.
While we are sure that Shelby had nothing but good intentions in sharing her story, it seemed to rub people the wrong way.
Others were concerned about the timeline of Shelby and Steve’s relationship and believed he moved on too fast.
“I’m sorry but the picture of you meeting her [Savannah]... she’s no more than four months, my husband better not be looking for a new girl four months after I die,” one user commented.
“I’d want my husband to find happiness again but give me at least a year or two before you start again,” another user admitted.
However, other users defended Shelby, pointing out that her heart was in the right place and praising her for attempting to honor her daughter's mom.
The reality is, there is no perfect way to move on after the death of a spouse. Dr. Zoe Shaw, a psychotherapist, life coach and relationship expert, tells YourTango that people often battle feelings of guilt and shame when dating after the death of their spouse.
If Steve or Shelby are feeling, or have ever felt, that emotion, they don't need the entire internet adding to it!
"It’s not about having a replacement. Your new love is unique and can’t compete with a memory," Shaw says about dating after the death of a partner.
What you really love is the memory of your spouse, the life you had with them in the past. Now, you are loving the life you are experiencing with your new love and what you are looking forward to in the future. You will forever love that memory and a part of you will forever grieve that loss and my guess is that in some way, that's a comfort to you and you wouldn’t want to lose that part."
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.