Sons as fathers - so chuffin’ chuffed

[Grandtanny]

Am just going to shout this here to save me boring the bejesus out of everyone. Darling grandson is two months today and my boy has been such a fabulous father and partner. Chuffin’ delighted.

He has been a major arse at sometimes in his life and for a while was a bit muscles and men’s rights then here he is a father to his partner’s first girl and to their baby. and here he is their biggest supporter and the most hands on father and household load carrier. He was already doing so well
with the first role but parenting a cheerful 6 year old is easy compared to a baby. His mates are mainly at uni and he has embraced grown up life instead but for him it seems such a great choice. Two kids at 20 - nearly 21- seems pretty retro but wow it has been a pleasure watching him and his beautiful family over the past few months.

I said the same thing but my comment was deleted and I was told I was mean 🤷🏻‍♀️

The bar is so low - he’s looking after his children and cooking/cleaning his house. Would there be the same post written about a daughter? Doubt it.

Yeah no way would someone say this about their daughter.

Maybe you phrased it in a certain way that sounded too personal? As to why it got deleted?

This. My MIL found my STBExH ironing his own shirt 14 years ago, and she's been singing his praises ever since. He's an arse though.

Gawd I know. My own mum admits her standards for women are in the sky and for men they're closer to the gutter!

Indeed! Both my mother and MIL were beside themselves in awe when STBExH "babysat" our DCs when I went out once in 2009.

No such plaudits for all the times I "babysat" our own DCs I notice.

One of my good friends had her first at 18 and she's the best mum I know. Glad your son is doing so well and finding joy in stepping up as a father.

MN is an odd place.

if a woman - a SM - said she didn’t want to take her DSC somewhere she’d be absolutely told that that child isn’t her responsibility and the father needs to step up.

Here you have a 20yo who’s had difficult phases in lie taking his DSD to a class alongside his newborn so the mum can rest - and yet that’s still nothing special.

Perhaps he should have forced his sleep deprived DP up and out of bed to take her DD to the class and he sat at home having newborn cuddles?

and no, fathers parenting is t something special as such as it’s expected of woman. But if we want a more equal split we need to positively recognise it when it happens.

I’m glad he’s stepping up but my goodness, 2 kids at 20, it’s so young. I’d be devastated if my son had chosen that life at 20

Well @Grandtanny it seems like you had to create a survey to include the 'partner' and all of MN before you could be proud of your son. Guess you know for next time!

ffs

Oh op it’s a lovely feeling isn’t it. To see our sons become good fathers. I had a real proud moment last night watching my son cheering on his dd at a sporting event. He’s always been very hands on. From birth everything is 50/50 with him and his lovely wife. He always wanted to be a very involved father. When our granddaughter won her event she immediately scanned the crowd and ran straight to him.

congratulations grandma x

When I was a six year old I wanted to be a unicorn. Concerning ambition for an adult to have. Basically normal for a six year old. Many (not all) 14/15 year old boys go through phases where they think it's cool/aspirational to have lots of money and be able to wave notes around, get really excited about fast expensive cars, look up to physically strong or athletic men and want to be them. None of those things are bad in themselves but normally maturing is tempering that with other things. Eg it's nice to have money but other things matter too and it isn't a good idea to hero worship people just because they have money. But as a phase its normal. As is feeling that your parents don't understand you/anything, thinking teachers are out to get you, having a very black and white view of justice etc.
Of course, if people were targeting six year olds by telling them it was feminisms/women's fault they couldn't be unicorns and making money selling scammy "how to unlock your inner unicorn" courses that would be a concern. Likewise teenage boys wanting to find their place in the world as they learn about it are quite vulnerable to people that want to steer them in a certain way. But a teenage boy going through a "muscles and mens rights" phase and coming out the other side of it reasonably normal is not a concern.

One of them is his step daughter.

He’s hardly had time to come out the other end though.

Everything is still new and exciting two months in but it will be interesting to see whether he is going to manage as the child gets older. Having to play daddy to two children at his age isn’t a exactly a guarantee of stability

Which complicates things even more.

Is he going to adopt the older one? Or is he playing daddy while he’s with the mother? It takes a very exceptional 20 yo to be ‘daddy’ to two children.

I'm chuffing chuffed that you're chuffing chuffed!

You've obviously raised him well! 😘

Fair enough. I don't even know at what point you can categorically say someone has been a good father/mother job done. Possibly the OP is at that stage herself seeing the son she raised now making a good start at parenthood. But of course it takes more than a few months to really prove yourself as a father. However he has started well and the OP can and should feel proud of him.
My point about coming out the other end is to the other poster suggesting he was a deeply worrying sort because he had been into muscles and mens rights briefly as a teen. Rather than to say he had definitely proven himself as a Good Man for all time.

I agree with the PP that it isn’t good that he was into that though. He’s barely out of his teens so it’s not like he’s had time to mature and distance himself from that attitude.

I don’t know how long they have been together but I would find it worrying that someone is happy for a 20yo to be ‘daddy’ to her child and have a baby with him. I also hope for the older child’s sake that he’s not one of a number of ‘daddies’ who have come into her life.

Dimming someone elses light doesn't make yours burn brighter.

Good point.

So what? Big mistake, especially for someone who’s only just out of a ‘muscles and misogyny’ Andrew Tate phase. He’s not a grown up, and he’s not making grownup choices — and children are spectacularly bad parents.

Not even a stepdaughter, she's his girlfriends child.

They live together, and he’s helping to raise her- don’t split hairs.

Agreed. But setting the bar so low as to celebrate a man of his age having a baby and playing ‘daddy’ to a child who is old enough to bond with him, because he is no longer in the manosphere is just depressing.

Lovely post OP. He sounds like a great young man. Having a Mum who believes in him helps a lot, I'd hate to think of how some of the posters here are raising sons, a negative bias towards a kid based on something as fundamental as your sex is hard to overcome.

Not every thread needs a comment. Especially when it rains on someone’s parade