DS's girlfriend is pregnant

[vorladung]

I've name changed

My DS has just turned 20. His girlfriend is 28 and she has an almost 8 yearold son. They've been together for just over a year and half. When they got together I was a bit but I never told DS and I always supported their relationship and supported him helping his girlfriend bring her son up (his biological dad isn't involved). He now lives with her and her son.

Today he came around and told me that she's about 18 weeks pregnant, I was very shocked but I was supportive and he told me he didn't tell me earlier because he needed to get his head around it but now he's happy and so is his girlfriend.

I feel a bit sad as well as he's only 20 and he's already got a family but I'm also proud of him because he's helping to bring up another mans child.

I just feel terrible for being sad as I should be happy for them.

[drpet49]

* So she was 26, with a 6 year old child, and she started a relationship with an 18 year old?*

^This. Red flags all around. Imagine the gender roles were reserved.

Your son is trapped now and stuck with them both. I would be absolutely gutted.

[drpet49]

Would also tell your son to get a DNA test.

[LittleBlackCat22]

Where I’m from 20 is a perfectly normal age to start having kids. I had my first at 20, he will be fine.

[SuperMonkeys]

I would be looking askance at the partner for sure.

[fourminutestosavetheworld]

@LittleBlackCat22

Where I’m from 20 is a perfectly normal age to start having kids. I had my first at 20, he will be fine.

Normal if you're with another 20yo and it's planned.

Less so when the 18yo starts dating a 26yo mother who already has a school-age child.

It sounds like she wanted to lock him down, give her first child a sibling and delay full time work for a bit longer.

He was stupid to stop using condoms.

But it's done now and you've no choice but to be supportive, especially in a few years when he's raising a teenager and a pre-schooler.

[Iwonder08]

I pray for male contraceptive implants to be invented soon. And all the posters saying how normal it is to have children at 20..it is not normal or desirable to be trapped in parenthood at 20 with 1 unplanned child and one pre teen who is not your own. And a grown woman with a child in her late 20s starting relationship with 18 yo is also not normal

[DansMaPoche]

I pray for male contraceptive implants to be invented soon.

Me too. Obviously women would still need to take their own precautions as no-one should leave it to trust that that someone else is protecting them from pregnancy, unless they are prepared to accept the consequences of lies, tricks, accidents and genuine BC failures.

But that's the precarious situation men have been putting themselves in since the pill was invented. The sooner both the man AND the woman in every sex scenario are expected to take full responsibility for their own birth control the better. The 'unplanned' and accidental birth rate (especially to parents who are not even in a proper relationship) would drop like a stone.

[MarieG10]

It is sad because at 20 he should be doing things that 20 year olds do..starting to establish career, holidays, different relationships.etc a d he is now tied down and bringing up a child that isn't his. But he has equal responsibility for her being pregnant.

I'm just glad that we drilled it into our DS..condoms, condoms, and more condoms. Not just as contraception but protection. I think his fairly long standing GF parents did the same as she is also on the pill. They are both balanced youngsters working hard to establish careers and enjoying themselves.

[Onairjunkie]

@workshy44

I would be devastated too op- it’s just so very young and his life will look very different now. It’s not all doom and gloom but certainly not something to aspire too or what any parent would realistically want. Father of two at 20. All you can do is support him

Yes. This.

[QuimKardashian]

There is no cookie cutter way of life these days. They are both adults. Maybe he targeted her as getting out of home and into her home. Jesus let them be and be excited about the birth of a new baby! How wonderful!!

[Imapotato]

Some one I went to school with is now with a guy who is 22. She’s almost 36 and has 2 children by 2 other men aged 17 and 9.
They’ve been together since he was 20 and have a 1 year old together.

I mean, I can’t say it would be my choice to be with a man in his early 20s, I can’t see what they have in common, but tbh they seem happy enough and it doesn’t seem like he’s being exploited like so many posters on here are suggesting OPs son is 🤷‍♀️

At the end of the day he is an adult and can make his own choices. Those people shouting about exploitation and being predatory need to behave themselves.

[Briarshollow]

I’d be curious to know if this was unplanned, planned by at least one member of this relationship, or if they were both privy to it. The fact that he ‘needed to get his head round it suggested it was unplanned, at least by him.

Why does she only work part time in term time? Is he the breadwinner supporting all three of them in the main?

I wouldn’t be so suspicious of her but I know a woman who got together with a much younger man, he was overwhelmed by her as she’s very beautiful, and within a year she was pregnant with the sibling she wanted for her first child. She was so desperate for that child that she behaved in a very questionable manner in my opinion. She now treats him like shit but that’s a different story.

[EishetChayil]

If he was my son I would be bloody proud of him.

Not everyone wants to spunk their 20s away accruing debt and catching STDs!

[YellowFish12]

The pregnancy sounds careless at best… and I would be extremely sad for DS but you obviously can’t say anything. You’ll have to act happy in front of them both.

[IrishMumInLondon2020]

How awful. Can’t blame you for feeling like this.

[SofiaMichelle]

@EishetChayil

Not everyone wants to spunk their 20s away accruing debt and catching STDs!

Is that really the only alternative?

Shack up with an older mother when you're a teenager, or 'spunk your 20s away getting into debt and catching STDs'?

I honestly thought there were other ways to live.

[Conchitastrawberry]

I’d be devastated too. He’s so young. Not the life you’d dreamed of for him.

What’s done is done though, I’m sure he’ll make a lovely dad. X

[MarshmallowAra]

I also think the girlfriend is strange, sorry. At 28 with a child the thought of being with a 20 year old would make me boak.

I agree, if the sexes were reversed we'd be thinking grooming/predatory/exploitative.
You get the feeling she's gotten pregnant to try to lock him into the relationship/situation.

[spittycup]

It is sad because at 20 he should be doing things that 20 year olds do..starting to establish career, holidays, different relationships.etc a d he is now tied down and bringing up a child that isn't his. But he has equal responsibility for her being pregnant.

---

He can still do all that. All thus 'he can't live now' is so patronising to anyone who had kids young.

Especially when he is the father, not the mother. He will be fine fgs

[Conchitastrawberry]

@LittleBlackCat22

Where I’m from 20 is a perfectly normal age to start having kids. I had my first at 20, he will be fine.

Really? I find this hard to believe! I only have one friend who had a baby “young” and she was 23!

[MarshmallowAra]

[quote SofiaMichelle]@EishetChayil

Not everyone wants to spunk their 20s away accruing debt and catching STDs!

Is that really the only alternative?

Shack up with an older mother when you're a teenager, or 'spunk your 20s away getting into debt and catching STDs'?

I honestly thought there were other ways to live.[/quote]
Reminds me of a very young Di hle mum bring interviewed and saying it was a good thing because otherwise she's be hanging around the estate drinking etc and getting into trouble and blah blah ....

Yeah, cause there's nothing other than becoming a parent in your teens or drinking and getting into trouble. It betrays the most simplistic, unimaginative, low standard, ignorant type of thinking.

[MarshmallowAra]

*very young single mum bring interviewed

[Hertsgirl10]

@DansMaPoche

I pray for male contraceptive implants to be invented soon.

Me too. Obviously women would still need to take their own precautions as no-one should leave it to trust that that someone else is protecting them from pregnancy, unless they are prepared to accept the consequences of lies, tricks, accidents and genuine BC failures.

But that's the precarious situation men have been putting themselves in since the pill was invented. The sooner both the man AND the woman in every sex scenario are expected to take full responsibility for their own birth control the better. The 'unplanned' and accidental birth rate (especially to parents who are not even in a proper relationship) would drop like a stone.

Condoms are available. Men can already take FULL responsibility.

[MarshmallowAra]

In any case, unless your son is pretty exceptional, this'll probably break down in a few years and his gf will just have made herself a single mum to another child by a second father.

[MarshmallowAra]

Condoms are available. Men can already take FULL responsibility.

You wouldn't want something that doesn't feel as good interfering with your responsibility for creating a child now, would you.