18yo got his GF pregnant.

[SnickersTwix]

I’ve changed names for obvious reasons. Background for context:,

My DB is considerably younger than me. Despite this we are close and he looks to me for advice and emotional support.

My DB is 18 and about to get his A level results. Real high flier offer to Oxbridge if he gets the grades on Thursday. He and his girlfriend (been together 6 months) found out she is pregnant. Not planned at all- she was on the pill. She is also 18 and was due to attend university in a different city. I think she is 2 months pregnant and has ruled out an abortion.

Prior to this news DB had confided in me that he was considering ending the relationship. He didn’t see how there relationship would survive long distance (100 miles between their expected universities).

Since finding out about the pregnancy my brother has said he will give up his university place and get a job to provide for girlfriend and baby and work towards a deposit for a flat. Part of me thinks that’s lovely and the other part of me knows he’s very naive and has no idea what the reality of his plans would mean. I’m also aware he was considering finishing with her before all this.His salary without a degree will also be low.

Our mother has told him he has to go to university. It was his GFs choice to keep the baby and he can’t throw away his future. Meeting between GF’s mum and our mum went terribly. Her mum expected my mum and her mum to bring up the baby to allow her DD and my DB to go to uni etc. My mum having none of it.

He feels trapped between his own naive ideas and that of our mothers.

So AIBU to encourage him to not go to university or should he listen to our mother?

Our home town university isn’t great and no where near as good as his Cambridge offer. GF wants to be at home near her Mother so moving her to Cambridge with him is not an option. School think Cambridge won’t defer the offer and tbh can’t really see how that would help.

My ex's GF had a baby before uni (he went when he was 25). They split up. He came from a very low income family and was on free school meals etc. But because he got a good degree and a professional job he could financially support his son (he used to send them 1k per month) and that was 25 years ago. They had an amicable relationship with his ex GF and visited his son whenever he could (we lived an airplane ride away). The ex GF went on to find a better BF but he was a good father.
So it can be done. I certainly don't recommend giving up the place at Cambridge. That would be counter productive.

It is rather hypocritical, that MN holds stepparents to higher standards than the child's own father.

When a guy agrees that the pill is enough of protection, he automatically agrees with a small risk that it will fail, including risk that she randomly forgets to take it. Girls aren't robots.

While I totally support abortion as (women's) choice, it is really a choice of the woman, not choice of a man, so all talks about "she dediced to stay pregnant" are meaningless now. He made her pregnant and he can't do anything about it now, the child will be there.

Buggering of to Cambridge and laughing how the minimal maintenance required is pennies is technically legal, but no way moral or correct.
He is father now so he needs to puts children's needs bit closer than ten years to future.

Would it be possible for him to switch for some more local school? Maybe not the closest, but something commutable every week?

This is really tough.

I am a lone parent, have a career and I'm a feminist.

Your DB definitely should have worn a condom.

They are so young, brain wise you don't stop maturity until early 20's and decision/risk taking is still a big part of that.

I wish the GF was putting herself first and getting a termination.

Your DB should still go to Uni at
Oxford. This is the sensible choice.

He should try and be involved where feasible and pay towards the child as and when he can.

These two young people are in a massive mess, I feel for both of them.

But mostly I feel bad for the GF, what a shit start to her adult life. It sounds like she is getting terrible advice and not being supported in the right way.

Why the fuck should someone with a place in medicine at Cambridge give it all up for a 'local school' for the sake of a pregnant 18 year old, with an unwanted bunch of cells?

I'll hold my hand up and admit that I know nothing about abortions, but from the one person I know who has gone through the process, it's been a psychological nightmare. I can't begin to understand how traumatic it is to decide on a babies life and this was evident on her throughout. I really can't imagine it's quite as easy as you're making out but I'll stand corrected.

I'll say that I'm a man (I appreciate MNers hate that phrase so apologies) but have grown up accepting that the situation can be somewhat out of my control. If a partner gets pregnant a men have no rights to decide whether the partner keeps or terminates but that's the way it is. He can make the decision with her but never coerce or force an outcome. Yet the man has to accept the outcome and take full responsibility.

Making a baby takes two people. His responsibility started the moment he decided to have sex as there's always a risk. IMO it's unacceptable to San off to university and leave the poor girl to raise their child completely unsupported in every way. It's despicable and exactly what keeps women down.

What you and many people are saying here is that his needs trump hers. That is so wrong and I can't believe I'm reading this on a website predominantly occupied by women, many of which will have first hand experience of men failing to support their own children.

You may disagree but there is literally nothing you or anyone else can do to enforce any aspect of that - beyond child maintenance based on the cms calculator.

The rest is entirely his choice, not hers or anyone elses.
Her choice is to continue the pregnancy or not.

And, no, I would disagree that this is a planned and agreed pregnancy simply because, presumably, he didn't use condoms. They have a rubbish failure rate anyway, she was on the pill, therefore the understanding was not that they were trying to conceive. Therefore it is not planned and (pre) agreed.

Her choice what she does now. She can single parent at home as all her friends go off to uni, move near him if she wants to give co-parenting a go, get a job, go to uni herself, have an abortion and continue life as previously planned. All her choices to make. None of which involve his parents doing childminding or paying maintenance. Or him giving up his plans

Your wider family should support the baby to enable your DB to go to university.

Why?
He can go anyway

@Lunar270 every situation is different. Some women agonise over the decision and feel sorrow and regret afterwards, some make the decision eaaily and feel nothing but relief afterwards, some fall somewhere in the middle. It depends entirely on each woman's personal situation. I'm also willing to bet you know more than one woman who has had an abortion, it's quite common - they just haven't talked about it.

Because its the right thing to do? The baby is half the responsibility of the DB. If he is going to go to Cambridge with then the Mum will need support 30 weeks a year when he isn't around to do his share. Plus then the baby will stay in contact with paternal family which will be good for the baby longer term.

Thank you @CreepyDibillo much appreciated.

Firstly, there's no need to continue the pregnancy. People keep acting like abortion isn't a concept. If we are going down the line of 'the right thing to do', that's where I'd start

There's also no need for grandparents, if they would even consider themselves that (?) as they may not, to do anything at all to 'enable their son to go to uni'. He can just go anyway, regardless. And they don't have to have any involvement with this possible future child at all. I wouldn't. Whole thing has disaster written all over it. Why get involved?

Not sure he should be going to Cambridge to read medicine when he doesn't understand the basics of sex education.

I can understand your mother. Bar the catholic anyway. She thinks her newly adult son has a great path ahead of him, and suddenly it’s threatened with derailment. I can also understand her anger at the idea that, because her son had sex, she’s now obliged to pay out and essentially raise another child on his behalf (at least for the uni years). That’s not her responsibility at all and I’m not surprised the suggestion has been met with a vehement ‘fuck no’.

Imo your brother did the right thing in breaking up with her. At least she knows now what she has to deal with practically, and she does still have options. It’s entirely her choice to continue the pregnancy (as it should be given that it’s her body), but he also has choices here in regards to his own future, and what relationship he wants to have with the child.

I’m glad he’s decided to go to Cambridge, I don’t think he should have passed that opportunity up.

Wow the privilege we give our sons because they have a penis. Mind blowing.

IMO it's unacceptable to San off to university and leave the poor girl to raise their child completely unsupported in every way.

So it is better for the long term future of the child that he takes some minimum wage job rather than studying to become a doctor? Really?

total cr@p Ilovemycatalot. Read it as though it were a girl. GF and BF breakup, girl is pregnant but has a place at Cambridge. Who in their right mind would say give the university place up??????????????????????????????? No one.

A friend of mine this happened to her daughter - pregnant at 21. She had a place already at uni. Deferred for 1 year and then made use of the nursery at uni. Hard work but she graduated and now has a job etc.

If it were a son or daughter of mine I would say its going to be hard work but if the girl wants to keep the baby then keep the uni place for heavens sake. Anyone who says give it up for a job at Tesco etc is a complete numpty quite frankly.

imo it’s unreasonable to expect anyone, who played no part in the conception and have no choice or say in the decisions being made, to be responsible for him. It’s one thing if they want to involve themselves, but they shouldn’t be expected to.

But the basic advice here from what I can see is for him to drop her and let her get on with it. He knew the risk of having unprotected sex just like her so must take equal responsibility. That means doing what you must to support the child not breezing of to uni and pretending it’s not happening.

do you get natural symptoms on the pill? You don't even get proper periods on the pill, just a bleed.

Buggering of to Cambridge and laughing how the minimal maintenance required is pennies is technically legal, but no way moral or correct.

who is laughing?

getting a good career is far better for the child's future than throwing it all away. It's why the mother-to-be should also be going to university,

I have a son and a daughter. If this was my son I would encourage him to go to university now. His long term earning potential as a Oxbridge grad is going to support his child better long term. Like you said, they aren’t staying together so this is likely to be messy whatever he chooses but getting an apprenticeship or office job now at this age - realistically he won’t be earning much for a long time. I would also get at DNA test done when the baby’s born.
if this was my daughter - I would absolutely be encouraging her at 2 months pregnant to have an abortion. And I hope I would be realistic about expectations around what an 18 year old could actually contribute to a child .
perhaps if the girl realised that he IS going to Uni and that it will be a while before he can properly contribute financially for his child she’ll have a re-think.

He should go to university and pay what CMS says, which presumably will be very little as a student and more when he is qualified. I wonder if him not dancing to her tune will change her stance on TOP......

Yes, because a bright individual, capable of a medical degree, won't be on minimum wage for the rest of his life. He may not end up in medicine but you have to accept that actions have consequences. Right now he's not and I find that reprehensible. He's also gambling on the fact he 'may' end up completing his degree or getting a place as a junior doctor (almost 800 missed out this year)

I do a lot of careers work. The amount of people who succeeded in life, having done a late degree, OU degree or other route is significant. Life is long and careers also. I think you're being rather dramatic.

In any case, this does not detract from the fact that his child will have to go without for around 10 years while he's getting his shit together. I'm sure his child will be really forgiving about it when arguably the hardest and most formative years are spent with zero support.

Personally it's a moral thing. I simply couldn't live knowing that I had a child in the world and that I'm doing nothing, zero, zilch to support it.