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.

End the relationship, if he was genuinely going to do it anyway, and keep the uni place. He can support the child and the girl whilst securing a future. The girl (and her mum) need to know that he isn’t going to be sticking around so they can make appropriate plans. And I say this as the mum of two girls who I hope are never in this situation. He can still be a good dad with a degree, long term goals are important.

The girls mum is insane. This is their problem, not the mums.

Give over, babies are relatively cheap.

I don't trust you as far as I could throw you.

I think there are a lot of deluded women on this thread. Those who are saying that he will provide and be a great dad in 10 years time are being fanciful. This guy will invariably find someone at uni and will want to go out and enjoy himself. It's only natural and he will resent coughing up when he has better things to do with his time/money.

After graduating he'll be on a low wage, working like a dog and won't be earning the kind of pay back (that he should) for a good 5 years. Even then he won't be on rockstar wages and the cost of living will likely be higher than now. If he finds someone else we all know what attitudes towards children are like when he's looking to start his own family and how much money still needs to be pumped into his previous.

It's a crap show and the only losers are the ex GF and baby.

OP, not sure about Cambridge as I went to Oxford but he should speak to them as there's usually a lot of financial and practical support on offer for students who are parents. It rarely gets used because, as others have said, Oxbridge students who find themselves pregnant almost always terminate, as do most uni students. At Oxford there was special accomodation available (flats rather than student rooms), access to the uni nursery usually reserved for staff, grants etc If he ends up with shared custody or the mother chooses to move to Cambridge these things may be an option, even if they're not together. He should ask. I also agree with the poster who said he should flag it to the head of studies now, or when his offer is confirmed. There's a good chance this will affect his work but they can only help if they know about it in advance. Also self-rustication (where you take a year out of studies) is often approved in situations like this. Best of luck.

The mother doesn't want to.

The father should have used condoms.

Interesting use of the phrase take care of.

Callous.

I don't trust you as far as I could throw you.

Weird comment!

Agreed it’s a crap show but the gf is making her life a lot harder - and there is no baby. There’s a foetus.

*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.*

This.

Mand reproductive control is preconception. And the only foolproof methods currently is non penetrative sex or abstinence.

There are tricks of reversible/temporary vasectomy using gel that seem to have stalled. The male pill has been in development for years,often dismissed as unfeasible due to sure effects in no way worse than female contraceptive side effects. So, as of now, it remains the above, with condoms sitting at a very feasible 98,% effective if used correctly.

So no fucking or fucking with condom and a 2% risk.

These are apparently unacceptable/unfeasible to a significant proportion of men from young men like this in short-term youthful relationships to men in long marriages avd partnerships whose partners are seen every week on mumsnet being coerced by them into abortions. They are even worse thanbthe young men with no kids yet because they have the option of a vasectomy too.

Those are male choices. They also have the choice of only paying child maintenance for their offspring and none can force them to raise them/see them/support them/be a parent to them.

This is not complicated stuff. Their "inability" to understand it and act accordingly is down to entitlement, irresponsibilty, selfishness, low jntegrity etc.

They are happy to throw responsibility for contraception onto women but then winge, cry and blame them if there is a failure/,they fail, and maybe even accuse her of trapping him. You trapped yourself son.

This is completely underpinned by our society too - which clearly, from many of the women on this thread, has a looooong way to.go.

But LooseGoose there is a solution to the contraception failure.

and there is no baby. There’s a foetus.

A distinction irrelevant to many people when it comes to ending their lives I'm afraid.

Pro choice is pro choice, not pro abortion.

Its entirely up to the mother.

The father had his choice when he was ejaculated inside her without condoms.

There is a distinct lack of care, caution, self preservation and good sense going on with him. Let's hope he resolves that before becoming responsible for treating other people.

Only if the mother wishes to use that "solution".

Not sure why that needs laid out for you.

She currently doesn't.

I'd consider her ex bf and his Mums attitude towards the pregnancy to be verging jn coercion for abortion though. They want to leave her so beleaguered she might do it.

Everyone also seems to be rallying around in misogynistic, gossipy form to create a narrative, whether true or untrue, of purposeful failure on her part and trapping.

The reality is loads of women older and wiser than her get caught by the pill every day. Without hard evidence the narrative is sickening. And just another way for bf and his Mana to run away from/block out responsibility for their future child/grandchild.

Rngage is having some fun on this thread eh.

Don't feed the troll.

yes, poor girl, imagine ... she has to face the reality of an unplanned pregnancy and single motherhood aged 18 and it turns out it's not all that great. Who'd have thought.

Oh, the coercion.

Why isn't everyone throwing rose petals at her feet etc

It's not coercion to not do what she wants. It's not coercion for the parents of the father to refuse to childmind weekly. And it's also not coercion to pay the government set cms contributions, which I assume he will have to do whether he wants to or not. It's not coercion to continue with life plans and study as laid out before the pregnancy.

All of that is not coercion. It's not complicity in a teenage pregnancy but that doesn't make it coercion for an abortion.

Her body, her choice.

Her choices are just a bit crap.

Maybe she should have insisted on condoms?

She of course has a choice. But choices come with consequences. If she chooses to have the baby then she needs to look after it - no obligation on her mother/his mother to do so.

Let’s see if she changes her mind now reality is setting in

Her body, her choice

Her choices are just a bit crap

Yep. 100%

And everyone will suffer for it, all because she can't take a few pills and get the job done once and for all

Now she's being abandoned, you mean.

You sound triumphant & malicious.

I do agree with you on that. It isn't necessary or helpful to continue that narrative.

They are where they are. Contraceptive failure is always a risk.

Thank heavens for abortion. Even more thanks for early abortion and free and easy access at early stages to said abortion. Also, morning after pill (I know not relevant here, but also amazing)
We are no longer forced to either stay celibate or have unwanted children. Women have real choices.

As an aside, there's a movement in the USA towards vasectomies for young men since the overturning of their abortion laws. I found that interesting, was reading about it today.

It’s not the 1950s!

Maybe she should have insisted on condoms?

Why would she have.

She'es clearly of a mindset to continue a pregnancy if the pill fails and that's what she's doing. It's him who's not of that mindset so he should have insisted on using condoms.

Just because they don’t agree with you doesn’t make them a troll.

Right, so she can suffer the consequences then.

Now she's being abandoned, you mean.

Now the other parent is exercising his choice in the same way she’s exercising hers. She’s not some 19th century heroine left holding the baby.

That’s her decision then. She lives with the consequences of that decision

As an aside, there's a movement in the USA towards vasectomies for young men since the overturning of their abortion laws. I found that interesting, was reading about it today.

The ideal would be the temporary vasectomy gel thing (with maybe a certificate to prove its done). It was looking promising but seems to have disappeared.