Horror at sons "special" christmas present?

[Becc91]

So my DS (20) came home for christmas from bristol uni with a "special" christmas present. Had me open it in front of everyone... only to find a positive pregnancy test 😱!
Turns out his new GF of 6 months, who he met online (discard?) , is an international student from Korea, studying "innovation" 🙄. I want so badly to be happy for him, but just feel he's far too young to be having a child with someone who'll be leaving the country come september.

I've always wanted to be a grandma, but not at 38!!
This, plus the fact she's 26 and we haven't even met makes me SO worried for my DS... but I'm fuming that he thought it was appropriate to give this as a present and make me open it in front of everyone.

DS now isn't speaking to me after I told him in no uncertain terms that the three of them couldn't move in when their degrees are finished- which he had the nerve to suggest over Christmas Dinner?! AIBU?

You have no idea what this poster did herself that resulted in a teenage pregnancy!

Or why she may not want a stranger, a 25 year old man and a baby to come and live with her.

The method of announcement and the timing of the request for accommodation have the hallmarks of a manipulative bully.

The OP has hard choices to make about her future relations with her son and grandchild. I don't envy her.

It sounds like this woman may qualify as a skilled immigrant all on her own, anyway.

Regardless, if it were my daughter, I'd be encouraging her to think long and hard about where she wants her future to be. Give birth in the UK, she may be stuck there, not able to remove the child. I'd be telling her that if she wanted to raise the child in South Korea or live there longer term, she better come back before the baby is born.

I don’t think it’s fair to say that the way he’s told his mum is due to flaws in his upbringing. Not even sure if I agree with PPs calling it immature. People in their 20s have grown up with social media and movies - it’s a heavily romanticised way of ‘breaking happy news’. I’ve seen countless videos online of couples gifting pregnancy tests / baby grows to their parents as an announcement. Just because older generations haven’t done that, doesn’t automatically make it wrong. He made a wrong assumption that his mother would be happy for him, excited to have a grandchild and support him. It’s kind of sad really.

I’d be very disappointed aswell tbh if son had a baby with someone who he’d only net six months ago; and if they were still students. How does he plan on supporting her & baby??? Practically I mean - with money, food, housing.. I’d be very concerned about that. I also think it’s rather naive to have a baby with someone who doesn’t have the same residency rights / and you’re not married. Does he understand she may well leave and he may not be able to follow? also from her POV if she stays and father is in baby’s life, she may well not be able to leave the UK either (depending on visa and parental rights etc). A rather foolish thing to do all round without some planning.

In my family if this happened my parents would’ve hit the roof. He obviously thinks it’s acceptable/ an ok thing to do…

If you are in the right sort of job, you absolutely are free. After I graduated I was offered jobs all over the world. I chose to go where I wanted without reference to anyone else. I spent a year in the states, plus shorter term placements in Argentina, South Africa and Hong Kong. Excited adventures but also great for my career. None of these would have been possible with kids in tow.

This is in addition to the gap year I had in which I worked my way around the world to fund it and the student work experience placements I had in Africa and Asia (also not possible with DC)

Like the PP, I was aware of how much a baby would curtail my plans and according made very sure that no unplanned pregnancies occurred. Everyone wants different things in life but it’s ridiculous to suggest that babies don’t limit your freedom in some ways.

I had my babies in my 30s by which time I was a high earner with financial security and a supportive DH but I still find myself having to turn down opportunities for the sake of the DC.

What does hitting the roof achieve? Nothing. Deep breath, ask how they feel about it, calm talk about the practicalities.

Of course babies limit your freedom. I wasn't saying they didn't, I was responding to a poster who seemed to think a person's life was over as soon as they had a child. It's not. It's different, but it's not over. Different doesn't have to be bad. If they feel the sad way they portrayed parenthood about it, then why have them at all?

I talked to my teenage son about his responsibilities and the consequences that f not using contraception.
ie would he like a baby of his to be brought up by a girl when he had no input?
would he like a baby of his to be aborted?

I do wish more mothers would do this.

Agree. I talked to my sons too. So far we've got to mid and late 20s with no issues in that regard. If it did happen though, we'd just have made the best of it and it would have worked out somehow.

Ok, I can put the message delivery method to one side if you like. But the fact that he thinks this is brilliant news, and they can just all move in with OP and play happy families, is idiotic. This is a man who is in no position to support a child financially. I agree it is very sad that he is so self-unaware that he can’t see what his responsibilities are. He needs to sit down with the OP like an adult and make a plan. I think many if not most would-be grandparents would be unimpressed at the idea of their DC moving back in with a complete unknown to have a baby and live for an indeterminate amount of time. It doesn’t make them uncaring or unloving.

Well it all does indeed sound very 'innovative'.

I would just get a nice bottle of Pouilly-Fumé, enjoy the festive Christmas season, and the spend the afternoon sleeping it off.

As they say, there's no point worrying about spilt milk (excuse the vulgar pun) as I'm sure you'll deal with it after the baby is born. I've heard that South Korea is a fantastic place to live, if you play your cards right, and you'll be able to give Rachel the finger on your way out.

Glossing over the hard realities of having babies is how people like the the OP’s DS and his girlfriend end up having children in sub-optimal circumstances in the first place

Oh nice a urine covered stick for christmas.
I got pregnant at 20. I had my baby but it was many years long hard slog as a single parent and I completely missed out on my youth. All I did was concentrate on my career so we could have a reasonable standard of living and have heavy responsibility for the next 18 years. It was a mess. My family were not impressed, didn't let me live with them and I had to find my own accommodation.
I doubt being Korean her family will have her back or be at all pleased by this news so I expect she is hoping to marry your son and be provided with a home. She would be disowned.

I suppose but people like me, who never found it hard, aren't going to go along with it if that's not our experience.

My life was certainly over with the huge weight of parenthood on my own at 20 I can tell you. I did nothing but work and bring up my child on my own. My parents went to live in the US until they retired and there was nobody else.i kissed goodbye to a normal life and was pretty immature st that age. I had nobody I just had to get on with it. There were no benefits or council house either. I've had to make my own way. I didn't even know how to boil an egg at the time.

So you’re saying that if someone you knew had a choice between:

a) having a baby when you were a student, no income, no career yet, no savings, nowhere to live and with a person who you had only known for 6 months and didn’t even live with yet
or
b) having a baby once your career was established, great maternity package, financial security, a home and with a person who you had been in a loving and stable relationship with for several years

you wouldn’t try to get them to chose b)?

A friend of mine did this with her son and always provided condoms. In his early 20s he met a girl at a festival and within 3 months she was pregnant. Their two children are now adults and they are still married. It can happen.

Ditto. I was 25 and single. It was the kick I needed to sort my life out which I did.

I get it. And I’ve said throughout this thread circumstances aren’t ideal. It does take two to tango - they knew what they were doing. Sure he’s been naive, perhaps didn’t think the financials through. Like I said OP can be disappointed, have her opinion and feelings about the situation but let the dust settle and focus on moving forward harmoniously. There is very little to gain in arguments, judgements, not providing any support. That’s where families become estranged - plenty of threads on MN from DCs venting about GCs demanding contact after a relationship breakdown, or bad MILs, kids going NC and parents wondering where it all went wrong - this is how it all starts.

Oh I can fully sympathise with this OP. I had my eldest at 17 and I have had many conversations with DC generally about waiting to have children until their 30s. I don’t regret them obviously and never complain about the choices I made but I had to grow up so fast and missed out on being young, silly and having fun.

You don’t want your own child to go through the same sort of thing, it’s fully understandable. I also think posters bringing this up as a stick to beat you with are being unfair. We all try hard as decent parents to ensure our DC have better lives than we did, which is why OP is so disappointed.

There’s little you can do now obviously. Baffling he presented the pregnancy test at the Christmas dinner table and expected you to be overjoyed. YANBU at all for refusing to let them all live with you, I can’t believe he even suggested this!

On your own, yes, that's a different situation. Even though hard, it sounds like you got on and did it though, so well done you.

If she has to return to her own country, and can’t get right to remain, then offering her somewhere to live is pointless.

If your son can’t get a right to live in her country, then the whole thing is liable to descend into chaos.

I feel for you OP.

Obviously B is better but there are other options and life situations than just those two.

OP had her own son at 18 and clearly has plenty of experience to pass on to her DS as to how hard things are going to be for them. He’s at uni, barely 20, and now having a baby with a woman six years his senior who he’s known for six months and who is due to leave for her home country soon after the baby is born. No job, no income, nowhere to live, and still in education.

He’s presented OP with the positive pregnancy test as a Christmas gift and forced her to open it in company to control her reaction. And he clearly hasn’t given one single thought to anything beyond the pregnancy, otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to manipulate his mother into giving all three of them a roof over their heads after the baby is born. And OP has never even met this woman. Why in God’s name would you think she needs to be supportive of the car crash he’s about to make of his life, and hers, by guilting her into letting them live with her because he’s too feckless to sort it out himself ? Great dad material isn’t it ?

I don't disagree with any of that, It was a very dubious way of announcing such news under the less than ideal circumstances and wouldn't want them living with me either. I would also have concerns about the Korean girl's motives, not that she might be some cynical gold digger only out for a visa but more likely that she's naive and opportunist, would love to stay in the UK and sees an 'accident' with a boy she really likes as the perfect solution but hasn't thought through the practicalities. But since when did young, overly idealistic people intent of having a baby against all advice ever worry about practicalities or listen to people who know better?

As his mother I'd naturally be worried about how and where they are going to build a life and keep the family together going forward, and what will happen if the relationship fails and she wants to take his child home, so very far away.

But as for 'we have no idea what this poster did herself that resulted in a teenage pregnancy' you are presuming to turn her into a victim without agency, as if pregnancy was 'done to her.' We know what she didn't do, which was either use proper contraception, take the morning after pill, choose a termination or all three. We know that her son (probably) didn't use a condom but beyond that his choices and opinions are moot. He doesn't get to decide whether the pregnancy goes ahead or not and if he's been presented with a fait accomplis then at least he's just doing the decent thing and trying to make the best of it.

Unlikely and challenging scenarios like this sometimes really do work out. They are both adults, older than the OP was by 10 years between them. It's a less than ideal start for a child or a relationship but it's not for us to say it's wrong or doomed. Especially not from the person who set him the ultimate example of 'this has happened, everyone will judge me and worry about the outcomes but I'm going to do it anyway.'