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?

Section 8 of the human rights act gives her a right to a family life if it is deemed unreasonable hardship for the baby to be separated from its mother. The baby is British and legally can't be taken out of Britain by its mother without the father's permission.

If they can live together for long enough (at the mothers, even more "family", hence the request? ) they establish a family life to which both the mother and the child are then entitled.

And by the time this has been through every legal challenge (on legal aid!?) and ended up at the HMRC, so much time will have passed that it will be unfair to either split the family or deport the mother.

I wonder how her parents will be reacting, probably cut her off financially for bringing cultural ‘shame’ to the family

It might surprise some people on this thread - but the baby won't automatically be granted citizenship in this situation just because it's born here

You can say it was in different circumstances and I’m sure it was, but if you don’t want to be a grandparent at 38 then having a child at 18 is the wrong way to go. Having had a child that young you must have known this was a possibility.

But she isn't kidnapping it, she would be forced to leave due to immigration laws, she doesn't have a choice and they can't separate a newborn from it's mother. And what sort of relationship would they have if he tried to accuse her of that! At the end of the day the law makers don't care for tricks, sentiment or ploys! They will care about getting her to leave when her visa expires, they won't be worried about the son having access to his kid because the son created this situation when he shouldn't have done. He can choose to try and have an expensive custody battle but there's no guarantee he'll win. What in your mind gives the mother no right to take her half Korean child to Korea? What extra rights would the father have? He has none because the kid is entitled to live in both countries!

It's extremely unlikely not to be if the British, British born father applies for it.

This isn't the case. I suggest you Google whether the mother and child have the automatic right to remain in the UK just because she has the child here. They don't

The child actually isn't automatically allowed to remain here just because it is born here.

You are wrong, you are using a scenario that applies to a married British couple who both are legal citizens of this country! If your British Pakistani husband suddenly decides to try and take your kids to Pakistan for example then your scenario kicks in. But you are talking about a Korean student who has nothing to do this country other than a temporary student visa. The baby would be equally Korean because mum isn't in any way British, the baby isn't born to two British citizens.

Strange attitude. Due to a genetic problem, many women in my family haven't been able to have children after their later 20s. I decided to have the kids rather than risk it. I had the kids and managed all the fun and travel with them. It did slow down the career but I caught up later. Sometimes you have to make choices because you can't have it all. I wouldn't want to have kids in my 30s. I find that too old, even though I know it's right for others.

But the baby will also have Korean citizenship and one citizenship isn't more powerful than the other, the baby is also freely allowed to live in Korea. Both sides would have equal rights to have custody of the child and the immigration laws won't care if the baby has to just travel here in school holidays because it's not their problem and not a reason to grant mum a citizenship - Google it! There are countless couples in legal fights over trying to get one of the couple a citizenship and citing kids as a reason - they toughened up the laws on this because started to get an awful lot of heavily pregnant mothers rocking up from poorer parts of Eastern Europe etc because they thought if they gave birth here, the child would get citizenship and so eventually would they.

It’s more with a child, isn’t it? On a sliding scale per child .
We went through this for my son to marry his gf from abroad..she had 2 children already, so more income again . well over 30k They have to marry within 6 months of arriving, too.

Considering how short a time they have known each other, I don’t think I’d be jumping with joy. Expensive for her to move here, I don’t know how easy for him to go to Korea. I wonder if they thought it was an easy route to a British passport.
I’d have been annoyed at the Xmas present aspect. And the immaturity of having a baby without means of support in place.

The poster is correct about the baby not being taken away by either parent without the permission of the other, but for a different reason. Both the UK and S Korea are signatories to The Hague Convention. It doesn’t matter where the baby is born - the overriding factor is where the child is habitually resident. If either parent attempted to return to the home country without the permission of the other it would be considered child abduction and the UK and S Korean authorities would cooperate in returning the child to whichever country was considered their habitual residence.

What in your mind gives the mother no right to take her half Korean child to Korea? What extra rights would the father have? He has none because the kid is entitled to live in both countries!

Both the UK and S Korea are signatories to The Hague Convention. What matters is not where the child is born, but where they are habitually resident. The Convention prevents either parent from removing their child without the permission of the other. If either parent attempted to take their child to their home country it would be considered abduction and the authorities from both countries would cooperate in returning the child to whichever country they decide is their habitual residence.

According to The Hague Convention, if it can be shown that the child is habitually resident in either country, then citizenship is granted. Both the UK and S Korea are signatories to the Convention.

It becomes a hell of a legal battle when mum has to go back to Korea through lack of choice. They shouldn't be going ahead with a pregnancy in such circumstances because there are no easy answers or solutions.

I would be tied down. Our lives, as we want them now, would be ruined.

why on earth would I chose a harder life of balancing everything ie studying and a baby? Absolutely not. I’m not throwing away my youth - which to me, it would be. Plenty of my relatives had babies between 18-22. I’m not going to be one of them.

I just wish mother, father and baby all the best.

And having experienced how hard it is, it’s the last thing she would want for her own child. MN is very strange sometimes.

Absolutely agree.

Exactly and if her baby was the result of an assault it was bloody brave of her to choose to bring him up at such a young age but it really is the last thing you want your child to do be doing at a young age when you know how hard it is.

Oh this takes me back. I to was a very young grandmother due to having my own kids young. I totally get it, you know what’s ahead for them and how hard it is and it’s natural to be concerned. Admittedly I didn’t have the problem of his girlfriend being a foreign student but fast forward six years and my son has surpassed every expectation I had and if I’m honest he’s probably a better parent than I ever was at his age. Unfortunately there’s not a lot you can do about it but I felt exactly the same and was lucky it worked out well.

Because they’ve only known each other for 6 months and he’s 20. Not great odds.

Yes yes I’m sure you or your Grandma or your neighbours cousin’s hairdresser met the love of their life at 15 and are still together with twenty zillion great grandchildren at their knees, but come on, real life says this pair are unlikely to go the distance.

One thing is clear -- most respondents in this thread have little to no up-to-date knowledge or real-life experience about South Korean culture and are merely (and incorrectly) speculating about what it is like to live in South Korea as a young native or foreign parent in 2025 (soon to be 2026), and that won't help OP or her son and his partner.

Few who have responded here would be Korean, speak the language, or have lived in South Korea long enough to form an informed opinion.

People here can't say for certain whether there are "ulterior motives" behind this pregnancy (assuming it is indeed real), nor do they have any information about whether the partner of OP's son is from a wealthy family with financial/childcare support (is she receiving scholarship or self-funding her studies?).

I'm not sure why her field of study raised OP's eyebrows in the initial post, unless OP has actually good reason to believe the degree will not lead to anything lucrative or otherwise worthwhile. Is it actually relevant to the situation?

OP's original question was whether her son was being unreasonable in how he presented the news and is approaching the situation after OP's surprise; provided the pregnancy is real and she decides to carry to term and there are no medical issues that end in a miscarriage, it may be in OP's long-term interest to aid them should they need legal or practical advice, even if her son or his partner were reckless or unreasonable.

I didn't say they did. I said the child has a slam dunk case for becoming British if a British and British born father of a British born child requests that, and that with a British baby, the mother then has article 8 rights to a family life she can fight over in court.