My son has got a girl pregnant

[Starling38]

I’m hoping for some advice. My son has got a girl pregnant and we’re devastated.
It’s a long story but I’ll try to brief..
my 25 year old son was in a loving relationship for nine years. He adored the girl and proposed marriage. She accepted, but then a few months later she left him for somebody else.
My son fell apart and had a serious emotional breakdown. We brought him home, looked after him and saw him through. He began to do a lot better and planned himself a new future that includes following his interests at university with the aim of finding a good job at the end.

In the meantime he moved in with his sister (younger by one year) and her housemate as it was closer to his college. He began a casual relationship with the housemate but made it clear he wasn’t looking for a relationship. The girl is now pregnant. She told him she was on the pill (although there’s now some doubt over that) but as I’ve explained to my son, if he didn’t want to be a father he should have used a condom. He acknowledges that and is angry with himself for being so irresponsible.

The girl has told him she knows he doesn’t want this, but she’s keeping it regardless and doesn’t mind if he’s not involved. (Apparently the girl has wanted a baby for a long time despite not being in a loving and commuted relationship.

We’re devastated for everyone concerned, especially the poor unborn child.

These are the issues:

1. My son does not love the girl
2. He does not want to be a father
3. The girl’s life style choices aren’t compatible with bringing a baby into the world. She smokes and drinks heavily and is continuing this through the pregnancy. She is also incapable of keeping a house clean and tidy and lives in messy and unhygienic conditions. My husband and I are devastated as this is not how we wanted our first grandchild to arrive.
4. There are two large dogs in the house. (This terrifies me!)
5. Our son and daughter have always had a very close and mutually supportive relationship, this situation is going to jeopardise that relationship.
6. Our son is saying he will have no contact with her or the child whatsoever. My husband and I don’t know where this leaves us as grandparents.
7. Our daughter is the girl’s best friend AND aunt to the baby. Our daughter is extremely loyal to her friend and we believe she will lose contact with her brother and us if the girl keeps the child.
8. My husband and I are devastated. We wanted better than this for any of our grandchildren and this has the potential to tear our family apart.

We are utterly heartbroken by this situation. Our son has been completely irresponsible and we feel helpless.

We appreciate this is also a difficult situation for the girl, and we know that she’s the one who has the most difficult decisions to make in this matter. We’re just struggling with the fact that our feelings and preferences are to all intents and purposes irrelevant.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. Amy advice will be gratefully received.

Thank you for reading my post.

OP to answer something specifically, if you don't have a close relationship with your future grandchild, in a significant caring way (ie residential and longstanding and meaningful) - ie parents fucked off and you gave gc a full-time home for a year - then you have no chance of having any grandparental rights, ever.

I have a friend to whom this scenario applied, so I'm not whistling in the dark here.

OP, I can understand that this isn't what you wanted. But its not about you, its about the baby, really.
Your son needs to step up and be a parent
You need to try to build a supportive relationship with your grandchild's mother
I don't think comments about the state of the house help - three adults live there, so surely any mess is just as much your son and daughter's responsibility?

OP, I appreciate that you are upset, but you need to have a word with your son. Why should an innocent child have to suffer just because he doesn't feel ready to be a dad yet? Can you imagine how it would feel growing up and knowing that your dad wants nothing to do with you and never wants to see you or your mum? That's the sort of thing that destroys people's self-esteem and causes lifelong problems. You cannot let him get away with behaving like that. Have a serious word with him about facing his responsibilities. You owe that much to your unborn grandchild.

Having read your post, I do sympathise with you, as you are understandably worried fir your son and future grand child. But my first thought was that really all this worrying is pointless now, as once the baby arrives, you will see things completely differently. Babies are wonderful and I’m sure that once your son sees his own child for the first time, he will change his mind about being involved. You will all love him or her and will all unite in wanting the best for them, because that’s what families are all about. So my advice would be to cast aside your reservations about the mother and instead try to offer her support and welcome her to your family. She is a close friend of your daughters, so perhaps you should trust her judgement, and start to see the positives in the mother of your grand child instead of judging her. Imagine how lonely and frightened she must be feeling. Well it will only amplify once the baby arrives if she does not have support from family. I doubt very much that she has any friends who are mothers yet, but you could be a friend to her if you try and take the time to get to know her. Babies are the greatest thing in the world but also such hard work, especially if you don’t have a partner at home to help you with the sleepless nights etc. You could alienate yourself if you appear unsupportive now and then you may never get the opportunity to really be a part of your grandchild’s life. Perhaps you could offer to pay for nct classes so she can meet other mums, or treat her to a maternity nurse/night nanny for a few days /weeks after the baby is born, to help her get some rest occasionally. Or just take her for a cup of tea one on one and ask her how she is feeling.

If that were my son I would be telling him to either man up and raise his child or to realise that he would be cut out entirely of his inheritance (in favour of our poor grandchild). I would of course do my best to form a good relationship with the mother (especially as it seems that there is a good chance that she will tire of the baby and want to give it away/have it taken away by SS).

As the mum of a Ds whose dad doesn’t see Ds . My advice put your grandchild first , your Ds is a grown man . Help all three sort the house out . Support the girl .
I can imagine been disappointed but it is now irrelevant who did what , baby is on the way . If she is Dd best friend you have known this lady a while

I wonder too where you got this impression of your daughter's best friend. Have you seen her drinking and smoking while pregnant?

Oh op please don't be in tears

I'm afraid people on here are often not very supportive and I don't think the nasty comments on here really reflect much about you. They don't know you.

Big deal girl/woman - in the real world many people don't differentiate. As you are, some people find it offensive, but I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.

I also think many people haven't really understood that your son seems to have had a major mental health wobble immediately before all this. He sounds like he needs time too - I hope he will come to see the benefits of contact with is child for that child's sake

Sending you an un mn hug if that would help.

Do you have real life friends who can support you as you grapple with all this? Can you talk to your dd about this?

You have to look at where you are now. You can't turn time backwards.

If the woman is going to have the baby, then your ds needs to get his name on the birth certificate, pay an appropriate amount of maintenance and maintain a civil relationship with the child's mother.

You say that she lives in a dirty home, presumably your dd is ok with this? As she also lives there? In any case, you could offer help sorting and tidying and creating space for the baby and you could offer to buy a cot or something.

You don't have any choice about whether this baby is born or not. But if it is born, your ds is a dad and you're a granny and you need therefore to behave appropriately, even if you consider the mother not to. It might be the making of her.

This business of referrring to women as girls - people need to get a grip. I play in a sports team and the whatsapps start "hi girls" - all of us are women aged 30-40 and girls is a perfectly acceptable collective term. Also people refer to their friends as their girl-friends, not their woman-friends. Girls isn't offensive in any way. In fact, girl is often used to denote a younger woman so it's a compliment anyway. Even pensioners are referred to as old girls sometimes. Seems a very pointless thing to get upset about.

I have commented on this previously.
But I never once commented on your parenting skills just said put yourself into her shoes.
I’m sure neither of us would be particularly pleased if it were our son, in your head his life was planned out and this isn’t part of the plan. I get that!
Now for helping you -
I think if things got strained between you and the mother you are able if I’m correct in saying so go to mediation or court to gain visitation.
Once the dust settles though it will all be fine.
This will all be a distant memory when you laid you eyes on your grandchild.
Your in shock and thinking irrationally it’s the fight or flight reflexes.
Calm down see how things go but please welcome and support her.
But ensure your not left to pay for you sons child he does need to understand that this is his child

I don't care about you calling mum to be a girl, there are bigger issues here. Please try and encourage your son to behave like a responsible adult, it sounds as though he was parented by people who cared for him and his child deserves no less, he should not punish a child for his mistakes.
For your sake I would start building as many bridges as possible with the future mother of your grandchild. As your son is not wanting to be in a relationship with her your best chances at having a relationship with your grandchild lie with your relationship with mum. Step up and show your son how to support mum.
Dogs and messy houses are by the by. Smoking and drinking would get under my skin but she isn't the first and won't be the last to do that.
Long term you have no rights and your son seems determined to duck his responsibilities so being kind and supportive seems the best way forward.

Solasum
I am sorry Starling38, you have had an unfair bashing on here

I find this interesting as if the OP's attitude doesn't change she will not be seeing any of her GC.

and it is often said on MN that it is the father of the child that should be facilitating contact with the paternal grandparents, holding that to be true IF the DS is going to be involved with the child then building a relationship with the GC will be impossible unless theOP's attitude changes.

I really don't understand why everyone is picking apart the OP's posts like this. She is in distress and quite upset. She needs support and advice, not to be judged so harshly for things that are out of her control. She's scared and shocked and pouring out her heart to us and just telling us what she's been told, she's desperate for help, and she's being criticised for having raised some kind of monster and using the word "girl" here! She needs help, not vitriol!

Her children are adults now, and have been for some years. They have influences far outside her parenting and teaching, and they have their own minds and opinions. Parents are not responsible for that their adult children do. They rebel, they ignore or forget everything we've ever taught them, they go vehemently right when we've raised them to be left, and they learn from everyone else too.

*not always responsible for what their...

Start being nice to the mother-to-be. The way out of the mess you perceive is kindness and support - nothing else will work.

Boney all things being equal, both parents of a child should be responsible for that child’s relationship with their side of the family. However it doesn’t always work out like that. I am sure I am not the only mother who has taken the opportunity to build a relationship with the ‘other’ grandparents even though the child’s other parent was not involved at the time. Because the more people who care about a child the better in my view. Spending time with people I barely knew wasn’t top of my list when I had a tiny baby, but it wasn’t only about me. I wanted to be able to answer honestly that I had done everything I could to facilitate a relationship with the paternal family. Happily it worked out for us, and DS’s dad is now fully involved. We even holiday all together.

The OP can’t control her son’s reaction to the situation, but she can make the best of it. She has a great opportunity to do this via her daughter.

Solasum

I agree that the OP can't control what her son does, but if she wants to be part of the child's life, her attitude towards the child's mother has to change.

Would you go out of your way to let someone see your child if they had a poor attitude towards you?

I do wonder, OP, how you'd feel if the shoe was on the other foot - if it was your daughter that was pregnant and the father of the child was behaving in the manner your son is?

Op I understand all of your concerns and am shocked at so many nasty responses here.

I understand your upset OP. I would be equally unhappy if one of my sons had been irresponsible enough to be in that position.

It’s sad to say - an incredibly taboo to say on MN but there are a lot of women out there who are more than happy to lie in order to get a baby. Especially if the father comes from ‘money’ and is a good bet to help raise the child financially.
With all the methods of contraception available these days, not to mention the MOP , then chemical termination (IF in the incredibly rare scenario that an upset stomach /diarrhoea has snuck through 6 months of pill taking and the pregnancy isn’t suspected until 2 Weeks post conception ).. it’s pretty unbelievable that it’s an ‘accident ‘ so considering all of that and she still decides to keep the baby, then you have to just accept that she intended to get pregnant. Nothing you can do though. Because no matter wether it’s an intended trap, or a genuine accident, what happens next is entirely her choice and he / you get NO say.

Harsh lesson to learn. But this is the consequence of his own actions

I think that despite your feckless son planning to do nothing, you should approach the mother to be and get to know her. She must have redeeming features to be friends with your daughter. Of course your son is going to list all of her faults in order to make himself feel less shit. Please don’t repeat these to your daughter or the mum or you’ll risk never having the chance to be an involved grandparent.
The baby has been conceived and for his/her sake, you need to come to terms with it pronto. If the mum turns out not to be motherhood material, then the baby and mother are going to need wider family like you supporting them.
It does not matter at all that your son doesn’t love the girl. He can be a good parent without being with the mum but needs to grow up and have polite contact. They might not be together but she might appreciate practical help like building a cot, money towards a buggy etc. Does he really feel nothing for a child who is going to be negatively affected when they find out that Dad cut ties before they were born?
Even if this had been a long-term relationship, your “feelings and preferences” would have no relevance. The circumstances that you had children might have been textbook but this is 2017 so there’s more variation on what a happy family looks like. Try to open your mind and get to know the mum-to-be.

There are some women who are happy to get pregnant without the consent of the father, I have personally known one in my nearly seventy years on this planet but I'm sure there are lots of others, kittensinmydinner1, but that does not give us the right to claim that any pregnancy that is inconvenient for us or a family member is the result of a conniving woman. There are a lot of contraception failures.

And by feeding into the OP's negative feelings about her future grandchild's mother you are not in the least helping her to find a way of accepting this woman.

People who are horrified at the lack of solidarity with the OP are quite mistaken. We who are criticising her description of the situation are also trying to re-evaluate her ideas as the only way she can have a relationship with the grandchild is if she manages to have a good relationship with that child's mother.

So does your daughter still live with the housemate, if she does is she not living in unhygienic conditons with 2 dogs as well

Op I was this girl, at age 23. Father of my child wanted nothing to do with me, his parents treated me like dirt and were also devastated.
You need to tell your son to step up and be responsible. Be there for the girl, be kind to her and give her support. Your son may not want anything to do with her now but could change his tune when the baby is born. If you want a relationship with your grandchild then be there for her. Put your judgements and your differences aside. If you are concerned for the babies health with her drinking etc then you need to speak to a social worker (not sure how this works in UK sorry, I am overseas).