Parents don't always react in the best way when they find out their adult single children are pregnant. As one man recently shared on Reddit, it can be tough for a young woman who is planning to have a child alone — and it can be even tougher when one of their parents isn't willing to support them at all.
The man recently shared that his 23-year-old daughter is pregnant and alone. She's moved back in with her parents, but his wife just isn't on board with supporting her at all.
He says they've worked hard to give their daughter a lot.
"My wife and I have a daughter, J (23F) who just graduated college a year ago, both my wife and I come from poor background and worked our [expletive] of to give our child everything she would ever need," the original poster began, adding that "she's a good kid, smart, kind, polite, she got a full-ride to a good school and moved away."
They found out about the pregnancy two months ago.
"Two months ago, she called us to tell us that she was pregnant, no father in sight," he continued. "My wife flipped on her, full exaggeration and criticism, she thought out kid was throwing her life our of the window because my daughter was eager to keep the baby and my wife wasn't okay with this. She asked me if she could back home for a while, work locally and overall just be around us because she felt scared and alone at her big city and wanted to spend her pregnancy with us, my daughter didn't use much of her college fund (barely 18 to 25%) and had a good amount of savings, she's also the kind of kid who always helped around the house so I said yes."
His wife isn't being great.
"My wife didn't had much problem with this, but ever since our daughter came back, she has been passive-aggressive at best," the man explained. "Awful comments about how she [expletive] up her life, how naïve she is for thinking she can keep going with a kid, how the beginning of a career is the most important thing and she just ruined it, she also doesn't have any kindness for our kid, doing too much noise at 5-6am to wake her up, not lending her her car when ask to do quick runs to the store, etc. She's just being mean. My daughter just sucks it up because she thinks she owes us something for letting her stay here."
He ended up kicking his wife out.
"Yesterday, my wife just went over the top, my daughter found a job, she's doing WFH at the moment due her pregnancy (4 months) and was excitedly telling us that after the birth, she wants to get an apartment nearby and maybe raise my grandkid here, my wife just snorted and said that if she already [expletive] up her life, the least she could do is doing was best for the kid and move somewhere better and maybe do it now. My daughter cried because she was basically getting kicked out and my wife tried to minimize her feelings, so I told her to get out of my house because I was done with her mean teenage behavior, she said I couldn't kick her out but I do, because the house is not a marital property. She left and my in-laws are coming at me because everyone thinks she's right."
People are squarely against his wife.
As one commenter put it, this behavior from his wife could have major repercussions: "Your daughter is lucky to have you in her corner. Your wife is absolutely ridiculous and disrespectful. I hope she realizes that she very likely will never meet her grandchild after all this."
Some are speculating about what is fueling the wife's behavior.
A few commenters are interested in what's really going on with the wife.
"The wife feels like she sacrificed her whole life to give her daughter everything she needed to be 'successful' and had a very specific image about what that would mean," one commenter wrote. "When the daughter didn't live up to (unreasonable) expectations the mom felt she had wasted her life. It doesn't excuse any of her treatment towards her daughter, but it does explain it."
Ultimately, their daughter needs them right now.
In the end, their daughter needs a lot of support from both of them now.
As one person noted: "Your daughter is feeling scared and alone, and she needs the support. Having a kid young does not by any means mean you’re throwing your life away. You made the right decision, congratulations to your daughter, i hope she has a great pregnancy."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
