'AITA for hiding the fact that my youngest son is biologically ours?'

"AITA for hiding the fact that my youngest son is biologically ours?"

So me (48) and my wife (46) both come from a culture where arranged marriages are common, and that's how we got together. We were arranged into our marriage when were 18 and 20. I can go into more details about it if asked but it's not super relevant to the post.

We both wanted kids, however my wife had/has a medical condition that made it very hard for her to get pregnant and because of the arranged nature of our marriage we didn't exactly feel too keen on repeatedly trying. So, when were financially stable and old enough, we adopted our first son when he was 3 (now 26), and our daughter (now 22) a year later when she was a newborn.

About three years later my wife unexpectedly got pregnant after we drunkenly hooked up with each other, and that resulted in our youngest son (now 19). When my wife got pregnant with our youngest son, we purposely hid this from our families.

They had for years pressured us to try fertility treatments to have a child that would "truly" belong to us and we knew if they found out our youngest was biologically ours they'd never treat our other children the same. We hid her pregnancy and told our families we adopted other baby. Only a few friends and select members knew about the pregnancy. All of my children also know about this.

My father (69) was talking with me and my cousin (47M), who knows about the pregnancy) about how he was always disappointed that I never gave him a proper grandchild, and he was still holding out hope until last year when my wife turned 45. I told him he has three grandchildren through me and he just grumbled about how it "wasn't the same."

My cousin in private says that he thinks it's a bit of an ahole move to still hide it from him because he's getting older and it's not like he can treat the kids much differently from one another now that their all grown. I don't think I'm an ahole but I'm curious.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

SpiteWestern6739 said:

NTA, right there your father showed why it was a good idea for you to hide the pregnancy.

savorybrekkie said:

NTA! Good for you for protecting your kids.

Gonebabythoughts said:

Your dad is the ahole for somehow thinking his genes are so magical that your children aren't his grandkids because they don't have them. Don't tell him.

odder_box23211 said:

NTA. Family is much more than sharing blood. Your dad clearly can't see that. He's admitting he doesn't see your kids as his real grandchildren. Don't think the favoritism wouldn't have an effect now that they're grown if he found out.

He'd absolutely make it known which child he cared about above his other, "non-real" grandkids. You made the right choice protecting your kids from his BS. Keep it up.

Kr_Treefrog2 said:

NTA. The fact he thinks it’s “not the same” proves he would still show preference to a biological grandchild. You did a good job protecting your kids from that kind of unfair treatment. Don’t give in now that your parents are getting older. Do you think they would treat their grandkids equally in their will if they knew one was biologically related?

ThisWeekInTheRegency said:

NTA. Let him stew in his own juices. Well done for protecting your children.