"How do I(27f) tell a one-night stand (30sm) that I have his kid (1m)?"

throwRA_babymamaa

OK to keep it simple my son's babydaddy was a one-night stand. He was a trucker who got snowed in, we met at a bar and hooked up, didn't exchange contact info, I was just bored, lonely, and temporarily insane from the pandemic and was being risky. Love my kid tho, no regrets there.

When I realized I was pregnant I thought long and hard about it and decided to keep him. I make a decent living, child support would help but we can get by without it. I didn't expect to ever see the babydaddy again and I was OK with that. Kiddo has my last name, I didn't know his.

I was fine with being a single mom and dealing with everything myself. To be honest, some of my friends have horrible baby daddies and they and their kids are better off without them. I feel like kiddo and I are better off on our own than trying to add someone to the mix anyway. At least, that's what I told myself.

But, my friend who works at the gas station just happened to see him. She knows his name and race, saw his name on his ID, her nosy self made sure to confirm it was the same guy and ask if he remembered me, asked for his number on my behalf and passed it on to me.

I'm sure he is flattered thinking some random hook-up talked up his skills to her friends to the extent that they remembered his name LMAO. Anyway thanks to her meddling, I can't claim innocence anymore and am forced to make a decision. SO.

First of all, do I say anything? I know it's technically supposed to be the right thing to do but, to be honest, I have heard so many baby daddy horror stories. It's to the point that I wouldn't want my kid to go through what some kids have gone through. If I say something this guy can sue for custody or guardianship.

I can't bear the thought of letting my baby go to some stranger and not being around. I mean, he can't even talk and couldn't tell me if something happened, not that I think anything would or that he will want custody in the first place but who even knows these days??

On the other hand how can I deprive my kiddo of a father? It would be one thing if, once he was older, I could honestly say I didn't know where his father was but I can't possibly lie to him about that and I can't imagine telling him I could've found his father but I was too scared.

So I'm leaning towards telling him but how do I even do that? Can I just text him the news and get it over with? Should I try to see if he can meet up next time he passes by and tell him face-to-face? Is there any kind of legal stuff I should be aware of with this kind of thing??

Now that I'm a mom I just keep thinking of the ways things might backfire and somehow hurt my kiddo. I know I am way overthinking probably but please I just need someone to tell me what to do.

Here were the top rated comments from readers after the initial post:

pineboxwaiting

You know what this mom would do? I would shag my ass to a family attorney and ask them if there are any compelling reasons to keep your son’s dad in the dark. I can think of a few. One is that you know zip about this guy. That’s it! You have no clue if you want to invite him into your circle. But, yeah, I’d talk to an attorney before I risked exposure.

The OP responded here:

throwRA_babymamaa

Attorneys are expensive but I called my cousin in law school and she said she'd look into it for me for the specifics in my state. But she said I don't have any penalty for not telling him.

But if I told him he could go to the court to order a DNA test, prove he's the father and sue for custody or visitation. And he would most likely be able to get custody or visitation unless he turns out being totally super blatantly unfit.

LAGA_1989

He’s a stranger. If it were me, I would not invite an opportunity to have someone I don’t know at all take my baby half the time because he’s technically the father who had no choice in the decision to have the baby. Just my personal opinion.

A month later, the OP returned with an update.

"(Update) How do I(27f) tell a one night stand (30sm) that I have his kid (1m)?"

throwra_babymamaaa

So a while back I posted here asking for advice about how to tell my baby daddy I have his kid. After figuring out how to run a background check and seeing no criminal history I thought I would try to meet him, do a vibe check, see if he seems cool. Hook up with him again if I need to in order to get to know him. Lol.

Anyway. Turns out I didn’t need to go that far. The guy texted me that he was stopping by in town. We met up for breakfast. I was like, cool, promising, breakfast usually doesn’t lead to a hook up, so he actually wants to get to know me which makes it much easier for me to get to know him. We made some typical casual date small talk.

Then he asks do I have kids. I tell him one. He asks how old. I say one. He’s like “Is he one and one month?” He figured it out on his own. When my friend who never met him recognized him by his name and insisted he get in contact with me, apparently, he was like "It's either a baby or a very serious STD."

So I just came clean and told him everything. I haven’t introduced him to kiddo yet. But I showed him a picture. He agrees that kiddo is the cutest kiddo ever and looks like him. We are getting a paternity test.

He is definitely the baby daddy because he’s the only Asian guy I’ve been with and kiddo is definitely part Asian. But I don’t blame him for checking since I know some women will lie about things like that. He doesn’t seem like he doesn’t believe me, he just wants to make sure which is fair.

Baby daddy says if kiddo is his he’s fine with paying child support and just having supervised visitation until I trust him more. He lives in his truck apparently, so no judge would give him any custody until that changed.

So that’s how it is. I didn’t really get the choice to decide on my own terms whether to introduce them or not, but so far it all seems to be working out.

Edit: Okay this is a lot. I didn't mean to start gender wars in the comments. Most men are decent people and most women are decent people too. I believed that when I hooked up with the baby daddy and I still believe that. Becoming a mom made me a lot more cautious though.

Now I'm a mom and I don't take those risks on behalf of my kid. I am way more cautious about who I allow into his life (and now my life too because he needs me) than I ever was before. If you're not a parent, I wouldn't expect you to understand. If I had even the slightest twinge of suspicion about my baby daddy, even if it was just bad vibes, I wouldn't have ever admitted to having his kid.

Maybe that isn't fair, but I don't care about fairness or morals when it comes to my son's safety, there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect him. Again I don't expect you to understand if you aren't a parent. Judge me all you want but it is how it is.

The OP also added:

throwra_babymamaaa

A lot of people are really struggling to understand why I was so worried about my baby daddy (I will use whatever words I wanna use, y'all can deal) and whatever risk he might pose to my son. I imagine a lot of you aren't parents but let me try to explain.

My son is one year old. He is totally helpless, he is totally dependent on me. I care about him way more than I ever cared about myself. I used to ride a motorcycle, do I anymore? No, I sold it because I don't wanna leave him without a mom.

I used to hook up with strangers, do I anymore? No, taking risks is a completely different ball game when I have someone else to worry about besides myself (and also I have no time for that lol.) Every single decision I make is now filtered through the lens of "How could this effect kiddo?"

Now when I first realized I was pregnant, I never thought I would see his father again. Everything I did was under the assumption I would be doing it alone. Which I knew would make things harder on me in many ways but on the other hand it meant I would never have to see my baby cry because Daddy broke a promise again.

It was what it was, pros and cons. I knew I'd have to explain to my son someday that I didn't know how to find his father, I was prepared for that. What I *wasn't* prepared for, was ever having to make the decision of introducing my son to his father or not. That is a whole different ball game. It was like the rug was pulled out from under me.

I couldn't say "Oh, it is what it is, pros and cons" anymore. I'd have to make a decision. And my son would have to live with whatever decision I made. That wasn't something I took lightly. Of course I would rather that my son have a good father than not! Two loving parents are better than one! But I didn't know.

It was impossible to tell how things would work out in the future. ALL I could think was "If I tell this guy, he can take my son. If I tell this guy, he can take my son. A judge can award him custody of my son and I won't be able to do anything about it."

I don't know how to describe how terrifying that thought is. The thought of my helpless, innocent, baby being outside my reach. If something bad were to happen to him during that time he couldn't even tell me. It's not that I thought something bad WOULD happen.

I'm not anti-men or anti-trucker or anything like that. I don't think all men are evil. It was just this idea that, once I tell the baby daddy, I've done something I can't undo and anything might happen. You can think I'm horrible, selfish, a narcissist, "the worst kind of female", whatever. None of that matters to me, what's best for my son is the ONLY deciding factor.

And in case you didn't realize, I eventually DID make the decision to reach out to the baby daddy. I did want to get to know him a bit before saying anything. But when he figured it out, I didn't lie. I could have, but in the end, I decided kiddo deserved to know his dad and if I lied right then I could be throwing away that chance.

Since he clearly only agreed to meet me because he figured out what happened. I don't feel like I did anything wrong by being cautious about it. Anyway. Hopefully that clears things up, y'all might still not like me or understand me, but that's how I feel.

Here were the top rated comments from readers after these updates:

ObjectiveCoelacanth

Oh hey, I posted this as a standalone before seeing your comment, but it blows my mind anyone is confused about this! The gulf between would-sleep-with and would-coparent-with is enormous! Huge!

horsepolice

You sound like a great mama! It’s not rocket science to follow “people change when they have an infant child” lol. It was insane to see this in the post because I was like ?? Everything you said makes sense, I can’t imagine being like so baffled or weird about this post lol. Also shout out to your asian halfie baby!! We always turn out so freakin’ cute 🥰

BertaFFS

There’s a lot of judgy 13 year olds on Reddit, don’t let them make you feel bad about literally protecting someone who has no capacity to protect themself.

localdisastergay

I feel like him offering child support, asking for supervised visits and acknowledging that you’ll need time to build trust is a good sign of being a decent guy who will be a positive addition to your kid’s life. Not a guarantee but a good start.

Two weeks later, the OP provided another update.

"Update for those asking"

throwra_babymamaaa

Some people asked for more updates on my story. This update isn’t very exciting but, to be honest, I didn’t expect any of this to be very exciting to strangers outside of the handful of people who originally gave me advice. I’ll be posting updates here from now until I don’t feel like it anymore.

Anyway, the paternity test came back positive (duh) and baby daddy (I should probably start calling him a fake name, I’m gonna call him Steve from now on because of someone’s comment that made me laugh) immediately flew to my place and showed up on my porch with a dozen roses.

He confessed that he had never stopped thinking about me since our first encounter and I confessed the same. We immediately went to go make another baby. He then proposed marriage and we are planning our wedding and honeymoon in Paris. But then while we were at the store picking out a wedding cake, a team of assassins attacked the bakery and we had to flee.

It turns out he is a billionaire in the mafia and he was only pretending to be a trucker as a cover but his enemies found him, now we are on the run and I am pregnant with our next baby named Steve Jr.

It really sucks to be on the run while pregnant, I gotta stop and pee all the time but assassins keep popping up at the gas stations.

JK JK sorry it is just amusing to me that people are invested in my life, I couldn’t resist the drama. Okay, here’s the real update.

The paternity test came back positive and Steve and I have been texting back and forth and talking on the phone. We still need to figure out a good time to meet up so that hasn’t happened yet and I don’t know when it will. Apparently Steve passes by my town a lot but not always at a convenient time to stop for a visit.

Anyway I’ve found out a little bit more about him as a person and told him more about me, just getting to know each other, I’ve also sent him every picture of Kiddo (I’m still gonna call my son Kiddo since I actually call him that IRL, if you don’t like it deal) I pretty much told him the entire story of Kiddo’s life up to this point down to every mundane detail.

Steve has been pretty mellow about everything so far and doesn’t really seem either upset or excited about anything, but I guess since he figured out what happened a while ago he doesn’t have much reason to be shocked. I’m nervous but also excited.

Obviously if everything works out I’m going to be thrilled that Kiddo gets to have a dad. I don’t really have any specific concerns that things won’t work out. I’m just nervous in general because I don’t know what’s going to happen and becoming a mom made me a paranoid wreck.

Some people have pointed out that it’s going to be important for Kiddo to have other people in his life that are connected to his culture on his father’s side… I will admit, this isn’t something I gave a lot of thought to and you aren’t wrong. Something that kind of hit me was all the comments about how unusual it is to see an Asian trucker.

To be honest… I never thought of that, yeah if I hear the word “trucker” I’ll always imagine a fat white guy (I don’t mean this in an offensive way) but I didn’t really think anything of meeting an Asian trucker.

Seeing all the comments made me think, like… what if my son wants to be a trucker when he grows up? Are people going to say it’s weird because he’s Asian? That’s not right. He should be able to be whatever he wants without people thinking it’s weird.

I don’t care if he wants to be a trucker, mechanic, ballerina, pro athlete, cop, waiter, none of the above, all of the above… like, I know the comments weren’t poorly intentioned but the idea of my son ever hearing that it’s weird for him to do something because he’s Asian kind of broke me.

I know it’s not the same but I grew up hearing that I was weird to do the things I loved because I’m a girl… I already decided long ago my son can be as masculine or feminine as he wants and if anyone has anything to say about it they would have to go through me.

But then there’s this whole other angle I never considered that he will probably experience and I don’t know anything about it. Sooo… yeah, I’m glad he will have his dad in his life, and really just more family in general.

Steve hasn’t told them about Kiddo yet but he says he’s not worried they’ll be disapproving or anything he’s just waiting for the right time to break the news. My family is totally disapproving and I’ve pretty much stopped talking to my parents since they’re mad I refused to give kiddo up for adoption to my aunt and uncle.

I guess the other thing people commented about was child support? Turns out Steve isn’t doing very great financially right now and his family is going through some serious hardships that he’s been helping them with, so he asked if he can pay me backpay child support later. I just told him not to worry about it…

I really don’t need backpay, I don’t need child support at all, I don’t want to wrangle any money from him and any money he gives me for Kiddo it should be because he wants to. I give Kiddo stuff because I love him and want to take care of him, if his dad gives him anything it should be for the same reason, not because he has to.

I also told him, just in case, if he doesn’t want to be Kiddo’s dad he can walk away right now and never contact me again, I won’t go after him in court or anything, I don’t want to introduce Kiddo to any father who thinks of him as a burden or an obligation.

He assured me he genuinely does want to meet him and be a part of his life, so… that’s good. Anyway yeah that’s the update for now, I’ll post again when Steve gets a chance to come and meet Kiddo.

Here were the top rated comments after this latest update:

SmashedBrotato

It's neat when BORUs are just like "Yup, still going, nothing is special, nothing is terrible, life continues."
I'm glad Steve ended up not being some crazy bad person (at this point), though.

Lainy122

Omg I laughed way too hard at the pee problem while running from assassins! Comedy gold, would definitely watch that movie. Loved this update, especially the realisation that OOP had about her child not being white, and how that might impact him. I hope things go really well for her kiddo and Steve!

crypticmint

What a chill and nonchalant person. I aspire to be like her someday.

MiriaTheMinx

If I were Steve and OP I would absolutely put something on paper asap. Go to a lawyer's office and find a good middle ground for child support and visitations. Don't leave anything up to chance - get it on paper now that you are on good terms, so you both have something to fall back on when it gets bad. Life is unpredictable. Wishing them the best.

So, overall, a pretty positive outcome. It will be interesting to see if this one-night stand dad ends up being a part of his kid's life. Do you think should should have gotten the promise for child support in writing?