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Thank you for your comments.
Butterfly4u, I know that this guy doesn't want to be a father and I'm not trying to force him at all. That isn't my intention. I just wanted to know whether or not I should give his paternal grandparents the option of knowing their grandchild exists (as I know I'd want to know, and I know my parents would want to know).
We both live in separate states from our parents, so it's unlikely that news would travel.
But I just wanted an opinion from parents of grown up children on how they would feel about having a grandchild they never knew existed. Thank you again for your comment. I'm open to listening to the advice from all, but I just don't want to be misunderstood in my intentions and thought process.
As for the ominous warning about how my life is going to be at the end, nothing in life is easy, at least in my life. Parenting is hard, period, married or single, but most people wouldn't trade it for the world. Even single parents. I was in the beginning stages of pursuing adoption prior to becoming pregnant, so I would have been a single parent regardless of it had been biological or not.
Speaking only for myself, I WOULD want to know, if one of my boys was going to be a father, and I would want to be involved in that child's life, if possible. But...that's me...and that doesn't mean that's what I deserve. Different people react in various ways...I just know what I would want.
As a grandparent already and father of 6 kids I would be upset if any of my kids had a child and did not tell me about it. But of course I am a normal (kinda) enough old man that loves his grandkids and children. So yes I would want to know. If they decide not to respond or be in the kids life, it is their loss. Sounds like you need a new boyfriend that actually cares what you think. 40 years old and still scared of his mommy???? Holy cow........run lady run.......you can do better, a lot better.
IMHO the OP should leave the decision of whether the father's family should know about the baby or not, up to the father. If he says no, then I would not do an end run around that decision.
If I tell someone "I do not want [my family member(s)] to know about this", I would be justifiably angry if the other person agreed to that and then went behind my back and told my family member(s) anyway. My feeling is that whoever belongs to a family (by blood or adoption) should have the final say in who knows what, regardless of what outsiders think is "right and proper." Obviously this would not apply if the secret involved something illegal or physically harmful to others. I'm talking only about personal family dynamics.
I also speak from the experience of having once been married to a man who walked on eggshells around his mother because she was such a petty vindictive person whenever she felt she was crossed in any way. "It's not worth the flak she'll give everyone", "I don't want to deal with what her reaction would be", "She'll take it out on everyone in the family if she doesn't get her way", "We have to go to her house every Christmas or else I'll be hearing about it for the next six months", etc etc. Implicit in all this was the veiled threat that "if you insist on doing things otherwise, the fallout will be all YOUR fault and I will be mad at YOU for causing that situation." And yes this was a college educated professional man in his 30s. The only person who ever stood up to that woman was her husband (occasionally) and as a result they were almost always fighting by arging, sniping, "not speaking", forcing family members to take sides, etc. It was ugly.
My point being that IMHO one should leave family members to sort out their various dysfunctions on their own. If the baby's father says "I don't want my mother to know" (for whatever the reason may be, and whatever opinion anyone else has about that decision is irrelevant) then IMHO that's the way it should be.
Would I personally want to know? Only if my son chose to tell me. If I found out later, from another quarter, that he didn't want me to know, I would not be angry. I would be puzzled, sure, but not angry. What basis would I have to be angry?? None. People have no obligation to disclose any facet of their personal life to anyone if they don't want to, aren't required to by law, or aren't under oath in Court.
Then you have to look at what right for your child. He or she has the right to have relatives know about him/her.
I meant to comment on this as well, because I emphatically disagree with the notion expressed in the parts I bolded.
Nobody has "a right" to have specific other people know about their existence. I cannot even begin to fathom such a mindset.
The existence of my biological paternal grandfather was kept secret from me and I have no idea whether he knew about me or not. I discovered the details of my grandparents relationship (they were not married) by accident via genealogical research in public records, decades after everyone involved was dead. I did discover from his death record that my biological grandfather was still alive when I was five years old. He lived in another state, about four hours away.
For whatever reasons, nobody in the family ever even mentioned him in my hearing. I just assumed that my "real grandpa" (not the one I knew as grandpa, who was my grandmother's third husband...well, second husband legally) had died and everyone was too sad to want to talk about him. So of course I never asked. It never occurred to me to do so.
I have no idea if he was ever told about me, either by my father or grandmother or anyone else. But the idea that I myself had some kind of "right to be disclosed" to my biological grandfather just blows my mind. What about my grandfather's right to privacy? What about my father's and grandmother's right to privacy? A child (or even adult relative) has no "right" to invade any of that.
Why should the grandparents be involved, the son doesn't want the child. OP, if my son make the decision not to become a family, I doubt I would want to be apart of it either. Just trying to be truthful.
This is not right that he refused to take his responsibility and telling you to abort the child. The responsibility of this child is not only on you. He must take his responsibility as a father. If he refused then you can take action against him. You should get your rights.
Given the father's reaction and that it seem such a surprise to the OP, and the fact that he would have preferred an abortion to a child the signals are clear: Back off, this is your red wagon.
This happened to a friend of mine 24 years ago. She had the baby even though he did not want the baby. He bailed, she raised the child alone. She didn't contact the father's family - she didn't even know how to contact them and this was before Facebook and all of that really took off so we were limited back then as to how to find people. Anyway, she did a great job and raised a great person who is now a college student, but as the child became an adult it was very painful and difficult to accept that the father wasn't there because he didn't want any part of it. It also made it difficult for my friend who wanted to pursue dating and relationships later on but had another person's child that she was raising - a lot of guys really don't want to take that on and she lost a few potential relationships because of that. Anyway - I'm sorry you are going through this and I don't have any advice or suggestions for you, except maybe to forget about this guy and just own your own choices and try not to worry or think about him or his family. That's his responsibility, not yours. You should just focus on you and your child and try to move on in healthy ways. I'd also talk to a family lawyer for advice, too, to see if there's anything you should do in this situation to protect yourself and your child.
I am a grand parent I would want to know and see my grandchild. The sperm donor doesn't have to be involved but the grandparents should know they have a grandchild and if they want to get involved should be able to do so.
I would tell sperm donor you aren't going to play his game, you will raise the child yourself but you want to invite his mother to baby shower if she wants to come and send birth announcement. He has already shown you the kind of man he is going to be.
If the grandparent doesn't want to get involved so be it, but she would have the chance if she wanted it.
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