A 30-year-old new mom says her ex abandoned her during pregnancy after demanding an invasive DNA test.

She named her son herself, gave him her last name, and moved forward with her life.

Months later, after the grandmother confirmed paternity, the ex suddenly reappeared—demanding she change the boy’s first and last name to match his family’s “Barrett” tradition.

Read on for the story.

AITAH for not naming my son what I agreed to with his father?

About a year ago I found out I was pregnant with my now ex.

We had been together for 2 years, already spoke about marriage and the future, so a baby was a happy surprise that would come earlier than expected.

Early on, we talked about names. We agreed on a name if it’s a girl, but when it came to boy names, my ex insisted we follow his family tradition.

For the past few generations, every first male of the next generation was named Barrett (fake name for privacy).

His great-grandfather was a Barrett, his grandfather was a Barrett, his uncle and his brother are Barretts.

Makes sense.

No offense to anyway reading this named Barrett, but it’s not a name I would ever pick. But it was important to my partner at the time.

A few months into my pregnancy, I started having some minor complications.

Nothing major or worrying, looking back, but as a first-time mom, I was very anxious about anything not going right.

Maybe that anxiety affected our relationship, I don’t know, but there started to be some tension.

Sounds about right.

At about 5 months, my ex demanded a DNA test.

This was really hurtful and ridiculous.

I’m an introvert and a homebody. When I wasn’t at work, I was with my ex. There would be no opportunity to cheat.

I told him I’ll happily arrange for a DNA test once the baby’s born, but he insisted on one in utero because he needed to know now before he invested any more into the baby.

I told him I understand that’s low risk, but there’s already some complications and I don’t want to add in any additional risk, so I wanted to wait until after the birth.

He took this as me stalling and trying to “emotionally trap him” after the baby is born.

Wow.

We broke up. He ghosted me.

Every message, every ultrasound, every invitation to an appointment was left on read.

I stopped after a while. I didn’t inform him when I went into labor and I didn’t inform him when I gave birth.

I was ready to do this alone and I have a great village with my friends and family.

I had a son.

I named him what I wanted to name him. He has my last name.

That’s some backbone.

His mother reached out to me about 2 months ago asking to meet her grandson.

The visit went well and I always thought she was a lovely woman and if she can have a good relationship with me and my son, I’d welcome it.

She asked if she could visit regularly (once a month – she lives 2 hours away) and I said only under one condition: she takes a DNA test to show she’s related and thus proves my ex is the father.

To no one’s surprise, she’s his grandmother.

She clearly told my ex about it and he called last week asking to meet his son. I agreed.

Oh boy…

The meeting was awkward as heck. He asked about getting back together and I told him that will never happen.

He then said that in order to be in my son’s life, I needed to change his first and last name to his “real” name.

I told him absolutely not.

I reminded him that he abandoned his child, my son is a [my last name], not a [ex’s last name] and the only family traditions he’d ever be a party of are the [my last name]’s.

And that’s that.

He called me selfish for ruining this traditional over a “mental health crisis.”

I told him it’s pretty convenient that his “mental health crisis” disappeared when he could no longer deny being the father and my son’s name will stay the same and for him to not even try to make Barrett some kind of nickname.

The night of his visit, his mother called and told me he’s really upset and maybe I could think about changing my son’s legal name.

I told her that her son’s happiness hasn’t been my concern for over six months and he lost the right to make my son part of his tradition when he abandoned him.

I don’t think I’m wrong, but my sister said I probably could have articulated my side differently and been less confrontational.

My mom also said I likely made repairing the relationships more difficult with what I said. So AITAH?

Reddit firmly sided with the mom—she’s NTA.

This person says her son’s identity is hers to protect.

This person says Dad was wildly selfish.

And this person has some real advice.

Skip nine months and a birth, and you skip naming rights too.

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