'Bachelorette' Becca Kufrin loves her son's name 'regardless of what people say'

Former "Bachelorette" Becca Kufrin is smitten with the new fella in her life: 9-month-old son Benson "Benny" Lee Jacobs Kufrin.

As the child of two members of Bachelor Nation — Kufrin's husband, Thomas Jacobs, appeared on Season 17 of "The Bachelorette" as well as "Bachelor in Paradise" — Benny seems destined to experience life on screen at some point.

If Benny ever starts thinking about joining a reality show, his mom says that the first thing she'd ask is which show because "there's a lot more behind the scenes that goes on that you don't know."

Kufrin, whose own mother wasn't overjoyed when she went on the popular reality dating show, says she'd likely tell Benny what her mom told her: "I have raised you this far in your life. And now I just have to let you spread your wings and fly."

In a video call with TODAY.com, Kufrin shares her thoughts on the messiness of motherhood, raising a feminist son and protecting her family from social media backlash.

For starters, when Kufrin announced Benny's name on Instagram, the couple received a number of comments about the fact that his last name is arranged as "Jacobs Kufrin" rather than "Kufrin Jacobs." But Benny's parents seem to revel in starting new traditions, given that they met through a reality show and she proposed to Jacobs in May 2022.

"It was not surprising. I knew that that would be coming," says Kufrin of the reactions to her son's last names. "I knew people would have their opinions. And that didn't change what we wanted to do anyway."

Kufrin seems entirely comfortable with forging a new path for her family.

"We have a way that we want to raise our child and how we want to name him," she explains. "Regardless of what people say, it's not going to change anything and it still feels right for us."

For now, Kufrin and Jacobs are busy keeping up with Benny ... and keeping his little face off of social media.

“We’re trying to keep him away from that world and not blast his face all over in a public setting,” she says. “I think that’s kind of protecting him in a way right now from people’s comments and criticisms and opinions.”

Kufrin and Jacobs want Benny to learn from the example they set.

"Kids learn from what they see," she says. "My husband and I embrace and accept anyone: whatever your gender, your color, your ethnicity. So I think he'll just learn from how we teach him and and how we interact with people." She notes that Jacobs will be a stellar role model in showing Benny how to interact with women because of his close bond with his mother and sister.

The new parents are also trying to avoid "gender-specific" colors.

They've received a lot of hand-me-downs from Kufrin's sister, who is the mother of both a girl and a boy, so they don't focus on the colors and patterns of Benny's outfits.

"As he gets older, if he wants to gravitate towards a pink or purple or a floral or whatever — if that makes him happy, I'm cool with it," Kufrin says. "We just want him to have his own autonomy and his own thoughts and opinions and preferences."

Kufrin seems to be calmly taking everything in stride now, but she admits that the first two months were a "crazy roller coaster." She and Jacobs have been surprised by how much parenthood threw off their schedule.

"You can't plan for when kids get sick or all of the crazy messes that they might have," she says. "I was shocked to (see) how much mess one little human can make with their own bodies."

To keep up with those messes, Kufrin is partnering with Pampers Free & Gentle Wipes to clean quickly and efficiently, especially since she is using the baby-led weaning method to introduce Benny to solid food rather than spoon-feeding traditional purees. She says that Benny is "a little foodie" who loves burritos.

"I want to say 'food is fun until he's 1,' so we let him eat and paint the table with mashed potatoes," she says. "Pampers wipes wipe it down super fast."

In the next few years, Kufrin and Jacobs hope to give Benny a sibling and plan a big wedding celebration. The couple exchanged vows in a small courthouse ceremony in October 2023, just weeks after Benny's birth.

"We are still wanting to do a wedding where we can incorporate all of our friends and family and the people that we have loved and who have shaped us and seen all of the chapters of our lives," Kufrin notes. "I don't know when it'll come. But it'll come one day, whether it's next year, five years, 10 years. It'll happen."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com