Shawn Hunter Beat Cory Matthews To This Honor

On Boy Meets World, Shawn Hunter was the ever-charming womanizer who found it difficult to obtain and hold down a steady girlfriend until he hit college and met Angela Moore. On Girl Meets World , Shawn travels the world to avoid facing the fact that his best friend, Cory Matthews, has settled down and started a family with Topanga Lawrence without him. However, life does not imitate art in this case, because Rider Strong has become the father of a baby boy with wife Alexandra Barreto — beating Cory a.k.a. Ben Savage to the punch on this one.

According to Us Weekly, Strong and Barreto have been married for just over a year and managed to hide the pregnancy from us completely. I mean, when you tuned in to GMW every Friday to catch up on the next generation of the Matthews family, with your fingers crossed that "Uncle Shawn" would be making a reappearance, did you realize that Strong's soft-eyed look at his adopted niece and her friends was the result of Strong thinking about the fact that he would soon have a child of his own? Because I didn't. I just thought it was really good acting. This is one situation in which I've never been more happy to be lied to.

Their son was born on Sunday, December 28, and is named Indigo "Indy" Barreto Strong, the first child for both members of the low-key couple. They were married in 2013 after meeting on the set of Pepper Dennis in 2006, and that's all you really need to know about them aside from the fact that Shawn Hunter is now a father. Anyone who doubted that he has the paternal skills required to be the kind of parent that his own parents never were needs only to look to Girl Meets World, where Shawn has revealed that is not only a legitimate fear of things but also one that he doesn't need to worry about. Maya Hart isn't even his daughter and Shawn has easily stepped into the role of father figure to her after they bonded about how easily they've been abandoned growing up.

Strong doesn't have that much in common with his on-screen counterpart, but it's hard to believe that he'd be a worse father than Shawn. In fact, given the evidence from Girl Meets World, I would venture that they would be roughly the same — if Strong doesn't win just by virtue of being the one to actually have a child of his own (rather than adopting those of his best friend from childhood, as one does). Either way, this is the kind of thing that punches you right in the nostalgia feels because it reminds you of exactly how much time has passed since Boy Meets World was a regular staple of our morning and afternoon TV times. Shawn Hunter is a dad, you guys. It blows the mind, it does.

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