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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think not looking like you parents

214 replies

DevonLodger · 23/10/2013 20:59

Is not a good reason to take a child into care and carry out a DNA test.

I look nothing like my daughters. Should I be worried?

OP posts:
NeedlesCuties · 23/10/2013 21:07

I'm assuming you mean the Roma cases that have been in the media?

It isn't that they didn't look similar that is the issue.... but the general suspicion of Roma people.

I look like a copy of my parents, and my kids look just like me and DH, but I know plenty of people who look nothing like their parents. Not Roma though, so they can rest easy.

YANBU.

Justforlaughs · 23/10/2013 21:11

Hmm, not looking like your DCs may not be such an issue as being of a different race, (supposedly) having umpteen children registered within a few months and fake birth certificates. What would you like the police to do?

JackNoneReacher · 23/10/2013 21:19

Justforlaughs - I think the OP is referring to the Irish case which is totally different to the Greek one.

A 7 year old was removed from her family cos she didn't look like her siblings. I'm pretty horrified at this. I can think of loads of families with kids that don't look like their siblings. Not a reason in itself to remove them.

MrsTerryPratchett · 23/10/2013 21:20

Link?

JackNoneReacher · 23/10/2013 21:20

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24645947

MrsDeVere · 23/10/2013 21:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LimitedEditionLady · 23/10/2013 21:23

Did you see the photo of the child with the parents?Would you not think it unusual if you were the police?there are child abduction cases and you see a child who looks nothing like any of the people that are around them and nothing like the other children said to be siblings in a place were this is a known activity and you would walk away and say and do nothing?how are they to know the situation without taking steps?they were right werent they.

motherinferior · 23/10/2013 21:24

I am of a different 'race' to my mother, in that she is Indian and I am white.

I have been avoiding all those fucking discussions of the Roma stories because I find them, frankly, far too upsetting.

stella69x · 23/10/2013 21:24

I best watch out, I'm part Roma but fair and my DS is dark, guess i would get to keep DD thou as she is fair like me.

motherinferior · 23/10/2013 21:24

I can absolutely assure you that the police would have removed me - a white, red-haired, Celtic-looking child - from the woman who gave birth to me, under comparable circumstances.

FreudiansSlipper · 23/10/2013 21:25

it is worrying

ds at first glance looks nothing like me

MrsTerryPratchett · 23/10/2013 21:26

Shit. That's terrible. Removing a child is very extreme and should only be done when absolutely necessary. Couldn't they have swiftly done blood group tests in situ if they were worried?

I lived in Italy and dated a 6 foot, blonde, blue eyed Italian. His family (and everyone else) was shorter and darker. It was just a throw back to the Vikings. It happens.

JackNoneReacher · 23/10/2013 21:26

Not in the Irish case limited a child was removed from her family and put in care because she doesn't look like them - before DNA confirmed they were her family. What an awful trauma for a 7 year old.

True MrsDV

lolarose2591 · 23/10/2013 21:27

jeez my daughter is the spitting image of me but my ds well his dad is dark Spanish and i am brown haired and olive skinned ..... his bright ginger lol

motherinferior · 23/10/2013 21:28

I have spent my entire life trying to explain to people that my mother is, in fact, my mother. And I'm a nice middle-class gurl with an Oxford degree.

LimitedEditionLady · 23/10/2013 21:30

Op didnt say which case was being referred to at first so i could only guess

Justforlaughs · 23/10/2013 21:31

But you also have to think about all the cases where SS/ the police mess up by missing something. We've all seen the stories in the media, where a child is hurt/ dies because "police didn't act" "signs were missed" "lessons need to be learned" etc, etc. Imagine, if in 3 years time it transpired that that child was NOT who the parents claimed? If they HAD been an abducted child. There would be an outcry. What were the police doing? How did they miss that? It was obvious that they weren't the real parents. Look at them, they don't look anything like the child. The birth certificate wasn't authentic. etc, etc. Yes, they need to be careful how they react to their suspicion, but I would prefer to ere on the side of caution with regards to the DNA testing at least. Not so sure about removing a child before those tests were done.

JackNoneReacher · 23/10/2013 21:32

Loads of families have weird genetic throwbacks in them. I recently discovered that my white friend has a black parent (and one white) you just wouldn't believe it to see him though.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 23/10/2013 21:33

It's horrendous.

I would love there to be a report from the Irish authorities that explains how this has happened twice in a week to Roma families. Because it all looks really ignorant of basic genetics (and racist) from here.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 23/10/2013 21:34

It's fine that they checked - it's not okay that children were removed. It's very traumatic for then.

rhetorician · 23/10/2013 21:35

Um, not all children have a genetic link of any kind to their parents. I have two daughters, but they are my partner's biological children. They are still my children, although the law does not recognise them as such (DP just written letter in case dd1 and I get stopped at passport control when we travel together tomorrow).

GobbolinoCat · 23/10/2013 21:35

I don't think it was just the not looking like, but also the lack of documentation.

If someone asked me where my DC is, I would have a hard to job to find it in this shit chaos however I could refer them to the hospitals where I had them.

I am sure I read that they said the baby was born in a certain hospital which had no records of it, and it was then the child was removed.

I would rather they erred on the side of caution if there was doubt, but one has to be very very careful, telling a small child they are going into care for one night can be damaging for life.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 23/10/2013 21:36

Yup, that's also true rhetoric. Families are complicated.

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