"Do they have the same father?"

[firstmentat]

The children have an age gap of just over a year (both still quite young). Still, sometimes people ask me this question (not as a part of their professional duties, but in general as a part of "getting to know you" chat). I am a single parent, the father (same to both children) is not involved.
I cannot point out exactly why, but this does sound to me as it has an unpleasant undertone. But I am not British, and there were occasions when I misread the situation due to cultural differences.
To me, they effectively are asking whether I have slept with a man other than my ex husband with a tiny baby. Or am I completely misreading the subtext?

@3LittleMonkeyz

Don't worry about midwives asking, there are clinical reasons. It's not just the midwife being nosy. It effects the likelihood of certain maternal illness, such as pre eclampsia, which is influenced by the fathers genes, and risk factors for baby too. I wondered why everyone was asking me but it's because I was hospitalised for suspected pre eclampsia and that is a risk factor if not your first baby

I had an ELCS for pre-eclampsia with my eldest. The information I was given is that the risk is highest with the first baby you have with a bloke, with the risk dropping in subsequent pregnancies by the same father. The if you get pregnant with a new bloke, your risk jumps up again. There are other factors, too, as I was overweight when I got pregnant.

When I was 12 weeks pg with ds2, midwife came to the house for the booking appointment. DS was 2-1/4. She sat in my drawing room, my surname hadn't changed, I was wearing a wedding ring, our starting to date photos were on the mantelpiece. I had already had a MMC between pgs and had just told her about it.

"And does this baby have the same father as your existing child" I just calmly said, I think it would have taken longer than two years to get divorced, have a miscarriage, remarry and get pg again, don't you? She got really arsy and just said "You can't imagine what we deal with". I made a formal complaint to the head obstetrician. Never got a response.

DS2 was born and died at 27 weeks. Still pisses me off, 23 years later. She was inappropriate and rude. She was a guest in my home. I can only imagine she judged expectant mothers by the standards with which she lived her own life.

Chelsea & Westminster. Unacceptable and I didn't have my next baby there because of it although the high risk care I received subsequently was excellent but I couldn't have put myself through that level of offensive behaviour again.

Pretty standard 'getting to know you' question where I live!
Ive been asked it a few times over the years about my two!

@firstmentat

That is so rude! I can't imagine ANYONE asking ''Do your children have the same father??

Just unreal.

When we moved cities a couple of weeks before DS was born, there was a marked cultural difference...Think going back in time 20 yrs...and the elderly lady who lived down the road said "

''OOh!! No mistaking who his father is! he looks so much like your husband''

I was like ????? DH was my one and only partner...Did she really think I'd been unfaithful?

My cousin gets this as her 2 children look very different, one very dark and one very fair... they’re actually twins 🙈

That’s really weird. You’d have to be pretty impressive to manage to meet someone new and get pregnant by them by the time your first baby was 3 months old. New boyfriends involve shaving legs and best pants and stuff!

Maybe you come across as very efficient!

Quote: I had an ELCS for pre-eclampsia with my eldest. The information I was given is that the risk is highest with the first baby you have with a bloke, with the risk dropping in subsequent pregnancies by the same father. The if you get pregnant with a new bloke, your risk jumps up again. There are other factors, too, as I was overweight when I got pregnant

Ah, this does make sense... DH had two sisters who died because his poor mum had pre-eclampsia.

He was the third.
Same dad.

It must be so traumatic... I never knew the father had anything to do with the pre-eclampsia situation.
Very sad indeed.

When we moved cities a couple of weeks before DS was born, there was a marked cultural difference...Think going back in time 20 yrs...and the elderly lady who lived down the road said"

''OOh!! No mistaking who his father is! he looks so much like your husband''

I was like ????? DH was my one and only partner...Did she really think I'd been unfaithful?

Don't be ridiculous! Of course she didn't think you had been unfaithful. It is a relatively common expression to say how much the kid looks like it's dad. Even my mum said it to me about DS1 and people said, Oh my, you can tell he is yours about DS2.

@GlummyMcGlummerson

The only acceptable response to this is "No, but their fathers are actually brothers so at least I had the good sense to keep it in the family" and watch their face

Please use this response just once 😂😂😂

So rude.

Sorry OP thatvyou have to deal with such unbelievable ignorance.

My eldest 2 are 17 months apart, different fathers, 3rd one is also a different father, but we have been married for 27 years.
All that proves is that I was crap at choosing men and highly fertile!

My kids have been asked if they are adopted. (They are mixed race).

That’s really weird. You’d have to be pretty impressive to manage to meet someone new and get pregnant by them by the time your first baby was 3 months old. New boyfriends involve shaving legs and best pants and stuff! I know someone who met her husband when she was 6 months pregnant. They moved in together just after baby was born. Forty years on they are still together.

Amazed at the widespread disproval of women who have children with different men. We are still in the 1950s it seems.

@Mumoftwoyoungkids

That’s really weird. You’d have to be pretty impressive to manage to meet someone new and get pregnant by them by the time your first baby was 3 months old. New boyfriends involve shaving legs and best pants and stuff!

Maybe you come across as very efficient!

Or you know an affair?

I know someone who met her husband when she was 6 months pregnant. They moved in together just after baby was born. Forty years on they are still together
I have known at least three couple that have got together while the woman was pregnant by someone else. This over a time span of decades though! All had a happy ever after!

@Elsewyre I guess an affair would also work. But even so - it still involves a huge amount of effort at a time when I just couldn’t be arsed!

It is like on soap operas - they complain the baby has kept them up all night but somehow manage to summon the energy to shag their next door neighbour, go to the pub and secretly tell their friend all about it in a secret location that somehow means that they can be overheard by the aforementioned neighbours wife! I feel such a failure! When my babies kept me up all night I was far more likely to plonk myself on the sofa and eat my way through a packet of custard creams.

i had this when i had ds2.
my ds are 12 months apart and look very different one red head with blue eyes.
ds2 has dark brown hair brown eyes and an olive skin tone.
They also look nothing alike.
The health visitor asked me if they had the same dad.
My dp and i have had 3 more children together and we have 2 more red heads one with brown eyes one with green eyes and one with brown hair and blue eyes.
the more children we had the more similar the 5 of them looked

notacooldad, three couples! I thought it was unusual. The couple I know are probably one of the happiest couples I know, 40 years on they are devoted to each other. He accepted her baby as his (registered as his which I know isn't right really) the biological father didn't know she was pregnant when they split up and she never told him as far as I know. He was never around anyway.

I'm the only redhead in my immediate family so have had this kind of thing said to me all my life - am I adopted, did my Mum have an affair, are my children my own etc. When ordinary people do that I judge them to be both rude and lacking in basic understanding of genetics and let it go over my head.
But it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if a healthcare professional asked about the parentage of my children. It is a standard question and has clinical relevance. Whenever any of my children has been in hospital there are always questions about who lives in the household, what relation they are etc. There's nothing judgemental about it - providing everyone gets asked of course. Same as they ask if there's social worker involvement, whether anyone takes drugs etc. What would be wrong is if middle class women living in "good" postcodes and wearing wedding rings didn't get asked those kind of questions and others did.
I have worked with families from all kinds of backgrounds through most of my professional career and one of the first things I learned was not to make any assumptions about anyone. I always start any new client interaction by asking who everyone is and what they wish to be known as, whether they look like they are a "conventional" family or not.

ancientgran

notacooldad, three couples! I thought it was unusual
I guess it is, as I said it was over many decades!
I think the first one I knew of was my college tutor got together with his partner when she was pregnant and her boyfriend left her. That child is around 34 now and the couple are still together. More recently a friend of my sons started going out with a girl in the a similar situation as above. They had known each other since starting secondary school together and were part of a large friendship group. They now have 3 kids and I see them walking past our house a lot. They always give us a wave!!

I guess it depends on whether you find the idea of siblings with different parents offensive at all. As one of 4 (3 different mothers) I've been asked this a lot as none of us look in the least alike.

I got asked that too when I went for my first scan with our daughter. Our children are 17, 16 and 8.
I've been with their Dad for 20yrs. I told them it was offensive

I get it all the time due to the age difference between my children, there are just shy of 11 years between my two. This combined with the fact my eldest has blue eyes like myself and the youngest has brown eyes as my does my husband, people jump and incorrectly assume my eldest is from a previous relationship.

Winds me up no end.

Very rude. I was asked if I had adopted my son when he was a toddler, he is blonde with green eyes and I am very dark with brown eyes.