Incidences of mismatched/wrong paternity?

[CuriouSir]

Hello all.

I am just curious about this. I have read that 'non-paternity events' (where there is a mismatch between the father of a child and the actual biological father) is around 1-2% in the UK (according to one study). Do you know of anyone that has raised a child as their own, when said child hasn't really been theirs?

I did read an historical survey that claimed 1 in 4 children were not the biological children of the named father (pre IVF etc) which implies 25% of men are cuckolded

There are all manner of psychological data gathering exercises which show why (grand) mothers will have a much more to do with their daughters children rather than their sons. Simple fact is, you know your daughters child carries your genes, where as your DIL may cuckold your son so you dont really want to invest in a cuckoo

Admit, that seems enormously high. Op's link is very informative (thanks OP), unfortunately can't read the whole paper without subscribing.

Anyway, we might be going off at a tangent - OP, are you worried about your friends?

no, not worried. It's not worth disturbing anything or getting involved. I had never thought the figures would be as high as that and I find it interesting
that's all and I guess I was after a perspective as to how this may happen. I think 1 in 4 is likely to be fairly inaccurate.

I watched two clips of an American talk show recently, I think it was called Maury. The woman had fraternal twins and she was convinced they had different fathers. Anyway, the first clip showed two men being tested and neither were the father. The second clip showed two more men being tested and neither of them were the father of either baby I don't know if there was another clip, I really wanted to find out who was the father!!

"guess I was after a perspective as to how this may happen"

Um, well, when a man and a woman like each other very much...

I thought you might be worried about your friends' relationship because you've posted in Relationships.

Because it's about relationships?

1-2% isn't that high, though. As pointed out, you have a .5% chance a pregnancy will end in stillbirth, and that's (thank God) not a common experience. Most people will not experience one. 99% of children will have paternity correctly attributed.

Having said that, I think DNA tests should be standard in separation, because it would save the minority of poor sods who are conned, and demonstrate the biological facts of life to the sadly rather larger group who see no reason "their money" should be "wasted" by the person feeding, housing and nurturing their kids, almost always at dramatically greater actual cost.

I think 1 to 2 percent is pretty significant. It was also one of the lowest figures in the selection of studies cited.

I read somewhere that nearly a quarter of people in long term relationships have been unfaithful - not sure how reliable that stat is! But, whatever the number, there's probably not many men in the group who've had a vasectomy, so it's not surprising that some are fertilising eggs along the way, through contraception failure or lack of contraception.

If you have brought up a child from infancy it is your child. The whole genetic thing is mostly irrelevant in my eyes. Morally the child is yours even if legally financially you could cut all ties.

Iirc, i think that some European countries have that as the law, trice.

In the uk, a man gets automatic parental responsibility for a child of the marriage - if a DNA test finds he is not the biological father, does the law automatically "switch off" e. G. his right to be consulted on medical and educational decisions or is there a further process of formally removing it?