Men who are unaware their child isn’t biologically theirs

[K8ate]

Hearing stories and seeing various online statistics, the average percentage of men who are unaware that their child isn’t biologically theirs ranges from 10% upwards.
Surely these figures can’t be accurate?

My dad wasn't sure I was his, until I was in my sixties. He and my mother never mentioned that, but it does explain a lot of their behaviour towards me. Even though my child looked so much like his own father he had to put her photos away because he felt his dad was 'watching' him, he wasn't sure!

Dad agreed to a dna test to checkout his Irish ancestry (came out 'Roscommon' which is pretty specific). Later I had my own dna tested to see if there was anything I should know about my mother's side.

In conversation, I mentioned that my ancestry pages state 'His Name is your father.' I was very surprised when he immediately got up from where he was sitting and demanded 'Show me!' We weren't any closer once he'd seen the truth in writing, but that's ok.

A year or so ago, I was shopping in a local supermarket when an old man came up to me and said 'I knew your mother!' Not being particularly sociable, and having known my mother well, I replied coldly 'My mother knew a lot of people.'
'She did!' he responded 'I could be your father!' 'Well, you're not,' I said firmly, 'My dad and I are dna tested, my dad is definitely my dad.' And I walked away, having no interest whatsoever in some old bloke who'd shagged my mum early in 1957.

This week, another old bloke came up and demanded to know if was Dad's Name's daughter. Yes, I am. He wanted to tell me about some work he'd had done by Dad, still going well fifty years later. Or so he said. Instinct tells me he's another one. Mum...honestly!

Thanks to my sister deciding to do a DNA ancestry test we've discovered our Dad (recently deceased) is not his father's child.
My sister challenged our Nan (Dad's Mum), she's 80, has terminal bowel cancer, and found that she had been raped by a friend of her husband.

I'm very grateful that our Dad isn't alive to find this out, although it makes sense why his early years and childhood was marred by his mums depression.

I am also incredibly angry that a terminally ill elderly lady has had to relive her trauma.

Understanding of what? The point of my comment was about the statistic quoted to me which was relevant to the thread. I don’t think that information changes if I was a private or public patient. The thread was about men who are unaware if children are biologically theirs. Not statistics about who gives birth public/private/uk or not.

if you can’t see how being more specific would have made your post more helpful, then I will just leave it there.

Goodnight.

Excellent question. For the tests, and then also for the resulting problems when there are testing fuck ups. As there inevitably will be.

That is so awful

I’m one of the number of people who does not have my biological father’s name on my birth certificate. I only found out a couple of years ago (I’m 50) and my parents and biological father are all dead so there is nobody to answer my questions. I found out as a result of an ancestry dna test. Utterly devastating. Still having therapy.

I can't remember where but I read it was as much as 25%

It's really not.

No, it really isn't, as @Misthios said.

I posted earlier on this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5101111-men-who-are-unaware-their-child-isnt-biologically-theirs?reply=136160212

The very high figures of "parental discrepency" tend to come from those fathers that have a paternity test and so there are already concerns about paternity.

If you're at all interested in genealogy and tracing your family tree, then coming across this sort of thing does happen. It is often described as an "NPE" (non-paternity event or not parent expected).

There was a recent study that surveyed 23,000 people who used the DNA services of one of the big websites and they found that around 3% of the participants discovered an unexpected biological parent.

Now that doesn't necessarily mean that the father was unaware, just that the adult child who took the DNA test was unaware. Also, in a very small number of cases it turned out that they had been adopted or were donor-conceived and never told of this.

This may be the sort of "real" upper limit for this as those fathers suspicious about their paternity may be more inclined to check it out which gives rise to those higher figures in other studies

Link to the 2022 study in American Journal of Human Genetics:

"Family secrets: Experiences and outcomes of participating in direct-to-consumer genetic relative-finder services"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929722000131

My cousin has no idea she doesn't have the same dad as her brother. I will not be the one to throw in the bomb.

Her dad doesn't know either but if you look at her, she's only one who doesn't have the same nose as the rest of us.

I hate knowing but we aren't talking and I refuse to do anything in spite.

The problem is that this is one of those unanswerable questions. So there is no real data either way.
As has been posted, people tend to find out by accident, mis matched blood, family tree genealogy etc.

I know that American lawyers put the number at quite high, and its high enough so that tv shows can be make due to it.

I personally would like to see DNA testing as standard at birth, mainly to identify any genetic illnesses, but it would surely benefit the parents to know that they are both the parents and would be of benefit in divorces and Child maintenance disputes.

I think the mother will usually have a pretty good idea that she IS the parent of the child who has just come out of her body!

Before the use of wrist tags, babies would be mixed up at the hospital.

Yes that would be one parent not both.

I heard it was 1 in 5!

Yes I was told this as well…at least for Leeds!! That was when they insisted I had an anti d and said they couldn’t take my word for who the father was!!