BS: Not their Father's Children

Subject: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:54 PM

Hi, I just found out that some of my cousins don't know who their father was... now, while I will abide by my sister's decision not to tell them (the kids), I do not agree with her position that the kids have no *right* to this info. I would think certainly before they got married/got pregnant/got anybody else pregnant they should know where their DNA comes from.
What is your opinion on this? Any stories? Any songs? The French have a great one if I could only remember it...

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: jeffp
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 02:59 PM

They should be certainly entitled to that information. They should know about their inherited susceptibilities to diseases.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Slag
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:06 PM

Let love and truth guide you.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Micca
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:40 PM

"It is a wise child that knows its own father"
In the University department I worked in in the 70s there was a draft paper on blood groups and their transmission and occurrance in families done. A large housing estate in East London was taken as the "test population" and about 2000 people tested. It was never published because they found that close to 40% of the kids COULDN'T be of their putative fathers!! This did not mean that the others were, but that they 40% couldn't be because of blood group exclusionsie i.e. a Group A and a Group B couple could not produce a Group O child!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:47 PM

Damn right they have the right to know who their biological father is if that info is known.

Andy M. Stewart had a song on his "By the Hush" album: The Orphan's Wedding.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 04:29 PM

My opinion is that while I agree that children have that right, in theory and in general principle, I also think that their mom bears the responsibility for the decision, free of pressure. You can't know what she knows, and she's the one that has to walk in those shoes. She may very well choose a moment in time when it is the right time to tell them, and the more pressure she gets, the longer it will take her to do that.

Of course, it is possible that they will find out by Googling their way somehow, sometime, to your post here about it at Mudcat.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:13 PM

They've got a right to know, but you've got no right to tell them.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:23 PM

They have a right to know. I can understand waiting until they're adults but "the right time" cannot fairly be on her death bed.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: dianavan
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:26 PM

They have a right to know but only the mother can determine the right time and place.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:28 PM

If they really want to know they should be told.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:30 PM

Elma Turl:
http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=8951

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:34 PM

How old are they? IS their mother still alive. I agree they have a right to know, but it should be the mother's decision, not some cousin's.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:36 PM

My sister-in-law was rushed to the hospital in a coma. My brother was frantically talking to her relatives trying to get a straight answer about the family's health history. Finally somebody cracked.

Seems she was her father's child by another woman. Her mother had adopted her. Everyone including her cousins, who were more like siblings as they were all raised in the same house, knew but no one including her mother ever told her. Her father died before she married.

What pain it caused during her recovery when it all came out. My brother saw the irony and commented "Why couldn't it be Mary. She has always thought she was adopted and would have been happy to hear it."

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:39 PM

It's only by the grace of God and the invention of the bicycle that the people in my village have only 5 toes on each foot.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: 282RA
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:40 PM

If the children want to know and the mother won't tell them I see nothing wrong with someone else telling them if they know the truth. It is not the mother's right to withhold that information. It's not her life, it their lives and they have a right to know IF they express the desire to know.

If they do express that desire, I'd simply tell the mother, "If you don't tell them, I will. You have 24 hours."

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:44 PM

They definitely should know if other people know. We need some sort of law that says that they are entitled to know and that would take the responsibility away from everybody else.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: skipy
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 05:55 PM

I was adopted 54 1/2 years ago, today yet again I was searching the net to try to find the 2   1/2 bothers that I have.
Very important to me.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Bee
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 07:54 PM

They should know.

Liz the Squeak, that was laugh out loud funny - sounds like something from The Secret Policeman, and would apply to my rural origins, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,LilyFestre
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 09:00 PM

I think the question becomes more of why shouldn't they know? As a child of a man who was adopted, I can tell you that not knowing your history, your medical make-up, etc. is disconcerting. It also leaves a curious gap about who do I look like? Who do I take after? Did anyone else in my family have the same interests or quirks as I do? Are any of them alive? Is some woman missing my Dad and wondering about his life on March 1st of every year?

It's not that life doesn't go on but it sure does leave many unanswered questions.

If I were her child, I would want to know and I think they have a right to know. I also think that it is up to the mother to disclose this information. Think of the damage and hurt that could be created if they learned this from someone else.

LQF

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Scoville
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 09:23 PM

I disagree that only the mother can know the right time and place. This affects the children (who, if they are not already, will be adults at some point) for the rest of their lives. It is not fair to them if she decides to sit on it until she's 95, especially if there are potential health issues at stake.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,LilyFestre
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 09:32 PM

Hmm. I can see both sides (about whether someone besides the mother should say). How old are the children, has anyone said?

LQF

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: gnomad
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:09 AM

Of course these thoughts may be inapropriate, a mother may be pretending to conceal the father's ID in order to cloak the fact that she doesn't have the information wanted.

"If you don't tell them I will" sounds a pretty agressive intervention in another's life to me. It also presupposes that 'I' has absolute knowledge of the facts, which is unlikely. Imagine you told them, but were wrong.

This is not to say that the children don't have a right to know, the do, just a caution that tackling one problem must not be allowed to create a greater one.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Wolfgang
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 08:28 AM

This reminds me of the problem I had mentioned in my last post in the Surrepetitious paternity tests thread (link goes to the post): A woman suing her mother in order to force her to tell her the names of the four men that could be her father.

I have long searched to find more information and now I know. The last and final sentence was an order for the mother to tell the names or to go into coercive detention.

Two more arguments from that case that have not been mentioned here yet:
(1) An argument for the children's right to know: In German law, they can inherit from an out of wedlock father.
(2) An argument against the children's right to know: A third party's right is damaged by the right of the children to know. The mother in the German case has argued in her defense that three of the four potential fathers (the fourth was already dead) are now living in happy marriages and that giving the daughter the wanted information could have a bad impact upon completely innocent people (the wives and the children of the happy marriages).

Interesting argumentation, but the sentence was against the mother.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 10:39 AM

"It was never published because they found that close to 40% of the kids COULDN'T be of their putative fathers!! This did not mean that the others were, but that they 40% couldn't be because of blood group exclusionsie i.e. a Group A and a Group B couple could not produce a Group O child!!! "

----------
Well, maybe they might have published, might have broken a lot of hearts and got a lot of women beaten up, even killed. Then years later someone might discover that an A and B can have an O child.

For years, people "knew" that a mother's body doesn't permit harmful chemicals to get through to her fetus. It wasn't true.

People "knew" that two light-eyed people can't have a brown-eyed child. It wasn't true.

People knew that only males get Duchennes muscular dystrophy. Then a girl in Belgium was born with it.

The university was right to sit on the study.
---------
About the woman in the initial thread. Nobody considers that she might not know who the fathers are.

As for the case that Wolfgang mentions, nobody considers that the mother is free to name any four men she wants. Basically, a decree such as the court made is unenforceable.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 10:57 AM

The biological fatherS (one for the twins who are 18, one for the younger 15) are unknown other than they matched (as closely as possible) the husband for ethnicity and education.
The children can't possibly express the desire to know as they have no idea that the man who raised them didn't contribute any DNA to their existence. So it isn't a question of who tells them, it's more a question of does the mom. I certainly can't/won't - but I will argue for the kids' right to know, as I see it.
My sister's fear, which is kind of Sinsull's story, is that Assumed Dad will be rushed to the hospital and the kids will find out they aren't his when they get tested for kidney transplant compatibility, or something.
Also, Micca, although I know what you meant, FYI an A and a B blood type can have a type O child - but not the other way around.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 01:05 PM

I think every baby born should automatically have a DNA swab. Paternity should be established at birth. It will cause problems and it will prevent problems and it might cause people to be more careful in their alliances. But a child has a right to know who her father is and a father has a right to know who his child is and the biological father has a lifetime of obligations, even if someone else raises his child. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 01:18 PM

"Everyone including her cousins, who were more like siblings as they were all raised in the same house, knew but no one including her mother ever told her..." Sinsull

Unless there is more information than given, Sins, they were her siblings. A half-brother or half-sister(odd word, isn't it!) is still one's sibling.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 02:52 PM

I don't think there is any way, or at least any easy way, for my niblings (note gender-neutral term for Niece or Nephew) to find out who their biological fathers ARE (or were). But I do think they should know that the man who is no longer married to my sister did not provide any DNA.
Meanwhile, any of you going to donate DNA to the Human Genome Project?

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Gizmo
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:45 PM

My cousin has a son by her first husband, but they divorced during her pregnancy and she later married another man, who matched similarities in apparearance to her first husband, but thankfully not personality. I did not agree to her holding the information when he was young, but as I have found out more about the ex, I can see exactly where she is coming from and do not blame her.

If people had DNA taken from their child for paternity reasons, this can pose huge problems for women whi have left violent, abusive partners or do not truly know the potential father (I.e. one night stand), victims of rape etc.

Some women sacrifice so much for their childs welfare, and sometimes that includes with holding of information. And as for the argument of medical reasons, even that can be determined by many other factors not necessarily parent lineage.   

It would also be very unfair for the child to learn that the father is not their 'real' by someone other than their mother. It should be up to the parent looking after the children, as it is they who would have to deal with the emotional confusion that would come of it.

As a side line, my daughter was born with dark eyes, they were like oil slicks, not baby blue eyes. My eyes are blue and so is her fathers. Her eyes eventually settled to a hazel colour. My uncle also has hazel eyes, and it seems that he never had baby blue eyes either. My nans eyes are green, my grandads were blue. My mum and her two other siblings also have blue eyes. For some reason, my daughter and my uncle appear to have a pigmnetation problem or something where the blue cannot be produced.

Although it is highly unlikely that my daughter hould have this colouring, when doing genetics for my degree, I found out that it isn't improbable that this could happen!

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,Don Last
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:49 PM

I was told at 18. In my opinion that was waiting too long.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 05:21 PM

I have had DNA for the Genome project...if anyone would like to see it go to the project..google it as I don't have the address...it is under National Geographic genome project...

my code is FWY38HJU3FQ

If you are female it does your mother's mother's mother etc. back to about 10,000 years...as far as I can figure out I am a Basque...

I thought it might pick up my ancestor's line that was Native American, possibly Iroqois, or else a Cornish strain but I honestly don't know what this is. My mother's family was Welsh, Cornish, Native American and a mixture, probably German, Dutch etc. It might be picking up the Dutch or German, which I know nothing about. My father's was all Irish, which would be interesting to do because he was one of the Black Irish and it would be nice to solve that mystery once and for all.

Anyway, my strain mostly went to the middle East. It never hit the British Isles by the time of this and was a more southerly strain. So I probably have Palestinian and Iraqi relatives. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 06:04 PM

Rats- can't get to your info. PM me a Link? Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 04:00 PM

Only the mother has a right to know who she had sex with.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 04:53 PM

Didn't work for me, either. Here is a link: Genographic Project.

Relatives have no right to disclose this kind of information without the parent's permission, unless there has been some kind of complete falling out between child and parent which is irrepairable and the child is an adult.

Subject: RE: BS: Not their Father's Children
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 06:01 PM

Not in ANY circumstances.

Women are not subordinate to their children. They are people not breeders.