10% of Men not the Father of their Children

[quote=“Tigerman”]
If what you say is true, then adoption cannot work.

But, I know that adoption does work.

Thus, what you say cannot be true.[/quote]

No, tigerman, you are the one who’s on thin ice.

If I decided to adopt a child, then I would know that I was not the biological father of the child before I even laid eyes on him and her the first time.

In other words, I would accept this child as mine and raise to the best of my abilities. No act of infidelity and deception would be a part of the siring or me accepting the child. Obviously, the child would in every aspect equal to any children sired by me, because I choose to make it so.

However, if I was led to believe that I had sired a child, which was somebody else, I would most likely make sure that the mother was frogmarched out of the marriage, and the child would be in a different position when it came to the non-emotional parts of fatherhood.

Equating deception with a consencious choice requires a fairly large logical leap, if I am asked.

I highly recommend that the posters on this thread read The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley.

He devotes quite a few pages to wives/mates cuckolding their husbands/mates and argues that the behaviour is far from rare and serves an evolutionary purpose. Inlcuded are examples of the behaviour from birds to humans.

[quote=“iris”]

A) I was talking about the children, not the mothers. Yes, of course, a situation like that would be an immense breach of trust. And you would be right to blame the mother. But the child/children would definitely be the last ones to blame. [/quote]

Agree, and i would not blame a say 3 year old child. On the other hand, I would prefer that the mother looked toward the biological father for support, emotional or otherwise.

I do. Deception, which will poison the relationship between the child and the father. At the end of the day it’s a matter of trust.

I can’t see that I should have any responsibility for a child I was decepted into accepting as my own biological offspring. The law in countries like Germany and Taiwan would also support this, I assume.Read here for more

[quote=“Tigerman”]
If what you say is true, then adoption cannot work.

But, I know that adoption does work.

Thus, what you say cannot be true.[/quote]

Well, I was only replying to your question/statement:

a child is only mine, if I sire it, right?

If that is true, then nobody but he who sired the child can be the father… But, you have acknowledged that adoption can work, thus, your statement above cannot be true…

I am not replying or commenting on the deception and breach of trust and paternal obligations, etc…

I think I agree with Mr He.

Most men don’t mind their girlfriend’s children from previous relationships.

But the shit hits the fan when you realise that your wife has cheated on you. And she didn’t only cheat but she has also been systematically lying to you for years. You realise that you’re the father of the child only because you were stupid enough to trust your wife - and your wife has been using you because you were an idiot. You start thinking back of all the times you said something like: “The boy has my eyes” - every time your wife was secretly laughing at you (at least you’re sure she did). You start thinking who else might have knows about this, you don’t know who to trust, eventually it’s the collapse of your whole world - if you can’t be sure if your child is yours, then you can’t be sure of anything.

I think everyone agrees that the child is innocent and should not suffer from this. But the bitterness that comes out of the situation is likely to kill the fatherly feelings. You just look at the child and see nothing but DECEIT. It’s an ugly reaction but normal, you can’t help it.

[quote=“Tigerman”][

Well, I was only replying to your question/statement:

a child is only mine, if I sire it, right?

I am not replying or commenting on the deception and breach of trust and paternal obligations, etc…

Thus, as per your acknowledgment, adoption can work, then your statement above cannot be true… unless you are speaking only of being a biological father… but that is not contested.[/quote]

I was focusing on the biological sense there. IE a child will only be my child in the biological sense if I father it.

Adoption works.

However, this is very much off topic, as we are talking into men ending up unwittingly raising a child they did not father. Whether adoption works or not is therefore not an issue here, as I pointed out earlier in this discussion.

[quote=“Mr He”]I do. Deception, which will poison the relationship between the child and the father. At the end of the day it’s a matter of trust.

I can’t see that I should have any responsibility for a child I was decepted into accepting as my own biological offspring. The law in countries like Germany and Taiwan would also support this, I assume.[/quote]

My point is: Where the heck did the CHILD decept the father? Where did the CHILD abuse the father’s trust? How can a father’s feelings for a CHILD change? I’m not talking about monetary or legal responsibility. I’m talking about feelings, about moral support (for the child, not the deceiving mother), about being there for the child the way the father was until the very moment when he realizes that the child carries the “wrong” genes. But I guess I can’t understand that because as a woman, I wouldn’t know about doubting the parenthood or rejecting children :s

[quote=“iris”]

My point is: Where the heck did the CHILD decept the father? Where did the CHILD abuse the father’s trust? How can a father’s feelings for a CHILD change? I’m not talking about monetary or legal responsibility. I’m talking about feelings, about moral support (for the child, not the deceiving mother), about being there for the child the way the father was until the very moment when he realizes that the child carries the “wrong” genes. But I guess I can’t understand that because as a woman, I wouldn’t know about doubting the parenthood or rejecting children :s[/quote]

The child is a victim like the ‘father’ is. If I were the deceived ‘father’, I would feel sorry for the child, but would most likely reject the child. After all, it was a walking testimonial to me being cuckolded and deceived, and to be hit where men in general are weakest. The issue here is deceit, not “wrong” genes. (and read the link, please).

And yes, as you stated you don’t understand.

Agreed on that. What about a change of perspective - people have been talking about their reaction as the parent, but how would you react if you found out that your father was not your biological father? Personally, it would not change my relationship with him - and I would be shocked, upset and depressed if it changed his view on me …

[quote=“david”]
Agreed on that. What about a change of perspective - people have been talking about their reaction as the parent, but how would you react if you found out that your father was not your biological father? Personally, it would not change my relationship with him - and I would be shocked, upset and depressed if it changed his view on me …[/quote]

Absolutely understandable, however, by directing your anger toward the father, you are missing the target. it was your mother who put you in that situation, and she should bear the whole blame for the situation.

I believe that we learn to love.

Thus, I agree with Iris.

However, I understand what Mr He is saying.

Fox,

Many people have commented on these mothers deceiving their husbands for years and so on. So I’m curious: Did the article you read mention what percentage of the mothers were similarly unaware regarding the identity of the biological father?

Certainly some of the mothers may have been guilty of this kind of long-term intentional deception (ie knowing that the biological father and the father raising the child were two different men). But presumably other of the mothers were guilty only of having an affair years ago, and not any kind of evil ongoing scheme to deceive their husbands about the identity of the child’s biological father. Note: I say “only guilty of having an affair…” – obviously this is something that is morally reprehensible. But in my mind cheating on one’s husband is not the same kind of depraved, amoral year-after-year scheme that some people have described.

The fact that the genetically unrelated fathers thought the baby could be theirs, indicates that the woman was having sex with both men at around the time of conception. In some cases it may have been an instance of ineffective contraception, where the mother thought that the child was her husband’s because the only unprotected sex she had engaged in was with the husband. It could have been a one-night stand, after which the woman assumed that the baby was her husband’s because it was, statistically, far more likely to be so.

Don’t get me wrong here – I do not approve of a woman cheating on her husband. But the idea (so far generally accepted in this discussion, from what I can tell) that in all of these cases the woman was some kind of evil mastermind who was cruelly manipulating her husband seems a little wide of the mark.

I think for women it’s the same as carrying a baby of a rapist. You know the child is not responsible for you being raped by his father and you know that you could just learn to love the child, but it’s easier to have an abortion (read: kill the innocent child) and forget about the painful past.
It’s cruel and maybe wrong, but that’s the way it usually works.

If she’s unaware or unsure of the paternity, then she’s merely plain stupid.

Unawareness does not absolve you of guild per se.

For a guy who has just learned a shocking news like that, all those excuses about being unsure or having not knows just sound like … excuses, and very lame excuses.
When I read what Hobbes writes I agree with him. But in real situation the emotions would probably take over and the guy would see his wife as an evil mastermind no matter what the statistics and probability say.

On the other hand, from the third party perspective - the guy who cheated with another man’s wife - it’s a win-win situation. He gets to make a baby and thus carry on his genes to another generation, but without the ball & chain of actually having to take care of it for 18+ years. He tricks some dumb sap into doing that for him. Leaving him free to continue to spread his genes elsewhere. The wife wins as well by carrying the DNA of the male she’s more sexually attracted to while taking advantage of the duller, but more stable male’s breadwinning.

2 out of 3 parties win. The only loser is the husband. From an evolutionary biology perspective, it makes sense for this to happen. Note that neither evolution nor biology are moral, admirable, or fair. Nasty, brutish, and short more like it.

Hobbes,

That statistic comes from a company called Genetic Technologies. They test paternity cases at a rate of 5 to 6000 a year in Australia. There actual strike rate varies between 40 to 50% however, they are cases where one party, most often the mother, checks paternity. You have to assume that if she checks then she suspects that there is a stong possibility of a child being from an affair. The speaker then made the claim that 10% of all children are not the biological children of their fathers.

People might find a woman cheating on her husband reprehensible, but I don’t. I would find it far more reprehensible if you were in a loving relationship with somebody perhaps for years and you had raised some children together or were in the process of doing that and you let somebody’s infidelity ruin your life. There are usually very good reasons for everything that happens in a relationship. Who really knows what people’s circumstances are like?

In my world, kids come first. If my wife cheats on me that’s her loss. The kids are first even if they aren’t mine, mostly because they are enjoyable, uncomplicated, interesting and rewarding.

Extrapair Paternity in Birds

Umm … that sounds like he pulled the 10% figure out of thin air. I don’t see how you can extrapolate from a self-selecting sample (of people who have reason to doubt paternity) to the whole population.

Additionally, it is in his companies best interest to overestimate this figure: if you can convince people that this is commonplace, then more people will think about doing a paternity test at his company.

Ten percent sounds low.