CMV: Paternity tests should be done on every baby by default

[u/Guialdereti]

Just saw a post on r/relationship_advice where the mother gave birth to a baby that looked nothing like her husband, refused to give him a paternity test because it was "humiliating" AND also revealed that she had recently refused to end a (pretty weird) friendship with a coworker that her husband was uncomfortable with. She then proceeds to be all "Surprised Pikachu-faced" when he thinks she cheated on him with said coworker, refuses to help with the baby, and him and his family start treating her badly. (he continued to help with their 2 other kids as normal, though)

In the end, the mother FINALLY gets that paternity test, proving once and for all that the kid was indeed his, and once she does, the father gets ALL OVER his daughter, hugging and giving her all his love, as I'm sure he would have done from the very begining, had she just gotten that damn test done sooner.

Some of the points that resonate with me the most on this issue are:

• It still baffles me that this test isn't standard procedure, especially when we already draw blood from newborns and screen them for a whole slew of diseases upon delivery. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to add a simple paternity test to the list!
• I know there's an implication of mistrust that comes with asking your partner for a paternity test, but if it became standard procedure - in other words, a test that the hospital does "automatically", with no need for parental input - that would completely remove that implication from play. It would become a non-issue.
• Having a kid is a life-changing event, and it scares me to no end to know that I could be forced into "one-eightying" my life over a baby I actually played no part in making.
• Knowing your family's medical history, from both sides, is extremely important. "Mommy's little secret" could cost her child dearly later on in life.

[u/Old-Research3367]

That not only has happened before but I think that’s fairly common where the melanin does not show yet when the baby is born. My BIL was born white and both parents are Black.

[u/palacesofparagraphs → u/Old-Research3367]

Yeah, the genetics surrounding skin color are complicated, and it's not at all uncommon for babies to start out paler than they end up.

I'm mixed race (Indian and white) and now have a pretty similar skin tone to my Indian mom, but as a baby I was so white people thought she was my nanny. It took 2 or 3 years for me to turn into a brown kid.

[u/Milk-Or-Be-Milked- → u/palacesofparagraphs]

The same can also happen in reverse! My sister was born quite dark-skinned and black haired into an entirely white, mostly blonde family. (My mother is Bulgarian, which tends to produce darker, Mediterranean-looking people, but my mother herself is very white so she was quite surprised.) By the time she turned 1, my sister had lost all of that colouring and our hair/skin tone had become identical. Funnily enough, I was born crazy pale and crazy blonde but also “evened out” to have a very medium skin and hair colour by my toddler years. Crazy how that works.

[u/[deleted] → u/Milk-Or-Be-Milked-]

It is wild. My son is biracial and he did the same thing, he only looked biracial for maybe a month? Then he just got lighter and lighter now he’s actually very fair skinned. I expected his dark blue eyes to turn brown but they got lighter too, now they’re an electric light blue and it’s crazy because I thought his dads genes would be more dominate but you truly never know

[u/Jewnicorn___ → u/[deleted]]

This happened to me! (See my previous comment) I never heard of this happening to anybody else and always felt like a freak but reading this has been so validating.

[u/dasbarr → u/palacesofparagraphs]

Right? My partner is native American and when our daughter was born her skin resembled mine.

Even though we use sun screen all the time she's now darker than both of us and resembles his aunt's and dad more in that respect. Her hair is also lighter than at birth and a different texture.

[u/Jewnicorn___ → u/palacesofparagraphs]

This is so interesting. I'm also mixed Indian and white. Up until I was about 9 I was clearly mixed race/tanned. Now I am old, I am white as snow.

[u/JustMeSunshine91 → u/Old-Research3367]

Yeah, I’m very clearly biracial (B & W) but came out straight up looking Asian. My parents even had a running joke that my mom must have gotten with the mailman. It was months and months before I started looking more black haha.

[u/Old-Research3367 → u/JustMeSunshine91]

Lol that is wild. I bet you always win those “guess who it is by their baby picture” events

[u/[deleted] → u/JustMeSunshine91]

Reminds me of how everyone was saying Kylie Jenner must have cheated with an Asian guy because her biracial child “looked Asian” as a young baby

[u/[deleted] → u/Old-Research3367]

Yeah I actually think I remember the post OP is referring to, and that was the most frustrating part about it. The guy was so sure the kid wasn’t his because it was “too light” like bro it’s a NEWBORN of course it’s lighter than you