[Hippo]

I heard an advertisement on the radio today. Home paternity tests are now available at a drugstore near you, just swab your cheek and drop it into the handy mailer; results in a week. Immediately I thought of all the "mailman babies."<br><br>
So we've heard rumors about the percentage of Americans who are not the children of their acknowledged father. Presumably, everyone has functional families and no one is the wiser except for mom, who deals with her guilt in private.<br><br>
So Mom really doesn't have to know about the test, right? It seems to me that this is just made for Dad to take cheek swabs from his toddler while Mom is off getting her hair done. Is that a good thing? or would it just be better to let secrets stay buried?<br><br>
{Sigh} what the world needs, more drama.

 

[Diane95]

Maury Povich is the father of televised paternity testing, not Jerry Springer.<br><br>
Do you see how widespread the problem is? <img alt="wink.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/wink.gif">

 

[OakDawg]

Does Jerry know?

 

[Ileneforward]

The mother doesn't always know either. <img alt="wink.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/wink.gif">

 

[QuixoticNotions]

If the father doubts his paternity and tries to confirm it like this (especially in secret), I doubt the relationship or the family is particularly functional one by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Hippo]

You mean that Dad played around and somehow it ended up as the couple's baby without Mom's knowledge?<img alt="icon_scratch.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/icon_scratch.gif"><img alt="icon_scratch.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/icon_scratch.gif"><br><br>
I musta missed that day in sex-ed class.

 

[Xavier Dan Q]

First a "postal match" now this.<br><br>
Why is everybody picking on me today? <img alt="wink.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/wink.gif">

 

[Ileneforward]

Sheesh, you must have missed lots of days in sex ed class! I mean if mom was playing around with more than just hubby and hubby too, and got pregnant, she can't be 100% sure whose sperm swam fastest.

 

[ym]

Biologically speaking, it isn't in the man's best genetic interest to help raise progeny that aren't his own.<br><br>
I have to agree with QN. If the test is necessary, there's already something rotten in Denmark.

 

[QuixoticNotions]

I wonder if my MIL will try this if my baby somehow ends up with brown eyes. <img alt="biggrin.gif" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/biggrin.gif"> She told me that it's completely impossible for our child to have brown eyes.... My eyes appear light green but I believe they're technically hazel. DH's eyes are blue (gray blue).

 

[Ileneforward]

She's right.

 

[QuixoticNotions]

<i>The Davenport model wrongly says brown eye color is always dominant over blue eye color, which means that two blue-eyed parents always have blue-eyed kids. We know better now.<br>
"Although not common, two blue-eyed parents can produce children with brown eyes," says Richard A. Sturm, a Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia<br>
Eye color is a complex trait that depends on the state of several interacting genes. The gene that usually decides the issue (blue eyes or brown eyes) is the OCA2 gene on chromosome 15. But it comes in different strengths. A person with a weak form of the OCA2 gene will have blue eyes. Likewise a person with a strong form will have brown eyes.<br>
The plot thickens, though, because an individual also has other eye-color genes that each has a say in the final eye-color outcome. For example, if one of these lesser genes is strong, it can make the weak form (blue) of OCA2 work much more effectively — almost like the strong form (brown). Then the eye color may be a light brown or muddy grey. In fact, the resulting color can be any shade of brown, hazel/green, or blue depending on the strengths of the interactions.</i>