DNA Doesn't Make a Father…Really???

Wale  and Tina wedded  in 2004, vowing their marriage would survive in good times and bad. They had five children, but like so many couples, their love for each other got lost along the way.

"[We] were just 'Mom' and 'Dad'; we talked about the kids, the bills, the house," said Tina. "Somewhere along the way we had quit having fun and spending time together."

After being at home for five years, Tina went back to work in a nursing home, where she met a man and had an affair.

When Tina became pregnant for a sixth time, her husband assumed it was his — he had no reason to think otherwise.

But then she told her husband about the affair.

To determine who the father is, they decided to get a DNA test. "The baby has a right to know the truth," said Tina. "I would hate to have him be an adult and find out the truth in some other way. You have a right to know where you came from and how you got here."

Tina added that her husband also has a right to know if he is the father of the child. But he was not. The test came back indicating that Wale "is excluded as the biological father of the child."

"It's not what I was hoping for," said Wale, who was with Tina when they opened the envelope containing the results. "Not what I thought it was, either."

For the Adesina family, science did not have the final say on what it means to be a parent. The couple decided to keep their marriage and family together. They are raising new baby Ope together.

Though Wale said, "It'll always hurt," he is not going to let Tina's affair stop him from "raising him, bringing him up."

Asked what she'll tell Ope about who is father is, Tina pointed to Wale: "This man sitting right here for all intents and purposes. DNA doesn't make a father. We're a family with all our faults. And we're far from perfect, but we are a family."

From the beginning of time, doubts about the paternity of a child have fueled family strife. Until recently, those doubts could not be resolved with any certainty. DNA testing has changed that.

Tens of people each week send cheek swab samples to be tested at DNA Centre located at 73 Allen Avenue in Ikeja to find out who is — or is not — the biological father of a child. And according to the statistics in the lab, one in three males who undergo such tests finds out he is not the biological father of a child.

The technology has advanced over the last few years, the price of the test has come down and the process is straightforward: The lab needs a cheek swab, or a strand of hair pulled from the scalp with the roots and follicle attached, and results are available usually in three to 5 days. With DNA,

we can prove that he either is the father or he's not, It is completely definitive!

My Child’s Father Wants to Know ‘Who’s the Daddy’—but He’s the One Who’s Been Cheating

I get why you're offended. His asking for a paternity test implies that he has some doubts about being the father and that you may have been having sex with someone else—and, worse, doing so unprotected. In so many words, he's saying that he doesn't really trust you. Because you've mentioned his infidelity all these years later, I'm guessing that it's still a sore spot for you, despite the fact that you stayed with him. You've got to be thinking, "Hold up. You cheated and I didn't leave, and then you come through with this?!"

I'm sure you're angry. You have a right to be. And I'm sure that he knew you would be, but he asked anyway. I get why he did. Stories abound about men who believed a child to be theirs biologically, only to discover later that the child was not, sometimes after years of paying child support. This is a great fear of many men, and although it's exploited for amusement on talk shows like Maury, it's not entirely unfounded.

Some years ago, The Atlantic ran a story by Steve Olson on "nonpaternity events," the geneticist's term for a guy who may be a father, but not biologically.

"[Geneticists] rarely publish their findings, but the numbers are common knowledge within the genetics community,” Olson wrote. "In graduate school, genetics students typically are taught that 5 to 15 percent of the men on birth certificates are not the biological fathers of their children. In other words, as many as one of every seven men who proudly carry their newborn children out of a hospital could be a cuckold." A later New York Times story on paternity testing included a statistic that said 30 percent of men who question whether they are the father are actually right to question.

So yeah, it's not entirely unheard of for some women to lie or be mistaken about the paternity of their child. I get why an unmarried man, even one who actually trusts his partner, would ask for a test in order to be doubly sure for his own peace of mind.

Here's another rub: In some cases, even when the man discovers that the child isn't biologically his, after years of paying support, not only doesn't he get a refund for the money spent on someone else's biological child, but he is also mandated to continue paying. In other cases, men have been forced to pay just because their partner put their name on the birth certificate, even though DNA proved that the child wasn't theirs.

Beyond finances, it's also emotionally devastating to find out that a child you thought was "yours," biologically speaking, is not.

A few months ago, a guy wrote in to Ask Belle with a similar story. His longtime live-in girlfriend and mother of his child had broken up with him. To spite her, he asked for a paternity test for their son, specifically to make her feel the way you do right now. Well, he took the kid to get tested and discovered that his 4-year-old was not biologically his. "The mother has to back pay me yet that doesn't make me feel any better," he wrote. "I know men aren't supposed to cry, but everything is hurting even my toenails."

Idris Elba expressed a similar sentiment in GQ about his discovery that his son was not biologically his: "The celebration of having a son, from a man's perspective, it's massive," he told the magazine. "To be given that and then have it taken away so harshly was like taking a full-on punch in the face: POW.”

Not that your partner actually needs your consent to have the child tested, but agree to it anyway as a formality so that this doesn't become a bigger issue. What you don't want is a man shirking his responsibilities as a father (or mistreating the child) because he questions whether the child is his.

Once your partner's paternity is established, have a serious conversation about the lingering (or ongoing) trust issues in your relationship. Also consider family counseling to address the lingering resentment you have about his infidelity and, possibly, your resentment about his concern over paternity and his mistrust of you. Even if this relationship fizzles out, both of you need to be trusting enough and tolerant of each other to properly co-parent the child you share