Mantalk: Why it's okay for a man to take a paternity test

How is your January shaping out to be? I hope that it's looking better and that you're allowing yourself to dream again. I hope that you're letting yourself breathe once more despite the hardships faced in 2020. I pray that you are now creating new memories.

This week started with me reading about an experience posted online. An anonymous Reddit user gave a story asking for a solution to a problem. It was about her father, with whom she had an amazing relationship growing up. He was a dedicated man to his family, and dropped out of med school after his girlfriend (the poster's mother), fell pregnant.

Everything in the family was picture perfect until a DNA test was done. The poster and her siblings wanted to locate their father's relatives, so they initiated a paternity test, whose results came as a shock. The results? The poster and her siblings did not share any DNA with their father. Shocked, they confronted their mother who eventually revealed that they were all a result of an 11-year affair with one of her father's friends.

Her father was devastated and committed suicide shortly after. Tragic.

I don't think that even death would be enough punishment for her mother. She got a dream husband, yet cheated on him for over a decade, siring another man's babies, eventually causing her husband to take his own life.

This brought on the big debate on women cheating and paternity tests. Men ignorantly and arrogantly believe that their partners would never cheat on them. Males on these sides believe that they're the owners and masters of the infidelity game. They forget, two can play the game, and women, because of the societal shame and double standards will be way more careful than a man.

Women have also mastered the art of guilt-tripping men and making them apologise when they question them for behaviour that is suspect. You have lots of men being gaslit when they demand answers, but a few scenes of drama and tears later from the woman, the man will be the one trying to make it up to their partner for doubting them.

I am scared as hell of raising children that aren't my own. There are men out here raising other men's children unknowingly. There are women who chose the father based on who they think will be a better dad or who is more affluent. If a man starts to wonder why a child doesn't resemble them, the woman will come up with stories about how the child looks like his brother, or her uncle, or some random relative.

Years back my grandmother explained to me why before the child was named, the man's mom and her friends would first come and visit the child- it wasn't to offer blessings- it was to do a quick check. This, therefore, didn't start yesterday. So if you do want to do a DNA test, do it early because beyond a few years, you're legally obligated to take care of the child and it would break you in ways you can't imagine.

If you want to check, know the results could go either way. Make your choice and make it wisely. There's no going back once you know.