History Main / MamasBabyPapasMaybe

* In some continuities of ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'', Selina Kyle/ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} is implied to be an unacknowledged, illegitimate daughter of [[TheDon Carmine Falcone]].
* ''ComicBook/TheFlintstones'': Monogamy is a relatively new concept in this comic and one of its defenders says it serves to end doubts on fathers' identities.
* Played with in ''ComicBook/ThePulse'', when Danny Rand (Iron Fist) accuses ComicBook/JessicaJones of lying about being pregnant with Luke Cage's baby. Misty Knight quickly puts him in his place.
* Played with in ''ComicBook/RatMan1989'', in that from the start there's serious doubts that Brakko's son from his cheating wife is actually his. Eventually it's confirmed the biological father is actually the mailman... Not that Brakko cares, even when he knew from the start: Brakko Junior is ''his'' son, no matter what a paternity test says.

* In ''ComicBook/SavageDragon'', Dragon's then-girlfriend was pregnant. Since she was a past prostitute and there was a subplot at the time indicating that she might've been cheating on him (she wasn't), the first words out of his mouth were "Is it mine?", which upset her a great deal. He ended up apologizing, she ended up forgiving him, and the baby ended up being his, leading to the boy becoming a hero years down the line.
* In ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'', when Peter learns that his deceased lover Gwen Stacy had twin children who have reached adulthood in less than a decade, he soon realises that the children believe him to be their father, but is able to confirm that this can't be the case; downplayed with the revelation that Mary Jane actually knew about the children long before Peter did and never mentioned it to avoid tarnishing Gwen's memory.
** They were later retconned as [[spoiler: artificial constructs by an insane AI of Harry Osborn warped by Mephisto]].
* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', Laurie is aware that her mother's husband is not her father, but her guess at the actual father is off, and when she finally realizes the truth, she's shocked and horrified.

* Brought up in ''Comicbook/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSearch'' [[spoiler: but ultimately averted -- with the timing between the wedding and Zuko's birth Ozai knows his son is his. Ursa only claimed otherwise because she wanted to see if her husband was intercepting her letters, and hurt him if he was; she is powerless and cut off from her friends and family and can only wish that Zuko is nothing like Ozai. Knowing this, Ozai decides to be far crueler to Zuko out of spite.]]

* On the {{Talk Show}} ''Series/{{Maury}}'', one person quoted the trope name. The guest who said it was a woman named Rachel, the ''mother'' of her two sons who were getting tested to prove whether or not they fathered their wives' children (and if so, making them ''her'' grandchildren); she was a real skeptic about the paternity and wanted confirmation from her friend "D.N.A." (It was the first of her ''two'' appearances on the show, and you can see/hear her say the trope name in this clip here on Website/YouTube, [[http://youtu.be/wg6XOqaJQ2k?t=21s not once]] [[http://youtu.be/wg6XOqaJQ2k?t=2m2s but twice]].

* On the {{Talk Show}} ''Series/{{Maury}}'', one person quoted the trope name. The guest who said it was a woman named Rachel, the ''mother'' of her two sons who were getting tested to prove whether or not they fathered their wives' children (and if so, making them ''her'' grandchildren); she was a real skeptic about the paternity and wanted confirmation from her friend "D.N.A." (It was the first of her ''two'' appearances on the show, and you can see/hear her say the trope name in this clip here on Website/YouTube, [[http://youtu.be/wg6XOqaJQ2k?t=21s not once]] [[http://youtu.be/wg6XOqaJQ2k?t=2m2s but twice]].)
* In Conn Iggulden's epic stories of the Mongol Empire, a recurring plot-theme concerns UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan's uncertainty over the paternity of his eldest son Jochi (at the time of conception, his mother Borte was a prisoner of the Tartars and was known to have been raped). Because he half-believes in the "this is a Tartar's bastard" stories, Genghis repeatedly shuns and blanks his oldest son, or else gives him punitive or seemingly impossible tasks to complete that he would not dream of imposing on the favoured younger sons. This had consequences that stretched down the generations and caused the Mongol empire to collapse prematurely.
* The whole reason Queen Isabella the I of Castille took the throne of her dead brother Enrique instead of his daughter Juana is due to the uncertainty of Juana's parentage; Enrique was rumoured to be "more interested in his guards than his queen" and the queen had many lovers and even several illegitimate children.
* Isabella's own parentage was seriously contested throughout her childhood, for exactly the same reasons: Juan II of Castille was even more openly gay than his son Enrique. Eventually, though, Isabella grew up to be her father's speaking likeness, which put doubts to rest.

* It is alleged that while the Kingdom of Ghana only had male rulers, the inheritance claim for kingship is based on the ''matrilineal'' line with the proposed reasoning being that a king can be certain that the son of his sister shares his blood, but cannot be so certain the son of his wife is actually his. Some historians however question whether the Kingdom of Ghana actually did that since the rest of their society was patrilineal.

* ''Literature/TheGoldenHamster'': In ''Freddy in Peril'', Freddy asks the rat Karen Graywhisker if Graywhisker the Great is her father. She answers, "Maybe, maybe not. He's our tribal chief, anyway."