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Family Relationship Switcheroo: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"Boy, things have really changed since my day. Back then, if a girl got in trouble, her family would send her away to relatives in another state, and if anybody asked, just lied and said she went to Europe. Then when she came back, they'd raise the baby as a little sister. Not like today -- we had morals and values back then."''|'''Martin''', ''[[Frasier]]''}}
Many secrets are kept both in [[Real Life]] and fictionland. One very popular trope is orphans, especially ones which turn out not to be orphans; the most famous example of this is the [[Luke, I Am Your Father]] situation wherein a thought-to-be unrelated character (often a villain, usually the [[Big Bad]] or [[The Dragon]]) turns out to be [[The Hero]]'s parent. But sometimes these parents are hidden closer to home, sometimes, for some reason or other they pose as a different
An "older sister" who is actually a mother may do so when her parents are alive and let her kid believe that they are their parents too, rather than their grandparents. This was something that [[Truth in Television|was not too uncommon at one time]], before premarital sex was as accepted as it is today. In fiction set in the past this may still be the reason, modern settings sometimes may have this occur if the mother was really young, raped or both. It should be pointed out that sometimes the focus of the story is the "older sister" and not the child, or the focus is on both equally.
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* This is one of the main plot points in Catherine Forde's ''Fat Boy Swim'' {{spoiler|Jim Kelly's Aunt Pol is his mother, and "Mum" is his grandmother.}}
* A very traditional example: in the first book of the ''[[Stravaganza]]'' series, {{spoiler|Arianna}} discovers that her "parents" are actually her aunt and uncle, and her mother is really ''{{spoiler|the Duchessa of Belezza}}''.
* In the [[Maeve Binchy]] book ''Evening Class'', a character is stunned to realize that her older sister is actually her mother. Ironically, she is told this by someone who was completely unaware of the
* In Torey L. Hayden's ''Beautiful Child'', it is revealed that one of a poor mother's large brood is actually the product of her boyfriend and her mentally retarded teen daughter. The child herself is unaware of this. This is a true story.
* When visiting her "older sister" who is comatose in hospital, Kit, the main character of Maureen McCarthy's ''When You Wake and Find Me Gone,'' receives a letter written by her "sister" which reveals that she is really Kit's mother and that her father is somewhere in Ireland.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' two-parter "[[Doctor Who/Recap/
** Bear in mind, this "zombie" had a soulless gas-mask-face, as did every single person who was contaminated. It literally sprouted from their face, leaving them as hypnotized drones who wandered around repeating the former trope title.
* ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' : Bree hides the pregnancy of her teenage girl and pretends to be the mother of her grandson.
* ''[[Eastenders]]'' has the following famous interchange between the Slater "sisters" (though [[The Reveal]] for the audience had happened a few months before, this was when Zoe found out). This was due to rape, Kat had been raped by her uncle at 13.
{{quote|'''Zoe Slater:''' You can't tell me what to do, [[You're Not My Father|you ain't my muvver!]]
'''Kat Slater:''' (Zoe's "sister") ''Yes I am!'' }}
* Similarly on ''[[Playing The Field]]'', a BBC TV drama series about a women's football team. Because there's only so long you can get women to watch a series about football, it fairly quickly wound up as a series about sex, relationships, and Aren't Men Awful, and this trope naturally turned up in due course: two of the team members were actually mother and daughter and not sisters as the younger one thought. (The mother wasn't raped, except in the statutory sense; she had an under-age but fully consensual affair with a much older man, and refused to identify him when she fell pregnant. Naturally, he's about the place in the series too.)
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* The 1990 TV miniseries version of ''[[Phantom of the Opera]]'', with Charles Dance. In it, it is revealed that the operahouse's old manager is Erik's father, but he has pretended to be a more distant relative, 'out of cowardice'. Towards the end, he reveals the truth to Erik, who in a slight subversion says he'd known it, and wondered when he would tell the truth. The same thing happens in the Yeston-Kopit musical version, which had the same writer.
* Oddly enough, [[Played for Laughs]] - sort of - in ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'''s Valentine's Day episode, as the capstone to the worst first date ever.
* On ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', Jackie's 'younger brother' is revealed to be her
* In the Australian soap ''[[Home and Away]]'', Charlie is revealed to be Ruby's mother, born after Charlie was raped. Charlie's parents raised the baby as their daughter. When Ruby finds out, she goes ape about it, before finally forgiving Charlie for the deception.
* A major arc on ''[[Moesha]]'' involves Dorian discovering that his uncle, Frank, is really his biological father, born from a relationship he had while he was separated from his first wife. His mother was thus really his aunt.
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* Original ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' had it in the episode "Merger" in 1999, where {{spoiler|the teenaged murder victim was the daughter of the wealthy family's older child, and not a sister}}
* In ''[[Neighbours]]'', Lyn Scully discovered that her Aunt Valda was actually her mother, who had gotten pregnant with her at a young age and been forced by her family to give baby Lyn to her older, married sister.
* ''[[Godiva's]]'': A secondary character named Chantal shows up to stay with Simone, her estranged older sister. Turns out Simone is actually her mother. (Coincidentally, Simone "deflowers" a young busboy named TJ in a much earlier
* ''[[Frasier]]'' discussed this trope when Roz got pregnant and decided to raise her kid on her own.
* On ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'', {{spoiler|Elena}} learns that her uncle is actually her biological father; she was born when he was a teenager, and after the mother left town, he gave his daughter to his much-older brother and his [[But I Can't Be Pregnant|supposedly infertile]] wife to raise as their own child.
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* ''[[Homestuck]]'': {{spoiler|Dave's brother is actually his ectobiological father. Jade's grandfather is actually her ectobiological father. Inverted with John: his [[Posthumous Character|long-dead grandmother]] is his ectobiological mother and his father is actually his half-brother.}}
** And then {{spoiler|after the scratch, we have the original kids swapped with their ectbiological parents. Jane Crocker is raised by Dad, who is now her grandson. Jake was adopted by his daughter, Jade. [[Time Travel|Time]] [[Precision F-Strike|fucking]] [[Time Paradox|shenagins]].}}
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130719023505/http://www.drunkduck.com/Dragon_City/ Dragon City]'', {{spoiler|Beatrix's case is a little different. She and her "older sister" Erin traveled back in time to when Beatrix's egg was laid. It was at this point that Erin lays Beatrix's egg, though she ends up getting raised by their mother of that time period (who mistook it for one of her own eggs).}}
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== Real Life ==
* [[Jack Nicholson]]'s "older sister" was really his mother while the woman who was allegedly his mom was actually his grandmother. His real mother did it because she had sex with a man [both were unmarried] who ended up leaving her and she didn't want anyone to know that she was an unwed mother (both Nicholson's grandmother and mom died before he found out this family secret). In a height of coincidence, he learned this just as ''[[Chinatown]]''
* The same was true for:
** [[Eric Clapton]]
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[[Category:Family Relationship Switcheroo]]
[[Category:Luke, I Am Your Index]]
[[Category:Switcheroos]]
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