History Main / FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo

* In ''A Suitable Boy'' [[spoiler:Saeeda Bai was raped at a young age by the Nawab Sahib of Baitar, resulting in a daughter, Tasneem. To protect the Nawab Sahib's reputation, they pretend Tasneem is Saeeda's sister. This comes back to haunt the Nawab Sahib when his son falls in love with Tasneem.]]

* In the Creator/MaeveBinchy book ''Evening Class'', Kathy Clarke is stunned to realize that her older sister Fran is actually her mother. Ironically, she is told this by someone who was completely unaware of the secret--she merely saw the two together and assumed. When Kathy confronts Fran and asks her point-blank if she's her mother, Fran's silence is, of course, her answer. Despite the Irish/Catholic setting of Binchy's books and the time period the book is set during, it's revealed that this was NOT done out of shame because of the situation--the woman explains that her mother's reaction to her pregnancy was to simply say "won't it be grand to have another baby around here", thus revealing that she had her family's unconditional love and support. The "deception" simply came about because no one ever bothered to explicitly tell the girl what the situation was--indeed, they thought that she already knew.
* 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.]]

** In the 'Literature/LoganSeries'', Melody Logan's mother Haille was raised as the adoptive daughter of Olivia and Samuel Logan, but [[spoiler:her biological mother turns out to be Olivia's sister Belinda.]] This also means that [[spoiler: Melody and Cary are second cousins rather than first cousins, paving the way for them to marry.]]

* In Creator/AmyTan's novel ''The Bonesetter's Daughter'', the protagonist [=LuLing=] is raised by [[spoiler:her biological father's brother and his wife]] and her real parents are [[spoiler:her "babysitter" Precious Auntie, the titular character, and her murdered fiancé. This explains why her "younger sister"/cousin [=GaoLing=] is pampered like an eldest daughter.]]

* Russian comedy ''Shirly-Myrly'' is this trope taken to the extreme. Not only the main character, Krolikov, was raised by his aunt pretending to be his mother, but he also has a number of twin brothers who are also raised by various stepmothers. Also played for AnAesop, since Krolikov is an outspoken anti-Semite early in the film, so when his birth father is revealed to have been Jewish, it strikes him worse than the earlier revelation he's actually a stepchild. Each of his twins also believed himself to be a descendant of some other ethnic group, such as Jews, Romani, or African. They all have some racist sentiment against each other, which they have to overcome upon learning they are brothers and actually hail from a very mixed common descent.

* Emilie's chapter in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/25658806/chapters/62291518 Adrien AUgreste: The New World After the Wish]]'' reveals that [[spoiler:Adrien isn't her and Gabriel's biological son but rather ''her twin sister's Amelie'' son, specifically the identical twin of his "cousin" Felix]].

* ''Series/PushingDaisies'': Chuck was raised by a single father, Charles, and after his death went to live with her two aunts Lily and Vivian. Chuck knows that Charles was engaged to Vivian before his relationship with her mother but what neither Chuck nor Vivian know is that [[spoiler:Lily is actually Chuck's mother.]]

* At the end of the first season finale of ''Series/PushingDaisies'', [[spoiler:Chuck's aunt Lily claims to be Chuck's mother. Chuck herself becomes aware of this early in Season 2.]]

See also: LukeIAmYourFather, LukeYouAreMyFather, IAmNotYourFather, MumLooksLikeASister, SupernaturallyYoungParent, and StigmaticPregnancyEuphemism. Compare CainAndAbelAndSeth. AFamilyAffair that leads to a pregnancy may be hidden by a switcheroo. Contrast IsThatCuteKidYours, which often takes the form of an older sibling being mistaken for a parent.May overlap with MistakenForRelated if an in-law or adopted child is mistaken for a blood relative.

* ''Fanfic/QueensOfMewni'': thanks to being started before certain revelations in Seasons 3 and 4 of ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', a few canon relationships got shuffled:

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Bart (pretending to be older) date a fourteen-year-old girl who turns out to be pregnant. After being assured he ''can't'' be the father ("Wow, you ''are'' only ten") [[GiveTheBabyAFather he agrees to marry her anyway]] to hide the truth. When the girl's mother announces that ''she's'' pregnant too, the family ([[StepfordSmiler with sort of creepy cheerfulness]]) agrees to pretend the mom has twins. It is therefore implied that TheReveal will occur some years later.

* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': Bree hides the pregnancy of her teenage girl and pretends to be the mother of her grandson.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'' has a [[spoiler:faked]] case relying on a polygynous ExoticExtendedMarriage. [[spoiler:The commoner protagonist's noble identity]] is passed off as the daughter of her father and one of his wives, but her real mother is another wife of her father's. [[spoiler:She's actually related to neither woman.]]

See also: LukeIAmYourFather, LukeYouAreMyFather, IAmNotYourFather, MumLooksLikeASister, SupernaturallyYoungParent, and StigmaticPregnancyEuphemism. Compare CainAndAbelAndSeth. AFamilyAffair that leads to a pregnancy may be hidden by a switcheroo. Contrast IsThatCuteKidYours, which often takes the form of an older sibling being mistaken for a parent.

* In ''Series/{{Emmerdale}}'' Rishi Sharma decides to pretend he's the father of his son Jai's child with Rachel Brickle in order to save Jai's marriage to Charity by covering up the fact that Jai had a brief one-night stand affair with Rachel. In this case, however, it doesn't take all of the stigma away from the situation. The child is still known to be the result of an extra-marital one-night stand, but Rishi's marriage is already in the gutter anyway, so he thinks it will be better to protect Jai this way.

* In the ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'' book ''The Bishop's Heir'' said heir abruptly discovers that his parents are his grandparents, that his twin sister is in fact his aunt, and that another long-dead sister was actually his mother having clandestinely married a young man who later becomes a bishop. The emotional impact of the discovery is cushioned by the fact that the boy has known and been fond of his biological father since he was six, and the fact that he will fall heir to a duchy if they can only prove his parents were legally married probably doesn't hurt.

* In some incarnations, [[ComicBook/{{Oracle}} Barbara Gordon]] is the niece of Jim Gordon that he adopted after her biological parents died.

** In ''Fanfic/RWBYScars'' pulls this twice. Ruby only finds out she and Yang are half-sisters during the events of the story, when Yang accidentally slips the name of her birth mother Raven. Then Chapter 71 reveals to the audience that Raven's twin brother Qrow is Ruby's biological father, which means Yang and Ruby are actually cousins. Raven tries to reveal this information to Yang, but Qrow immediately denies it and claims his sister is lying like she usually does.

* In ''Fanfic/TheNewRetcons'', Michael Patterson finds out from John that he’s [[spoiler: not his biological son. His real father is Elly’s first husband, Stan Watson. He was conceived as an attempt by Elly to keep Stan from traveling. It didn’t work and he left shortly after Michael’s birth. John married Elly when he was a toddler and Elly pretended that Stan never existed after that, lying to him that Michael hated him. This makes his sisters Elizabeth and April Michael’s half sisters and Stan the biological grandfather of Meredith and Robin.]]

* ''Film/{{Soapdish}}'' includes an example as part of its parody of soap opera conventions. Though 1970s ''The Sun Also Sets'' co-stars Celeste Talbert and Jeffrey Anderson's relationship was public knowledge, they were not married when he got her pregnant. To protect her "America's sweetheart" image, she broke up with Jeffrey and had his character killed off, then had her own character written out for a few months while she spent her pregnancy at her parents' house in Iowa. She claimed that her daughter, Lori, was actually the daughter of her twin sister Simone and her husband, who were killed in a car accident when Lori was too young to remember them. But when first Lori and then Jeffrey are added (re-added in the latter case) to the cast of ''The Sun Also Sets'' and not only seem to be developing a romantic interest in each other off-camera but are given a kissing scene in the show, Celeste is forced to confess everything to prevent them from committing accidental incest.

* ''Literature/CrazyRichAsians'': In the third book ''Rich People Problems'', Nick discovers that [[spoiler:his aunt Catherine was born of an affair between his grandmother and a Thai prince. Nick's grandfather being the NiceGuy he was (as he is now deceased), he raised Catherine as his own child.]]

** Similarly, Prince Aemon the Dragonknight, the uncle of King Daeron II Targaryen "the Good" on both sides (due to Daeron's parents being siblings, as per Targaryen tradition) may have actually been his father. However, many think it is more likely that Aemon's brother, Daeron's father King Aegon IV Targaryen "the Unworthy" began the rumors himself out of spite at his only legitimate son, as Aegon wanted to make one of his bastard children, Daemon Blackfyre, his heir instead, and did everything short of openly proclaiming him so (giving him the family sword, Blackfyre, for example, and making him and all his other bastards legitimate on his deathbed), leading to multiple generations of civil wars called the Blackfyre Rebellions with Daemon, his descendents and their supporters attempting to seize the throne.

* A slightly confusing example occurs in the novel ''Literature/AYellowRaftInBlueWater'': [[spoiler:Christine is really the daughter of Ida's father and her aunt Clara on her mother's side, making her technically Ida's three-quarter sister (or something like that) but Christine was raised to believe she was Ida's in order to cover up the affair that created her. This is made even weirder by Ida's insistence that Christine call her "Aunt Ida".]] In the end only [[spoiler:Ida]] and the reader knows this.

* ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'': [[RememberTheNewGuy Gina]] was introduced in the show's ninth season as Donna's cousin and caused much havoc within the group. In Season 10, the audience discovered that Donna's father had an affair with Gina's mother in the 1970s, resulting in her birth, making Gina her half-sister in addition to being her cousin. Donna's father, Dr. Martin, discovered this, and was quick to accept Gina as his daughter, though [[spoiler: he later died soon after accepting her into the Martin family]].

** Since Season 1 we have the knowledge that Jaime Lannister is actually the father of Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen Baratheon, instead of just their uncle ([[{{Squick}} though he's also that, too]], due to BrotherSisterIncest).

** In one episode centered around a Duggar-{{Expy}} family, it's revealed that the family's youngest son is actually the child of one of the older daughters. The daughter had gotten pregnant from sexual abuse by the family pastor, but never told her parents that; the parents instead thought the daughter had been sneaking around with a boyfriend, so they covered up the "indescretion" by passing the kid off as one of their own. When they learn what had actually happened, the family decides to come clean in order to help their daughter get justice.
* An episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' had the detectives realizing--and telling their murder suspect--that he was actually the father of the young man he had thought was his younger half-brother. (His stepmother had seduced him when he was 14 and she was so desperate to cover this up that she had labor induced and passed off the baby as full term--thus allowing her husband to believe it was his--when it was actually 2 months premature.)

* In supplementary material for ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' it's mentioned that Nero had assumed his CoolUncle Dante was his father as a result of their StrongFamilyResemblance, but was uncomfortable with asking him about it. It's for this reason that he takes it much harder than he should when Dante calls him "[[ToughLove dead weight]]" at the start of the game. When Dante finally reveals to him that ''[[EvilTwin Vergil]]'' [[IAmNotYourFather was his real father]] after they'd known each other for years, he's a little shaken.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has Bart (pretending to be older) date a fourteen-year-old girl who turns out to be pregnant. After being assured he ''can't'' be the father ("Wow, you ''are'' only ten") [[GiveTheBabyAFather he agrees to marry her anyway]] to hide the truth. When the girl's mother announces that ''she's'' pregnant too, the family ([[StepfordSmiler with sort of creepy cheerfulness]]) agree to pretend the mom has twins. It is therefore implied that TheReveal will occur some years later.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', Flayn and Seteth are introduced as siblings, but it's revealed in their side-chapter that Flayn is actually Seteth's ''daughter'', and they keep their true relationship secret [[spoiler:because they've both Really700YearsOld and carry an extremely rare bloodline that certain groups could use for nefarious purposes. The fact that they are really Saint Cethleann and Saint Cichol is only revealed in their A support, albeit hinted at elsewhere.]]

* The ''Literature/AlexDelaware'' novel ''Blood Test'' by Jonathan Kellerman, has this as the big reveal, with the older sister being the mother of the younger [[spoiler:and them having the same father.]]