Imagine having two mothers and two fathers. That’s the case for two 25-year-old Brazilian men who were switched at birth and didn’t know each other until a couple of years ago.

Dimas Aliprandi and Elton Plaster aren’t twins, although they were born on the same day in the same hospital. Unbeknownst to their respective parents, mistakes by hospital workers wound up sending Dimas to Elton’s parents and Elton to Dimas’s.

Nobody realized the foul-up until Dimas began wondering at age 14 why he looked so different from his four sisters.

An AP story quotes Dimas as saying, “There was something different. I had blond hair and blue eyes and my sisters had dark hair and eyes. I had the typical features of a descendant of German immigrants while my sisters and parents were of Italian stock. Something did not add up.”

Indeed, Dimas’s real parents were Elton’s parents, who weren’t really Elton’s parents since he was really the son of Dimas’s parents.

Still, Dimas’s suspicions had to wait until December 2008, when he could afford DNA testing to confirm he wasn’t who his parents thought he was. As you would expect, everyone was shocked when his genes didn’t match those of his family.

After a period of denial, Dimas’s surrogate parents agreed to help him find his biological mom and dad. The hospital where he was born searched their files and found that Elton was born the same day.

The Aliprandis took their far-fetched story to the Plaster family farm, which was about 30 miles away. More DNA tests proved that Dimas was a Plaster and Elton was an Aliprandi.

So, what would have had American families suing everybody and his brother while creating indignant live interviews on “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show” was instead a cause for a big group hug in Brazil.

“It sparked a desire to join our families,” said Dimas. “Elton and I wanted to remain with those who raised us and with our birth parents. We wanted to expand our families.”

And that’s just what they did. About a year ago the Plasters invited the Aliprandis to move to the farm and build a home. Now they all work together raising vegetables and coffee.

“This is the way it should be,” said Adelson Plaster, father of Dimas Aliprandi. “We are all together and I now have two sons living and working here.”

Not to mention two more pairs of Aliprandi hands to work the crops.

The story goes on to say that Dimas and Elton feel blessed by the situation.

“It’s not everyone who can say he has two fathers and two mothers living together with him,” Dimas said.

OK, let’s review: Dimas, who is actually Elton, was given birth by Nilza and Adelson and raised by Zilda and Antonio. Elton, now known to really be Dimas, is the son of Zilda and Antonio but reared by Nilza and Adelson. He also has four sisters who tend to favor him in appearance.

Dimas, who grew up Italian-Brazilian, is actually German-Brazilian and Elton, who always thought he was German-Italian, is a blue-blooded Italian-Brazilian.

My question is this: when the dinner bell rings for the workers to come in from the fields, do they sit down to weiner schnitzel or to spaghetti?

Or do they compromise with Brazilian meat stew with white rice and black beans?



Larry Penkava, who has written Now and Then since 1994, wonders who runs the kitchen – Nilza or Zilda?