Weird thoughts

M.Amy · March 2011

Matt looks nothing like DH and I. He has light blond hair and DH and I have very dark brown hair. Besides the hair, his facial features do not resemble either of us. People used to try to see a resemblance but there is none. DH jokes that he was switched at birth and well that got me thinking.

Is it weird that a child looks nothing like his parents?

EDITED TO ADD: His hair is lighter in color than the photo in my sig.

carladillon · March 2011

I know a few people whose LO's had light blonde hair at birth and it turned brown as they got older. I find it difficult sometimes to find similarities when they are so young. I don't think I really look like my parents at all or my siblings. But my brothers look alike. So - to answer your question - not that weird. But I'm sure once he grows, you'll see more.

eli_and_jeff · March 2011

My nephew looked nothing like either of his parents when he was a baby. We figured he looked like a distant relative or something. Same thing, really light blond hair, didn't have the "family" nose (both my brother and I, his daughter, and all the cousins have the same nose).

Then, sometime, between three and four, he became a carbon copy of my brother. Now that he's 8, it's creepy how much he looks like his dad at that age. He even has the family nose now and looks nothing like his baby pictures. You wouldn't even think they were the same kid.

BrideBuddies · March 2011

Genes are funny things. C started out looking like his daddy. But now he looks exactly like me when I was his age... right down to his hair color.

Other examples---

My cousin's 9 year old son is the spitting image of my late father. Creepily similiar in looks.

I've always been told I was the spitting image of my mom's cousin who died when my mom was pregnant with me.

I am tall and a strawberry blonde. My only sib, my sister, is short and stocky with brown hair. We don't even look related. I look more like my cousins.

What exactly is a "spitting image" anyway?

stever · March 2011

Meh. My cousin looks nothing like her parents but has always been the spitting image of my mom. People always say I look just like my mom when, in actuality, I look nothing like her - it's just that we're both short and have dark hair.

choirgirl · March 2011

It's so funny, isn't it? I think we can see anything if we look for it. And, our looks change over time, so he may grow up to look just like one or both of you in time.

My DS has, since a few weeks old, looked clearly like DH from the bottom of the nose up, and me from the lips down (and my cheekbones). He has my hair (looks just like mine at that age). He has DH's body structure (long waisted and short legs, I'm the opposite). Similarly, I'm practically a chimera of my parents.

So there's that. But.

On the other hand, I would swear to you my sister's daughter bears a very strong resemblance ("spitting image" again) to our dad. Except that we adopted my sister, so...

I'm the first person in several generations on my mom's side (and it's even over a few branches, so it had to come up from higher), and the first ever that we know of on my dad's side to have a reddish cast to their hair. And his head shape is exactly both of his great-grandmothers, but unlike anyone else in our families. My college roommate and her DH could only conceive using donor sperm. The kids look barely like her, to me. Because they so overwhelmingly look like clones of her sister.

So does Matty look like anyone a few generations up or over?

FloF9 · March 2011

My DD doesn't look like me or DH. However, she looks like my mom. DS looks like my dad and my DH Hmm

sweetie0228 · March 2011

spitting image

n.

A perfect likeness or counterpart.

[Probably from alteration of spitten, dialectal past participle of spit, the close resemblance of one person to another being likened in folk sayings to the former person having been spat out of the latter's mouth; see spit¹.]

hm()

Gross, but I also like to knwo where some of these saying came from.

My DS looks nothing like me or his father. He looks like my brother who for a long time we thought didn't look like anyone until we realized he and my cousin looked alike and then finally he started looking like our father.

M.Amy · March 2011

choirgirl:
So does Matty look like anyone a few generations up or over?

I am adopted so who knows on my side. I was excited by the prospect to finally see someone who "looks like me" since my adopted family are all blonds - go figure.

DH's family is really small - just his parents and Matt doesn't look like either of them.

choirgirl · March 2011

I have a small family, too. My mom's an only child, my late father has one brother, but we don't see them often anymore, so on that side it's just gramma, mom, my sister and her family. DH is an only child, his dad has been out of the picture for decades, none of his grandparents are alive, and his mom's only sibling is deceased, so it's only his mom. So combining everyone from 3 states and including 2 toddlers, we are at most a family of 9 for a big dinner.

ETA: And where I meant to go with all that was, I'm sorry, I can totally see how you would have liked someone who looked like you...and maybe you will, there are lots of towhead blonds who get dark hair over time. The small family thing is nice in some respects (DH loves it, thus his lack of burning desire for a second child), though I find it sort of lonely, thus my inspired quest for child #2.

fiazo · March 2011

Me & Dh had blonde hair as kids. No one in our families has red hair that we know of. Actually it's more of a strawberry blonde. I have brown eyes. DH has hazel. Sienna has blue. Everyone always does say that she looks just like him though. No one has ever told me she looks like me. At one point I was wondering if it could be possible that they used someone else's eggs in the IVF process. But no I no longer think that.

ateytelb · March 2011

Blond hair is a recessive trait - someone in your family (both families) must have had it before.

ScoobyM · March 2011

DH and I both have dark brown hair and hazel eyes, and both of my parents have dark hair and brown eyes. But my DD has blonde hair and blue eyes - just like DH's mom and sister. She has some of our facial features, though, and she is pretty tall like her dad so we are pretty sure she is genetically ours. Stick out tongue

But it is funny when we are out because if you haven't seen baby pictures of me or DH you would think she was someone else's kid because her coloring is different.

DS, on the other hand, has dark hair and his eyes are already changing to be more more brownish, so I think he'll look more like us.

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