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Genetics plays games with families and people just don't "get" it.
My twin brothers had/has (one has passed away) light brown hair, I had brunette hair before the damned grey started in, and my other brother is a red-head with a face full of freckles when he was younger.
No one has ever said it out loud to me, but we are a blended family. My oldest child is from my first marriage and is half Mexican and half white, only he looks very Hispanic. My husband is half Japanese and looks Asian-ish (some people think Hispanic) and our son together is very fair skinned with blue eyes like me. So if I ever do get to talking about my kids and husband with anyone for whatever reason, they invariably say, "Oh, I thought the oldest one was his and the youngest one wasn't!" just because my oldest has dark skin, hair and eyes like my husband and the youngest is white and blue eyed like me. But, I can say no one has ever been rude enough to ask or say to him, "the baby isn't yours". He definitely is, my husband just passed his white father's genes down to him instead of his Japanese mother's. When I enrolled the oldest in school (deep south) they did keep asking me if he spoke any other languages and if any other language was spoken in the home. After about the third variation of this question I said, "His dad was Mexican, is that what you wanted to know?" They didn't ask again. (If I'm ever curious I honestly just say, you have beautiful hair/eyes/features, what is your ethnicity? It's really that simple and not offensive at all.)
My natural hair color is a dark blonde and I have very fair skin (husband is the same). When my son was very young, I was coloring my hair red. My son has very light blonde hair. When he was about 2 years old, we were standing in line for something and there were two women in front of us. They kept turning around and looking at the two of us when they finally said "Do you bleach his hair?" I said "Excuse me?" and they continued "well, your hair is so red and his is so blonde, we just figured you must bleach it." I couldn't believe it.
I would never ever say any such things to anyone. But I have to admit there are times I wonder to myself. My grandson has a friend who is black. This kid is 6'1, has a fro, looks African American in all respects. His parents are Hispanic. They are both about 5'1, straight black hair, look Hispanic in all respects. My grandson insists they are his biological parents. I had assumed he must have been adopted.
There is a lot of African blood in most Latin countries.
I just want to point out that hair color does not follow simple dominance recessive patterns. No one should infer anything about parentage from hair color.
Also depending on the distant heritage of the asian partner blue or green eyes are possible. My siblings are half asian half european and one of them has blue/green eyes. My stepmother while having typical brown eyes and not knowing of any caucasian heritage must be carrying either the blue recessive or the mutation for green.
Agreed...I was cheating by including eye color with the hair color. Hair color is more ish with multiple genes involved.
Pretty rare on the sibling with the eyes though. That's cool. Not sure what to call mine. As a little kid I had the white blonde hair with blue eyes. Hair eventually turned a light brown, but my eyes went from blue to green. Mother said they would turn green if I was behaving badly, so I used to check to see if they'd get any lighter...but they never did. . Maybe I'm part cat.
That said...I can't understand why someone gets offended when asked if their kids are adopted. Is that an insult or rude? Seems pretty idiotic to be offended by that too.
That said...I can't understand why someone gets offended when asked if their kids are adopted. Is that an insult or rude? Seems pretty idiotic to be offended by that too.
Why is that idiotic? It’s intrusive and personal. What if the kid is adopted and they haven’t told him yet? What business is it of the askers to imply that your kids don’t look enough like you to be biologically related?
No, I wouldn’t say anything, but I would certainly think it.
My husband’s nephew was married to a woman with 2 sons from her first marriage. Nobody thinks the 2 boys have the same father. One is a loser, gangster wannabe with a stocky build, like the first husband, and one is a slightly built, intelligent vegetarian math teacher. No possible way.
Why is that idiotic? It’s intrusive and personal. What if the kid is adopted and they haven’t told him yet? What business is it of the askers to imply that your kids don’t look enough like you to be biologically related?
It isn't their business. Being offended at the question implies that the offended party considers it insulting, as if an adopted kid is a lesser part of the family - How dare you think that my biological child is adopted! Of course he's not, he's mine!"
This sort of thing was one of the reasons my parents were divorced when I was a toddler. My mom had brown hair, med fair skin, and hazel eyes, my dad had black hair, fairly olive skin, and dark brown almost black eyes. He is 100% caucasian, as is my mom. When I was born I had super fair skin, blue eyes that later turned green/hazel, and pale gold/strawberry blonde hair. Because they had been having marriage issues when my mom discovered she was pregnant with me, his siblings decided I was the product of an affair. They kept telling him that I wasn't his and eventually it must have gotten to him. He also accused my mom of an affair after I was born, and they were divorced when I was about 18 months. I always wondered, mainly because of certain family health issues that I don't have, and recently got my older brother to do a DNA test. Now we know, dad's siblings were liars.
It's almost funny that when my sister was born the doctor in the delivery room came out to tell my dad it was a girl and all were well but, having never met my dad because it was an emergency premature delivery, he was looking for a black man in the waiting room because my sister was born looking bi-racial. He couldn't figure out which white man in the waiting room to tell and was worried that their would be a "surprise" when dad saw "his" child.
Personally, I would tell rude people that they are rude, and how dare they even imagine that such personal info is any business of theirs. They need to be told point blank that they are the rudest person on the planet.
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and my other brother is a red-head with a face full of freckles when he was younger.
. Maybe I'm part cat.
