Kids Who Look like Neither Parent

I once worked with a woman that had 2 kids, both had blond hair. The boy was a bit darker, more towards brown while the girl had a nice blond. Both parents were dark haired. We used to tease her that the milkman must have been really cute. :) The girl looked just like a great great grandma.

fun question but no my son looks like both of us dead on,
which is sounds weird but dh was a tow head as a kid.
dd is less as much like us as she has her grandma's eyes
but she is still identifiable as mine.

Now my aunt, looks nothing like my mom or her brother and there was enough never talked about stuff in that branch of the family that I...wonder.

That's how it is with my little sister.

My dad and mom both have deep brown hair, brown eyes, naturally slender... My little sister is blonde, blue/green eyed (color changes...) and chubby. She looks NOTHING like either parent!

Yet... when you stand her next to her siblings, there is NO denying that we are all related... I look JUST like my dad (only... prettier and with red hair. lol!) and my little brother looks JUST like my mom... She just happened to get slapped with all the recessive genes in our family. :)

I am half Korean, with dark eyes and dark hair. My husband also has dark hair and eyes. My older daughter is a blue eyed blonde.

I was once out with her having lunch when we were approached by a complete stranger who said to me "what a beautiful little girl!" (thanks!) "Are you her nanny?" (what the huh?)

When I told him that no, I was her mum, he asked with all seriousness and ZERO sense of humor/irony/tact "are you sure?" (sigh)

I thought about telling him I was there for her birth and then whipping out my c-section scar. Instead, I just smiled, picked her up, and walked away. And vowed never to go back to that restaurant again... ;-)

This is fun to think about, but yes, a child can look like neither biological parent. It's not something people tend to expect, but it's possible to inherit Great-great-grandma's hair color and Great-grandpa's nose instead of Mom's and Dad's. Just as with talents, physical characteristics can pop up after several generations.

And yes, some Italian people don't look like what we think Italian people should look like. When we visited northern Italy years ago, some Italians we met looked more as if they were Swiss.

I have four children, and three of them are undoubtedly our kids! The resemblance is unmistakable. The other - well, we wondered who she took after, but as she grows older (she's in her 30s now) she's looking more and more like various relatives on both sides.

My niece and her husband have four daughters. Three have beautiful brown hair and brown eyes like their parents. The oldest girl has blue eyes and natural blonde hair to die for! Yes, there are those genes further back in the family. Who'd have believed they'd make a reappearance!

I've had people ask where my daughter's extremely blonde hair comes from. I say the milk man.

Yep, that's me. I come from a family of tall, bigger build, dark brown hair, angled features, dark brown eyes, tans easily, kind of family. I'm blonde, green-eyed, shorter, all of 98 pounds. Personality wise, we're the opposite, also.

Then again, I've always kind of wondered...

Our son looks nothing like us. If he hadn't been the only child born that day sent to the NICU, I would have questioned whether he was ours for a long time. Eventually, though, he developed characteristics from my mom's side of the family.

I'm a redhead and there hasn't been another redhead in the family for generations.

Genetics is a crazy thing.

I've got 4 kids. One looks exactly like DH, one looks exactly like me, and one is an even mixture of the two of us. Those three all look like siblings. Then there is one, that looks nothing like me, my husband, or his siblings - he must have gotten every possible recessive gene.

Actually , There are blonde haired Italians , they come from the Southern part of Italy, I believe.
My best friend is Italian and her mom has told me that they do exist.
There's also the fact that there are very few 100% anything in the US.
There could be other ancestors further back whose genes are coming through.
Now my youngest sister and brother look nothing like the rest of us ( there are 5 of us) and they look nothign like their parents ( different dad than I have) , But my youngest sister does look like her aunt and my brother looks like his grandfather.

We have 3 children. 2 girls and a boy. My husband has black hair and hazel eyes. Myself,have brown hair(with a reddish tint) and brown eyes(with a greenish tint) Our two daughters have brown hair and brown eyes. Our son has blue eyes and dirty blonde brownish hair.My oldest daughter favors me and my other daughter favors my triple cousins(my mom's sister daughters.)Our son is mix with both of of genes. He looks like my brother and my husband and kinda me.

We have some people comment about our son because his eyes(blue). Seriously it gets old. People always judged to quickly. My dad put me on the spot in front of my grandma(his mom) and aunt and uncle(his brother and sister) saying "so where he gets his eyes from?" It made me mad,sad etc on how he said and treated me that way. I been 100% faithful to my husband since the day we got married. People honestly can't google gentic. We had a 1 in 4 chance of having a child with blue eyes. He was our 3rd child,4th pregnancy!! Both my dad and my husband mother has BLUE eyes. We both(husband and I) are a carry for the gentic blue eyed trait gene since we have a parent with blue eyes.

I been wanted to get a DNA test done just to shut some people up. I give my husband credit,he never once question about him being his son. He knows! He looks like both of us in ways. We were just lucky to have a blue eye child. :) All i'm saying don't judge to qucikly. You don't know unless you walk in some else shoes.

I don't know, probably the same way I did with my ex. There is a lot that goes into genetics. Even though my family was all from Sicily my grandpa was 6ft 4 blond hair and blue eyes. My Andy got his blond from his paternal grandpa though since I was adopted

My cousin is Italian and her husband is half chinese (dark hair and somewhat Asian features), their dd is pinkish complexion and blond hair! Totally their biological child. Their second daughter looks more chinese - also biological. My cousin does have some blonds in her family, but her hair is dark now. She jokingly says that everyone is going to think she adopted a child from China because of the difference between the sisters.

These things happen. There is a huge gene pool between two people. I've seen fraternal twin sisters that were very different.

People need to accept that looks are just the packaging. There's a lot of variability withing the same family.

Absolutely. If my sister wasn't more "my type", I'd swear I was adopted. And my niece has white blond hair while no one else comes close to that except I guess some ancestor.

My youngest looks NOTHING like either my husband or me. WHen he was born we were both stunned lol
I gave him my grandpas name as his middle name. Who I lost when I was 14 and I ADORED him. THAT is who my baby boy looks like. Its crazy! He has his personality even! Makes the same silly faces, and goofs around like he did. It makes me want to cry sometimes. My other two boys have brown eyes, the oldest dark brown hair, my middle is a darker blonde. The baby has DAZZLING crystal blue eyes and blonde blonde hair. My hubby says he looks like a surfer baby lol
It happens!

I agree regarding recessive genes. My sisters daughter who is considered black has a blond hair blue eye grand daughter. Even though the childs father is white, there is no one in their family history with blond hair and blue eyes. When you look at my nieces father, who has the same type heritage as our president, a father of black heritage and a mother of white heritage, my grand-niece looks to be a carbon copy of grand-dads birth mom; she could be her twin.

That's what makes this world so beautiful. We can all look different, but at the same time we are all the same.

It happens. A black couple in England had a white child with blonde hair. Somewhere in their ancestry they had white ancestors. Those recessive genes found each other to produce a child with different coloring than the parents. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3060907/Black-p...
And a couple of mixed ancestry had twins, one black and one white.
http://www.jarnot.com/archives/2006/03/black-and-white.php

I'm guessing there was no "switched at birth" occurrence at the hospital since they were most likely astonished at the birth of their child. Or was your husband present at the birth?

Does the child look like any ancestors?

There's always the option: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23814032/ns/health-womens_hea...

Since you are all happy just being a family, you could let it go. Or if there is some sort of genetic health concern, you could test.

Good luck.

I have a friend who has 4 boys and none of them look ANYTHING like either parent. However, the boys all look alike. Weird!

Possible recessive genes. All the women in my family have red hair. My bio-dad is a brunette and I have brown hair, with red tones, but nowhere NEAR the strawberry blonds of all the other ladies. Some genes pop out from grandparents, etc., and go past the parents to the kiddos.