When bio kids don't look like you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The commenters speculating on biracial kids are bothering me, because I have never seen a biracial kid who looked literally nothing like one of the bio parents. I'm sure they exist, like any other relatively rare kid who looks 0% like one of their bio parents, but they seem just as rare.

What I HAVE seen are people who so essentialize based on race that they think a kid with darker/lighter skin and a different hair texture, etc. looks "nothing like" their parent (usually white parent) when that's usually not the case at all.

I have seen so, so many biracial kids of color that look clearly [non-white race] but also really clearly share specific features of their white parent... and no one sees the resemblance. It's baffling. It reminds me of the "black twin/white twin" discourse.

I'm a white mom who grew up in a multiracial family and whose kid is a biracial POC-- but she looks like a [other race] version of me. Same with my cousins of color and other family members, to varying degrees.

This. Good grief. People love to say they are colorblind but literally cannot see past race to be able to tell that a child looks like a parent!

+1. This happens with my DD all the time - people tell me she looks nothing like my DH and is a carbon copy of me, which is not true at all. We've now had a second DD and she has darker skin. Even though the girls share a ton of facial features and are a pretty even mix of both of us, I'm pretty sure we're going to hear how she looks exactly my DH and nothing like me.

[Anonymous]

So many bio parents are obsessed with who their kid looks like. I don’t get it. Can you only love someone if they are a reflection of yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The commenters speculating on biracial kids are bothering me, because I have never seen a biracial kid who looked literally nothing like one of the bio parents. I'm sure they exist, like any other relatively rare kid who looks 0% like one of their bio parents, but they seem just as rare.

What I HAVE seen are people who so essentialize based on race that they think a kid with darker/lighter skin and a different hair texture, etc. looks "nothing like" their parent (usually white parent) when that's usually not the case at all.

I have seen so, so many biracial kids of color that look clearly [non-white race] but also really clearly share specific features of their white parent... and no one sees the resemblance. It's baffling. It reminds me of the "black twin/white twin" discourse.

I'm a white mom who grew up in a multiracial family and whose kid is a biracial POC-- but she looks like a [other race] version of me. Same with my cousins of color and other family members, to varying degrees.

This. Good grief. People love to say they are colorblind but literally cannot see past race to be able to tell that a child looks like a parent!

+1. This happens with my DD all the time - people tell me she looks nothing like my DH and is a carbon copy of me, which is not true at all. We've now had a second DD and she has darker skin. Even though the girls share a ton of facial features and are a pretty even mix of both of us, I'm pretty sure we're going to hear how she looks exactly my DH and nothing like me.

This is really interesting and annoying. We are both white, by my husband is darker (middle eastern) and i'm blonde (eastern european). My son has my coloring yet everyone goes on about how much he looks like my husband. (He actually doesn't really look like either of us.) My younger daughter looks most like my son (so again, not that much like either of us), and everyone is now saying she looks like me. When you compare their baby pictures, they look almost identical. People really do an incredible amount of projecting...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our donor egg baby looks exactly like my husband and nothing like me. I love this child with all my heart and it hasn't stopped me bonding.

I love this, congrats!!!

[Anonymous]

This is like the post about if the boy only moms feeling let down, doesn’t make any sense to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The commenters speculating on biracial kids are bothering me, because I have never seen a biracial kid who looked literally nothing like one of the bio parents. I'm sure they exist, like any other relatively rare kid who looks 0% like one of their bio parents, but they seem just as rare.

What I HAVE seen are people who so essentialize based on race that they think a kid with darker/lighter skin and a different hair texture, etc. looks "nothing like" their parent (usually white parent) when that's usually not the case at all.

I have seen so, so many biracial kids of color that look clearly [non-white race] but also really clearly share specific features of their white parent... and no one sees the resemblance. It's baffling. It reminds me of the "black twin/white twin" discourse.

I'm a white mom who grew up in a multiracial family and whose kid is a biracial POC-- but she looks like a [other race] version of me. Same with my cousins of color and other family members, to varying degrees.

This. Good grief. People love to say they are colorblind but literally cannot see past race to be able to tell that a child looks like a parent!

+1. This happens with my DD all the time - people tell me she looks nothing like my DH and is a carbon copy of me, which is not true at all. We've now had a second DD and she has darker skin. Even though the girls share a ton of facial features and are a pretty even mix of both of us, I'm pretty sure we're going to hear how she looks exactly my DH and nothing like me.

It's so frustrating-- I don't subscribe at all to BS colorblindness-- and it's partly because it only buries issues of race-- like the one where you so silo people based on your perception of race that you can't see things that are clearly in front of you.

[Anonymous]

The thing I find ridiculous about this is that a lot of the foundation for parent-child bonding is shortly after birth. Infants look fairly nondescript. I think a lot of the talk about babies looking like parents is just people desperately looking for patterns, regardless of whether they exist or not.

[Anonymous]

This has been the experience of DH and I: we don't have an issue, other people do. People expect kids to look like both parents. Our kids are bi-racial. One looks like he's african american and the other looks caucasian. Each kid looks like one parent. They look nothing alike, not even the way they are built. Our only trouble is how people look at us. We have both been asked if they are our biological kids or if they have the same dad or mom. The younger one grappled with the color difference for a while, but now that he's older he understands a little better about genetics and families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The commenters speculating on biracial kids are bothering me, because I have never seen a biracial kid who looked literally nothing like one of the bio parents. I'm sure they exist, like any other relatively rare kid who looks 0% like one of their bio parents, but they seem just as rare.

What I HAVE seen are people who so essentialize based on race that they think a kid with darker/lighter skin and a different hair texture, etc. looks "nothing like" their parent (usually white parent) when that's usually not the case at all.

I have seen so, so many biracial kids of color that look clearly [non-white race] but also really clearly share specific features of their white parent... and no one sees the resemblance. It's baffling. It reminds me of the "black twin/white twin" discourse.

I'm a white mom who grew up in a multiracial family and whose kid is a biracial POC-- but she looks like a [other race] version of me. Same with my cousins of color and other family members, to varying degrees.

This. Good grief. People love to say they are colorblind but literally cannot see past race to be able to tell that a child looks like a parent!

+1. This happens with my DD all the time - people tell me she looks nothing like my DH and is a carbon copy of me, which is not true at all. We've now had a second DD and she has darker skin. Even though the girls share a ton of facial features and are a pretty even mix of both of us, I'm pretty sure we're going to hear how she looks exactly my DH and nothing like me.

Okay but sometimes this is actually true. I will be the first to admit that my DD looks like she has no bio relationship to me at all. She is a tiny carbon copy of DH’s sister — their school pictures are virtually indistinguishable. It doesn’t mean I love her any less!

[Anonymous]

Well, they look like me. But they have their dad' blood type. Are they still my blood and flesh then???!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, kids change. Their looks change

This. My kids are mixed race (I am the individual with supposedly dominant features like dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair) and were both born looking exactly like my husband (features, facial structure, and coloring). As they've gotten older, they've begun to look more like me (features have come out a little more, skin, hair, even eyes have darkened a little, etc.). They're basically halfway between me and my husband.

An interesting side note, we had a family reunion last summer and have a picture of all the little cousins and 2nd cousins (several different racial mixes) and it turns out most of them have the exact same nose and lips even if they appear to look nothing like one another! It's kind of cool.

[Anonymous]

I have a biracial kid who looks nothing like his father; even DH agrees. He really doesn’t look like me either but definitely has more of a resemblance to me than his dad.

[Anonymous]

I see features of myself and DH in all my kids. But the thing that is so poignant to me is that my youngest has hands that look like my own. And when I say that I mean that when I look at them I feel like I am looking at my exact hands 35 years ago. It's almost eerie but also amazing.

When you think about it, in life you spend more time seeing your hands than you do seeing your own face. And what's extra lovely to me is that my hands are a lot like my mom's (who died before any of her grandkids were born), so it feels like a passing down of sorts.

Anyway--this is all to say ... hopefully each parent's heart sings around their child. There are millions of ways to find a resemblance or connection with a child and it's not always something that an outsider would ever observe or appreciate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing I find ridiculous about this is that a lot of the foundation for parent-child bonding is shortly after birth. Infants look fairly nondescript. I think a lot of the talk about babies looking like parents is just people desperately looking for patterns, regardless of whether they exist or not.

I think so too. In my MIL's culture there is a saying that the person who drives you crazy when you are pregnant is who your baby will look like. Sure enough my second baby came out looking like FIL and he really drove me crazy when I was pregnant. But honestly new babies just look like new babies!

[Anonymous]

Uhh... this kind of question/comments make me wonder if OP is the sort of person that asks my white husband if our kids (half Asian/half Caucasian) are adopted.

Yes, all of our kids "look" like me because they have Asian features. Has that made my husband feel less bonded to them? No.

Is there a real underlying concern for the insecurity like wondering if the kid (if OP is male) is actually yours??