Why does it seem so important to some people that children resemble each other or a parent?

Validation.

Validation that my gene pool survived, the closest I can get to typical ideals of immortality. And validation that my Ever Lovin’ didn’t spoon with the mailman.

So you think it’s almost an instinctive thing @RealEyesRealizeRealLies? But why would a man care who another man’s children are? And why would a woman care about the twins not looking alike?

Someone once told me most babies look more like the father so the father can know it is his sperm that made the baby. Natures way of reassuring the male of the species the woman didn’t cheat. I don’t really buy into it, but for sure my sister and I as babies looked more like my dad.

I definitely notice when a child looks just like their mom or dad. If I see a child with their mother and see no resemblence, I do think to myself, they must look like their dad. I on rare occasion say it out loud when I know for 100% sure the child is a biologically the parents.

It’s not that it matters, it is just sometimes hard to miss. When the parents look very different sometimes it is more noticeable. My husband parents look nothing alike. His mom has small features, a round face, straight hair. His dad has very strong features, large nose and jaw, curly hair. The children are truly mixes of them both, it’s interesting to try to figure out the mix. More like a piece of art for me. The structure of their faces.

Saying all that I know children who look very little like their parents and children who were adopted who still are so much like their parents. Same talking with their arms, same facial expressions. Same intonation in their voice.

But why is it so important to people that they feel like they need to make stuff up?

I posted a picture of my kids when they were little to my daughter’s timeline, with the note, “Excuse me. Did you say YOU had beautiful babies? :)”

She came back with, “At least my babies have a variety of beautiful. Yours were all just plain old brown!” LOL! I’m white, blue eyes, their dad is 1/16 Indonesian so his genes were dominated. 0Tto that @JLeslie what your friend told you was wrong. If a black woman had a baby by a white man, the darker genes tend to dominate.) My daughter has two white girls with blue eyes, Kale, who inherited her Indonesian skin complexion and eye color, and another son whose father is Mexican.

As someone who had a child with a rapist, I might bring a different experience here.

The thing I’ve noticed from having a baby with my husband is that he reminds me of people I love. He reminds me of me, of my parents, of my siblings, of my husband and of his parents. I see little characteristics in him, both physical and otherwise, that I immediately love. The grandparents all see bits of themselves. My older son sees some little similarities. It’s endearing.

I contrast that with two different situations. My son, the product of a date rape, has many physical and other similarities with his biological father. His biological father is a person who disgusts me. I have to work at loving these pieces of my son. It’s not easy to admit… but true.

My parents, who divorced when I was in Kindergarten, saw pieces of their ex-spouse in me. They would say, in anger, “You’re just like your father/mother”. They meant it as an insult.

Ideally, you meat someone, you are attracted, you fall in love, you commit to each other, you have babies. These babies look like you both. You are instantly in love with your babies. (Obviously this is the generic and very short version)

Now, I would love to adopt babies with African and Asian backgrounds to add diversity to our family and promote the oneness of humanity, so please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Of course you love people who don’t look like you. But I think there is something special, something primal and reflexive, about babies/children who look like your loved ones.

@Dutchess_III I don’t think they were thinking mixed races. Even with mixed race, it is not all about the complexion, it can be the structure of their face.

My kids could easily look very similar to me but have my husband’s thicker wavy black hair. I would be so fascinated by that. I remember on The New Adventures of Old Christine her son gets a date with the blond in the school and New Christine says, “Oh, I can have blond grandchildren!” LOL. They could possibly have my blue eyes, while his are light brown. His mom is greenish.

But if their theory was correct, then it could be applied to mixed races too. If a black woman had a baby by a white man, then the baby should resemble the man more than the woman, according to their theory, but that would NOT be the case. There are dominate genes and recessive genes and they account for everything, not just the structure of the face or the shape of their eyes. A blond, blue eyed white man and a black woman would have a child that would be darker complected than the man (but probably lighter than his mom) and have black, wavy hair, and dark eyes. The child would “look’ more like his mother than his father. The only way a child of theirs could have blue eyes or a light complexion would be if the woman had Caucasian blood somewhere in her genealogy.

@Cupcake I’m so sorry for your son…I can understand the importance of it within the nuclear family, but I’m thinking more of outsiders. What do they care if the kids don’t resemble their biological father, or brothers and sisters don’t resemble each other?

@Dutchess_III Yeah, I am not saying I buy into the theory.

@Cupcake points about what family members see. I was talking in generalities, people who are not even related just observing other children and their parents. Like your husband observing MJ’s kids. I never had children as you know, I really had a strong desire for biological children. For the child to be a product of our love. To see my husband in my child. I believe I would love any child, adopted or biological just as much, but the love between my husband and me I think does influence wanting a biological child. Then there is all sorts of other mess I won’t go into to why we never adopted. @Cupcake‘s situation is especially difficult since she can see the person she hates in the features of her child. Judging Amy (I think it was that show) did an episode about that very same situation. By the way married couples also tell their kids with negativitiy that they are acting like the other parent, they don’t need to be divorced.

Maybe people get happiness from seeing the resemblance in their own family members, so they altruistically want it for others? So, they seek to find resemblance.

You know what’s really funny? People constantly commented on how MUCH my oldest daughter looked like me. I mean, all the time. It must have been quite startling for it to come up as often as it did. I’d just look at Jen (my oldest) and grin…because she’s not biologically mine! They never said my other kids looked like me, just my oldest. :D

@Dutchess_III Does she look like you? Or, maybe she acts a lot like you? The aunt of a dear friend of mine adopted faternal twins and they look so much like the family. But, they did go to Poland to adopt the children, and their own family is 100% Polish-American.

Both, actually. Yes, she acted a LOT like me, but she looked like me too. We both had great smiles (which she got from her bio mom) and sharp jaw lines.

It’s not important in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn’t stop it from giving you a warm glow inside.
My son & daughter resemble both me & the wife, of course they do, considering we all share each others genes, but it’s not something that’s frequently mentioned, not since they were cute little babas.

Yes, sure it does. But again, I’m not talking about the nuclear family in regards to themselves. I’m referring to outsiders who, for example, seem to think it’s kind of offensive for me to note that my twins don’t resemble each other very much at all!

@Dutchess_III I guess maybe it like questioning the gene pool? I don’t have a problem with it. My family will say a child looks nothing like the parents and it’s just a statement. Like wondering how those two parents made that child or children. Like an interesting puzzle.

By the way, I have to say I am so THRILLED that I finally got some blue eyed babies, just like me. :)

Personally, I hardly ever think babies look like their parents. Someone will say, “He looks just like his daddy!” and I’ll be thinking, ‘Really? Where?’ I just never see it. So, kids looking like their parents isn’t particularly important to me.

I know! They were trying to find similarities to Mom and Dad when the twins were born. They were 5 weeks premature and all wrinkly and stuff. SO tiny. I told them, “If I had to guess, I’d say ET is the dad!”
They didn’t like that!

All the babies I’ve seen look more like Winston Churchill than the parents.

@Dutchess_III Serious about the blue eyes?

Yeah @JLeslie. Why? I’m not saying it doesn’t matter, but why would it matter to outsiders to the point that they’d say a kid looks like someone they DON’T? And why is Savannah eating diapers? That is so strange.

@Dutchess_III Because I think some people would jump on it. Like preferring certain features is racist. Especially since blue tends to be a white person’s trait. I know you don’t think that way at all. I’m just saying it might sound that way to some people. Like the gene pool got corrupted if you don’t keep the recessive traits going.

No no no. We want kids who look like us. That’s all. That’s normal. It’s not that I prefer blue eyes. My daughter has THE most beautiful eyes, very dark and liquid and a little sloe. Very exotic. If I were to prefer eyes, those would be them.

It’s just nice to see confirmation of me in my grandkids. I just don’t understand why outsiders would get offended when I point out that the twins don’t look alike, or that MJ’s kids look NOTHING like him because they aren’t his, biologically.

@Dutchess_III Like I said, I never assume anything of the sort of you. I just think it might be looked at negatively. Not just regarding black, Hispanic, etc. it is even reminiscent of Hitler. I understand you are not saying you want to populate the world with more blue-eyed people. You are just saying your grandkids have your color eyes. I too would be happy if my kids had blue eyes like mine, although I love very very dark brown eyes, which is impossible if the child was biological to my husband and me. I would want my kids to have my husband’s hair. I want them to have the features I envy in my husband, maybe even more than seeing myself in them. Interesting, I never thought about that before. But, seeing my own family would be good too. My husband has much darker features so his genes would likely dominate.

Cool.