to hate it when people refer to their duel heritage children as.....

[Parachute2011]

1/3 of this, 1/4 of that, 3/4 of the other. People are people and I hate to hear them being referred to like slices of pizza. If someone is going to be racist to you, they would ask if your grandfather was Swiss before insulting you.

I do think that the many cultures that are part of the child's life should be celebrated. But IMO referring to a child or adult as anything less than a whole person is insulting.

mule heritage - father is a donkey

YABU, I'm 5/8 Welsh and the extra 1/8 makes all the difference. DCs therefore are 5/16 Welsh, but it's getting a bit tenuous at that point.

pool heritage - brought up by lottery winners

YABU

I'll refer to myself and my children however the fuck I choose.

Either there's a lot of weird hypersensitivity on this thread or I'm a blundering, offensive fool

I'm a quarter Welsh, a quarter Gypsy and entirely British. I can't see why I'd describe myself as English over British; wouldn't I be insulting my Welsh genes? Though of course I say England if asked which country I'm from.

And it is actually relevant. Genetic heritage explains a lot about various aspects of one's physical makeup. It'd be bonkers to re-configure your genetic understanding of yourself for the sake of political correctness.

Why is the term half-caste offensive? I know it is offensive but I'm not sure why. Is it because to do with the caste system and therefore implying that one half is of lesser social standing than the other? Or something else? A bit that I don't know.

stool heritage - part carpenter

it's to do with clay and making china I think - so the colour reference is not being fully completed in the oven ? can't remember exactly.

Pool heritage - brought up by mansion dwellers

oops

Yule heritage - parents born on Christmas Day

I am 1/4 German X 2.

So technically 1/2 German.

But neither of my parents are German.

Parachute, how would you describe someone who was mixed race, or had parents from different countries?

Wikipedia says:

Half-caste is a term used to describe people of mixed race or ethnicity. Caste comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish casta, meaning race. The term is often incorrectly believed to have some sort of relationship with the Indian caste system, but the fact that children born to mixed Indian and British parentage were termed either Eurasian or Anglo-Indian rather disproves this theory.

It was in common usage, and considered an entirely acceptable adjective for people, from at least between the mid-19th century and mid-20th century. Today, the term is much more prominent in commonwealth countries than in the United States, possibly indicating that its usage came about after America's independence. Whether or not the term is offensive is a matter of considerable debate, and opinions vary throughout the Anglophone world.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-caste

prefer your pool heritage proud

spool heritage - part cinema buff, part weaver

some vv good heritages on here

We have a mixed race at school sports day because there's only 1 other girl in DD2s class.

Metal - you wrote "People can't actually know percentages for sure without having it checked.

You are about 50% of each parent, but not necessarily 25% of each grandparent. This is because the DNA you pass on to your children doesn't need to contain a 50:50 mix of each of your parents DNA."

Can you expand? If you are 50% of your parent, and they are 50% of their parent, how come it doesn't equal 25% from the grandparent? Is this because of crossing over and independent assortment at meiosis?

boobz Because your parents are each half their parents, and each of your parents gives you a random 50% of their genes.

However that is not exactly true because apparently almost 100% of everyone's genes are identical anyway.. it's only the odd few that vary much at all.

Boobz

Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. They get one of each pair from each parent. They then pass on one chromosome from each pair to their own children. This part is random, and it isn't necessary that half of the chromosomes passed on were from each of their parents.

If you imagine people only had 2 pairs of chromosomes (to make thinking about it easier), you could say that a person has:

chromosome 1-from dad
chromosome 1-from mum

chromosome 2-from dad
chromosome 2-from mum

They would then pass on one from each pair to their children, but since it's random there is no reason why this person couldn't pass on:

chromosome 1-from mum
chromosome 2-from mum

meaning that the contribution of the grandparents wasn't 50:50.

Just because of chance, you would expect a roughly equal number of chromosomes from each grandparent (although you can't have exactly half since 23 is an odd number); but this still wouldn't necessarily make it 25% each since the chromosomes are all different sizes, so they don't all make an equal contribution.

That's the main reason that you can't be sure which fraction of your total DNA came from each grandparent.

YABU. I have dual heritage plus something exotic that nobody has quite yet admitted to in the family gene pool. It's cool and I like it and I can't for the life of me imagine getting myself a steaming hot wedgie about it.

I always refer to myself as half English and half French. It's the simplest way of explaining where I'm from. I had no idea anyone would ever find that method of labelling offensive. As long as the child doesn't mind, surely it doesn't matter?

YABU, I love referring to myself as 1/2 Armenian and 1/2 English its great, no problem with that.

This sort of thing is why we have ended up with two faceless, shapeless, genderless mascots for the olympic games next year. Political corresctness has gone mad.

When did intent get taken out of the equation anyway? I see derogatory comments as defined as having the intent of insulting or abusing someone. For example, calling someone a n*r or a p*i.

Referring to someone as half this and half that when it is true and there is not intention of being rude is fine IMO.

I think the phrase 'dual-heritage' is bloody awful.

My DS is whole British, but born abroad.

I always mention where he was born, he Dad grew up there from 5yo so grew up in that 'culture'. It's part of who DS is. His name is a dead giveaway though!