Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to really not understand the genetics involved in eye color?

213 replies

CheerfulYank · 11/10/2011 06:40

It's all very confusing. Blush I remember something about punnett squares, and two blue eyed people not "being able" to have a brown-eyed child, but now I think that's a myth, isn't it? Or something?

My eyes are a very pale blue, DH's are brownish hazel. DS's are blue. I was just on a website "predicting" your future children's eye colors and it said they would be brown as DH's are brown, but that's obviously not the case.

Can someone who did not spend high school biology class flirting with their lab partner explain this to me? Blush In small words?

OP posts:
Salmotrutta · 12/10/2011 00:01

moocow - I think this gives a reasonable explanation.

chimeras and mosaics

I had to google as it's many years since I studied this and I've forgotten a lot - and I'd forgotten mosaicism too!!

Salmotrutta · 12/10/2011 00:03

Ooops!! Wrong link! That was an earlier one I posted on another thread.

This is the correct one:

chimeras and mosaics

saycheese · 12/10/2011 00:13

when you look at eyes they look a certain colour but they are mostly not the colour they appear! my daughter has green eyes... however i took a close up photograph of her eyeball, ive added the picture to my profile and its amazing! there is blue green brown and yellow in her eyes all in all different shades. so maybe the colour you see isnt the colour they actually are x

ZZZenAgain · 12/10/2011 00:23

have blue eyes, dh born blue eyed, turned green at age 8 (his mother has green eyes, his father blue)

dd has blue eyes, exactly the same colour as mine but with golden flecks around the iris

wonder sometimes if her eyes will turn green.

ZZZenAgain · 12/10/2011 00:23

not so good for passports either gallicgirl

marriedinwhite · 12/10/2011 07:34

One day I will read all of this fascinating thread. For the time being I have brown eyes, olive skin and once brown hair (two brown eyed parents but each had a blue eyed and a brown eyed parent). DH has grey/blue eyes and from a long line of blue eyes. DH is fair with a red tinge.

DS has green eyes, blondish/brown hair and olive skin
DD has blue/grey eyes, fairer hair and an English rose skin that tans lightly.

I always expected my darker side to be dominant and was surprised at how fair the children were - both very blonde when they were small.

brighthair · 12/10/2011 07:49

My mum has v dark hair, olive skin and brown eyes
Dad blue eyes and red hair
Me - green eyes and red hair

The rest of the family is the same as my mum to the point where people thought my cousins were my mums children Grin

BedHog · 12/10/2011 09:10

Where do my eyes fit in? They are the same colour as the sauce in Heinz baked beans.

Is there an orange gene?

Ingles2 · 12/10/2011 09:24

I remember the day we were taught this at school so clearly....
my parents both have pale blue eyes, yet my brother and I both have dark brown eyes.
School was teaching the theory that it wasn't possible for 2 blues to produce brown, so the biology teacher suggested I must have a different father! Shock Grin
My husband also has dark brown eyes and dark hair, but we've got a son who is very blond with pale blue eyes and as he's nearly a teen, I don't think it's going to change.
It is fascinating... I just wish I was clever enough to understand it

ScarahStratton · 12/10/2011 09:30

I have a brown eyed DD ingles, XH and I are both blue eyed. I've had all the 'oh she can't be his' crap too.

CoteDAzur · 12/10/2011 10:17

"Actually I have seen mixed race children who have blonde hair!"

So what? Nobody said some Africans can't have recessive blond genes somewhere.

The point is that "Europeans have stronger genes than Africans because they migrated further" is nonsense. If it were true, then you would see lily-white blue-eyed blond offspring from every marriage between a blond North European and a black African, which is demonstrably not true.

In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth: dark brown eyes (far more common in Africa than in Northern Europe) are dominant traits and light blue eyes are recessive.

ZZZenAgain · 12/10/2011 12:00

wtf teacher saying you must have a different fther! Even if it were definitely the case, why is the teacher saying it?

FearfulYank · 12/10/2011 13:09

My French teacher told us that all life had to have come from Africa because two darker people could produce a lighter child but it didn't work the other way around.

Ingles did you start looking at the milkman really suspiciously after that? :o

Did anyone see the House episode where he accused a woman of cheating on her husband repeatedly because all of her kids had different eye colors? He was right about the woman, but now, in light of this thread... Hmm

AmberLeaf · 12/10/2011 14:12

CoteDAzur I was responding to your post that implied it wasnt possible.

I wasnt agreeing with the poster you were replying to thats why I quoted you not her.

Insomnia11 · 12/10/2011 14:30

DH is ginger haired with a ruddy/fair/freckly complexion and grey eyes. DD1 is like me, all hazel colouring with olive skin, was never blonde, born with a shock of black hair.

DD2 was is very light ash blonde haired, she has fair skin, freckles on her nose and very light blue eyes.

I remarked when DD2 was born how different she was from DD1 - DD1 was all red/brown and bunched up and hairy/fuzzy! DD2 was all legs and arms and long body and pinkish pale and hairless like a little featherless chick. Yet in spite of the difference in colouring they are facially similar. Interesting how they turn out!

Blood groups is another interesting one. More complicated than you think. My mum is A-, my dad is O-, and I'm A+.

ZonkedOut · 12/10/2011 16:27

Insomnia, I was under the impression that blood types were more straightforward and that two rhesus negative parents really couldn't have a positive child. The other way round is possible, and indeed I'm A- with both parents A+. I don't know exactly what DH is, but my two DDs are A+ and AB-.

oohlaalaa · 12/10/2011 16:47

My niece has blue eyes, and she's mixed race. Her father is afro-caribbean.

My brother in law, looks a little bit like Colin Jackson (more manly though), and all their children are light brown. We have been told that blues eyes are recessive, and her dad has to have some white ancestors, for this to have happened.

CardyMow · 12/10/2011 18:10

My Mum - Red hair, Blue eyes
My Dad - Brown hair, Hazel/brown eyes.

Me - Auburn/brown hair, Hazel/green eyes (more green than brown).

DD's father - Brown hair, Blue/grey eyes

DD - Light Brown/Dirty Blonde hair, blue/grey eyes.

DS1's father - Black hair, chocolate brown eyes.

DS1 - very dark brown hair, chocolate brown eyes.

DS2 & DS3's father - brown hair, blue eyes.

DS2 - Light brown/dirty blonde hair, Hazel/brown eyes (more brown than green).

DS3 - Strawberry blonde hair, eyes - he just doesn't HAVE an eye colour. It is like every colour all mixed together. It looks like someone has taken dark blue, brown, light blue, green and grey paints and swirled them all together! I've NEVER seen an eye colour like it, and for the last 2/3 months, it hasn't changed at all. (He's 8mo).

I also have a great-grandparent that had one green, one blue eye - and she was hearing impaired from birth.

I don't know how DD ended up with her blue/grey eyes from her dad when I have brown and green in my 'hazel-green' eyes.

DS1 makes sense, as does DS2, sort of, but DS3's eyes are a mystery to everyone who looks at them. DS3's - is just so unusual it's untrue - I honestly couldn't give you a classification on his eye colour even though I'm looking directly at them right now!!

stepawayfromtheecclescakes · 12/10/2011 18:46

so where do my RED eyes fit in..... Smile sorry it was all getting a bit technical

TonksmarriedaWerewolf · 12/10/2011 21:37

Waardenburg syndrome is characterised by blue/brown eyes, a white streak in the hair, and hearing problems.

David Bowie probably has it.

The charcteristics crop up almost at random: ie my uncle has blue/brown eyes, and is partially deaf. His children have it and are profoundly deaf but no other characteristics. His GS1 and GD are deaf and also have it, but his GS2 doesn't have it at all.

Fascinating stuff!

Sleepyspaniel · 12/10/2011 22:19

Tonks, David Bowie's eyes were the same colour, but an accident as a youngster left him with a pupil permanently enlarged which gives the impression of one blue, one brown eye Smile

lurkinginthebackground · 12/10/2011 22:24

My dd2's eye colour changed after her first birthday from hazel to brown. My ds's changed just before his first birthday from pale /light blue to brown. Infact both dd2 and ds have the same colour brown eyes and same shape eyes.
I always thought my dh was making it up when he claimed to have blue eyes and blonde hair as a child. As an adult he has brown eyes, more or less the same as dd2 and ds and dark brown hair. After having the kids I now know he wasn't delusional.

FearfulYank · 13/10/2011 06:06

My DS always had very pale blue eyes like mine, but they're a little more greenish now. It probably happened after he was 2 or so...and his hair is very blond, but both DH and I have dark hair (DH's is almost black) so that may change.

Coralanne · 13/10/2011 06:32

My DD has brown eyes (cinnamon actually). Sounds more exoticGrin. Her DH has blue eyes.

Four of their five DC have white hair and bright blue eyes and pale skin.

DD number 3 has brown eyes, honey coloured skin and hair.

ScarahStratton · 13/10/2011 08:41

I want to see stepaway's red eyes and BedHog's baked bean eyes. Grin

Swipe left for the next trending thread