To be surprised by his colour?

[ifihadonlyknown]

My DS 7months is a stunner. Small ,flat to his head ears, button nose, huge almond-shaped blue eyes, ...honestly, stick a ribbon in his hair and he'll be the cutest little girl. My father has delicate elfin features and so does DP despite being big, chunky guys so I fully expected him to be a looker. Anyway, My mum and dad both have brown-nearly black hair and eyes, as do all of my siblings. DP has dark hair and eyes with a dark dad and blondish mother. My little dude presents us with a shock of red hair. His skins a bit whiter than ours too. I'm delighted, don't get me wrong even our very diluted Mediterranean genes have produced generations of brunette, olivey kids and something different is very welcome. WTF though! How did that happen ? Anyone get surprise looking babies?

My nephew is mixed race with blue/grey eyes. No idea where they came from.

My sister and I are fair haired, pale skinned, blue eyed, red cheeked, My Dad served with the UN in Cyprus the year before my brother was born, apparently, there were some comments as to whether my Mother visited too when my brother was born with olive skin, brown eyes and black hair!

My DD had red hair when she was born. By the time she was three she had gone blonde and stayed that way!

DS looked like me when he was born, apart from a shock of red hair. FIL examined his ears and declared he was definitely DH's baby because of one cauliflower ear and one normal. His hair has now changed from red to blonde to light brown to dark mouse. He looks more like his older brothers and his cousins all the time.

I've a stunner redhead son. His dad hasn;t any red, and I'm a different shade of red. People remark on how gorgeous he is all the time.

I've never understood the hatred for gingers or why it remains acceptable to bully and be abusive about them- it feels like the racists, xenophobes and homophobes all just redirected their bile when it became socially unacceptable to continue with it in their chosen target and so now gingers are fair game.

We are the rarest hair colour on the planet! how cool is that.

pic or he doesn't exist :D

sorry couldn't resist that!

My friend’s dds are like your dc, Lady. Mum’s pale and blonde, dad’s of Indian origin. They got one dd each and both are gorgeous.

I think both parents have to have the red hair gene for a child to have it, but I might be wrong. But it explains why so few people have it - even here in Scotland.

Wow Elephants, it would really seem some people need a concrete LIGHTHEARTED in the title to not take everything so seriously!

Why is "my little dude" so funny?? 🤔

I had a mixed race friend (mother Mexican father German) who had red hair. It requires a gene from both parents but can hide for generations. So not too surprising in your case.

Please don't ever let your daughter know if you think she's homely or ugly though, my father told me that for years and it's had life-long effects.

I've got a red head - I'm dark haired (my dad was Romany), my XH is sort of mousy brown. DS was born with tufts of gingery fluff which turned to the most glorious shining copper colour when he was about 2/3. It's more of a dark auburn now he is grown up.
It was a bit of a surprise although XH is Scottish so I'm assuming the red haired genes came from his side.
My DD is dark like me.

Your baby sounds gorgeous - remember to be careful when the weather gets hot and he's playing out - he'll have very fair skin and will burn easily - factor 50 all the way

elephantsandtigers my thoughts exactly. I read this like

They say red hair can be quite catching, my sister is red-haired (proper auburn), quite a bit in our family. Both her DD's also pure copper, despite no gingers at all in her DH family. They must have been carrying that recessive for quite a long time!

Both me & my sister left-handed but both our parents right-handed & no lefties amongst our uncles & aunts. Funny thing genetics

The gene for red hair is recessive so he would have to have had one copy from you and one from his father

I am pale skinned with dark hair, DH is from a very blonde and blue eyed family. DCs 1 and 3 look like a mix of us, DS2 has the most amazing auburn hair and blue eyes. He's also left handed so I think that makes him quite rare!

my friend is Turkish, very dark skin/hair/eyes, her husband is blonde. First son looks like he should be mine! Bright red hair, bluey white skin, blue eyes, the second one has the same face but is dark like his mum.

My own children are dark skinned, dark haired and dark eyed (one brown, one blue eyed, one green eyed) all have black hair. Two tan at the first sign of sun, one is blue skinned like me (red hair, lily white skin, blue eyes, never had a tan- get sunburned sitting near a radiator)

they'ra a funny little bunch, look like both of us to a greater or lesser degree :)

My husband is half Spanish, half Maltese, with dark skin, hair and eyes. I'm olive skinned with brown eyes. Our sons are carbon copies of their dad and I's colouring, but our daughter is blonde haired, blue eyed and pale skinned. She's the absolute image of my maternal grandmother, and my sister but she's still a surprise after our previously dark eyed, Mediterranean looking boys!

wow! what a hunk!
sometimes hair colour changes as they grow. So be on the watch out for it too. If not be happy that he is going to look gorgeous!

I honestly thought my DS would end up with red hair, was quite sad when he didn't. My DH has red hair which went brown fairly early on, except his beard/moustache area would be bright red if he didn't shave (until he went grey!).

My DSis has a natural red tinge to her hair, so the gene is somewhere in my family too.

But DS has ended up with the same blonde hair as me although much lighter skin. A little sad about that, red hair is gorgeous. Although he has more sun tolerance than DH which I guess is good - especially as family are all Aussies. My other DS has my olive skin and much darker hair, like my siblings do. So a bit of a mishmash going on there I guess.

DP and I are both English, of general European ancestry. Both pale as the driven snow with brown hair. Out pops DS1, and he's positively golden. One sniff of the sun and he turns brown as a nut! Then DS2 comes along, and yes, he's pale like us, but has a shock of blonde curly hair like a cherub.

People barely believe their brothers, let alone that they're both the product of DP and me (at least until they get chatting to them and discover that DS1 is DP and DS2 is me)

I think the gene needs to be on both sides.

My DP is bright ginger and I am praying for his red gene to be passed on to our kids. we both have a redheaded grandparent and my sister is auburn ... But, my mum is brunette/blue eyes and my dad is black hair/ brown eyes - I'm Blonde/grey and sister is Auburn/green.
Anything could happen!

Dh and I were both white blonde with ringlets. I expected dd to be the same. But she came out with a full head of straight dark brown hair and she now has a mass of light brown wavy/curly locks. Dh was a leftie but forced to write with his right hand. I’m a leftie too. Dd writes with her right hand.

Red hair, and blonde have recessive genes.

All your characteristics are made up of one from one parent and one from the other.

Two dark haired, dark-eyed parents can both have a recessive gene for blonde / red. If they both pass on the recessive, red or blonde gene, then the baby will be red haired or blonde. If only one of them passes on the recessive gene that paler colouring does not prevail.

However the child carries that gene, and if they get together with someone who is red-haired or blonde, they might pass it on.... or they might pass on their 'dark' gene.

It is GCSE biology.