to be worried my baby won’t look like me?

[Tamiah]

I’m mixed race, half black, half white. Green eyes and very dark Afro hair. My partner is Caucasian, very blonde, very pale, very light skin. I have no doubt our baby will be beautiful and am extremely anxious to know that they will be born healthy.

I have a nagging feeling in the back of my head that baby is going to look like Dad. He is gorgeous, so I would never be sad about that, however I grew up not looking like my mum (or my dad), people asking if I was hers, she was even asked if I was adopted (and has been asked this quite recently and I’m in my mid 20s!). I felt really out of place and like I didn't quite belong in my siblings who all looked like my parents. It was hard as a kid and people always assumed I was a relative, but not my parent's child.

AIBU to hope my baby looks a bit like me? Skin tone, hair colour, eye colour I couldn’t care less about, I just hope SOMETHING looks like me.

Very trivial thing to think about and I’m sure when baby is here it won’t matter. Just wondering if anyone had similar thoughts...

Haha. I adore my husband’s jet black hair and full, dark eyebrows and secretly wanted our son to have those features too. He came out looking like my dad with his wispy, brown Scandinavian hair. He definitely looks like he’s mine and sometimes I worry that it bothers my husband that he looks less like him, but there’s no changing genes!

But no, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. I think it’s natural to want your child to look like you, especially as you didn’t look like your parents. Whilst it’s uncertain who they will look like, I’m sure the child will have similar expressions and gestures as you and you will see yourself in them.

I felt the same as you. I’m white, blonde, blue eyes and my husband is North African, dark skin, brown eyes. Knew that baby would look like dad. She does, dark brown eyes and dark hair, olive skin. She is only 7 months. I could see my face in her when she was born but I can’t now although other people say she does have my face but mostly they say she looks like my DH due to skin colour, hair and eye colour. I don’t worry about it now. I adore her for her and don’t care what others think, I know I’m mum.

I understand how you feel; MIL is white and FIL is Indian, and MIL got some of those comments your mum did.

At the moment, DD (9) has more of my colouring, dark blonde/light brown hair, hazel eyes, white skin, but has her dad’s facial features and build, so she clearly looks like both of us.

Nature is what it is...... Lords hands. All children are a blessing and all are beautiful in the eye of the beholder. We all worry but you will see he/she will blow your mind away. Good luck and have fun :-)

Just to reassure you, I (pale, blonde, white) had a baby with DH who is Latin American, and I was convinced baby would come out dark and brown and olivey, and all my blue-eyed, blonde-haired genes would be overridden. Not that I minded! I just pictured a Latin baby in my head.

DS is currently 7.5mo and is a mini me. Honestly, he looks nothing like DH at all! Shock of blond hair, blue eyes.... I’m sure DH’s facial features will start to come through, but currently they literally look unrelated.

So sometimes the mother’s genes do win out! At least to begin with :) Good luck! Wishing you all the best.

I'm very dark, olive skin, Brown hair and brown eyes. DH is dark blond with Hazel eyes. When I had ds1, if I had not been awake for his birth, I would never have believed he was mine! He came out blond with blue eyes and the living image of his father. I was so disappointed. There was none of me in his looks at all.
Ds2 was born and the minute i held him, all I could see was me. Dark hair, olive skin, beautiful big brown eyes. Spitting image of me Nothing of DH at all.
But funnily enough, ds1 has my temperament and ds2 is like DH in temperament. So they each got a tiny bit of the parent that is their complete opposite.
Incidentally I am one of six children and I'm the only one that isn't the image of either my mum or dad. I look like my grandmother. Strange

Darker colouring is dominant in genes. Baby will most likely look more like you.

Family characteristics can be so random - I reconnected recently with a family member who I hadn’t seen in about 20 years ( living abroad) He looked so, so much like his father at the same age, not at all taking after his mother I thought - but then there was a look, a gesture and he reminded me very strongly of his maternal grandmother.

Features like hair, skin or eye colour, face shape would seem the obvious contenders in determining resemblance but sometimes it’s the little things, the expressions, the angle of a bone that can make the difference.

My friend who has olive skin and brown eyes married a Turkish man and their baby girl has the brightest orange hair and pale skin you ever did see! Genetics are weird. You sound beautiful, but I understand your concerns

Op - when baby born you won’t care.

I’m old - if you were to look at me and I tell you my background it wouldn’t compute at all. Bowie looking father and dark skinned Asian mother. I look like neither but when together you could just about get it.

My df has another much younger daughter. If we out together people would look and try to figure out the dynamic - dhalf sis even paler than df.

My ds has a father from yet another culture. Ds white presenting.

I look light skinned Arab and ds looks south euro and south East Asian .

Honestly, when baby born you will have other things to think about.

Does not matter.

Ds is considered to look more like his dad (eye shape aside) than me because he had a more med skin tone whereas mine is sallow with big features.

You both sound absolutely gorgeous!

Don't worry, your baby will inherit the very best bits of each of his or her parents.

My sister and I were asked if we were from the same mum, different dad when we were in our 30's. Both my parents are white English/ Irish descent but my sister is very Italian/ Spanish skin and eye coloured. I'm so pale I glow in the dark!

I was always wondering about this, as in mixed race children, My late ex husband remarried many years ago, he married a West Indian lady from Jamaica. They subsequently had a son together, who is now 26. I know him well, and also late ex husbands wife,, But their son does not show any resemblance to my late ex at all, he looks like his mother 100 %

I feel you on this! DH and I are trying for our first baby and it does nag at the back of my mind that the baby won't look like me (I'm white and DH is Chinese). I'd hate for someone to comment or ask whether my baby was adopted etc. if I was out with them alone.

As far as problems go I don't think it's too awful so it doesn't occupy a lot of headspace and I assume it'll be forgotten when we see our baby.

Was there anything your parents could have done or said to make you feel better about not looking like them?

YANBU, I am mixed as well and my mum was never assumed to be my mother growing up. It personally never bothered me but I also looked after the children of a lady who was darker in skin tone than me but had had three kids with her blond hair green eyes husband and her three kids turned out very white with mostly European features, her only boy actually turned out pasty white with blond hair and green eyes.
Her children definitely don't look like her and I know it irks her because she is constantly assumed to be the nanny, never the mom.

I actually genuinely wonder how children who have black or mixed parents but are white actually feel about this as I genuinely think it has to be a very different experience to being mixed with a white parent.

Personally I think I would rather my baby was on the lighter skin side so they didn't have to deal with a lot of the struggles that come with being mixed race but I can totally see why you would rather he looks like you.

Irrelevant of how he looks though, you are always going to be his mother and while the connection between you two might boggle some minds and raise a few questions or uneducated comments at the beginning, don't let it get to you. People are very much uneducated when it comes to this type of things and it says more about them than it does you.