My baby looks nothing like me...

[Grapef]

I always used to joke about this with my friends. My DH has a daughter already who is a spitting image of him and looks nothing like her mum. It was always the running joke that our son would be the same...

Turns out this is the case and my son looks nothing like me. I'm mixed race with quite dark skin and DS is pale as can be with blue eyes like DH.

AIBU to think he's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, but to also be a bit sad that I look like the babysitter?

@grapef
@rubaduhlo
I’m mixed race but people always think I’m white (which I always find irrationally irritating as I don’t see myself as white!). When I was a child people always assumed I was adopted when they saw me and my mum together, or that she was a nanny. I now have an adopted DS who has a similar ethnicity to me, but who doesn’t look white. I’ve been asked several times if I’m looking after him or if he’s adopted. It does happen.

My 11yo is my mirror image. DH keeps getting us mixed up (hat and scarf on, you genuinely can't see a difference at a glance, same height, build, features). DS is a mini DH. It's like we replicated.

My kids are mixed race too. There are tiny echoes of me in them, but you wouldn't think I was their mum when they're next to me.

Aw, bless you. Your son sounds absolutely gorgeous!

Mine looked like me when he was a baby and little person but after a few years, turned into his dad! No sign of me at all.

I don't care though.

And also why would you look like the babysitter? There are plenty of mixed raced children where mum is white and dad is (for example) African.

From experience of myself (dark skinned with pale child) and friends (white with dark children):

"are you the nanny" - mum is Afro-Caribbean or Asian
"is your little one adopted" - mum is white

It's due to preconceived notions about different roles in society sad to say. But very consistent across the board in my friend and family group.

I have one who looks exactly like me - olive skinned, very dark hair and eyes, all my facial features - and one who looks exactly like her father - fair, same features etc. How that happens I don't know!

They don't look remotely related and, despite them being 18m apart, I have been asked more than once if they have the same dad

My DC are mixed race but very fair. I'm white British and my FP is black British - family from Guyana. So many times people don't realise their dad is their dad! Annoys me so much. Ds has curly hair people only realise he's mixed when his hair is braided! To me he doesn look white he's just very light skinned! My dd had fairly straight hair so its even worse the looks we get.
It prob doesn't help that we live in a predominantly white area though.

They change so much you might find he does look more like you soon. My son was a clone of my husband when he was born and the comments about it did upset me a bit, especially from his family. It’s like everyone thought he was a replica of my husband with little to do with me. He’s 18 months now and actually looks a lot more like me than he does his dad now. Just had ds2 and I can’t tell yet!

I've worded that oddly! They have the same dad, who is my husband and has been for a decade, so strange question to ask really

My son looks nothing like his father, who is Asian. He is slightly darker than me but that's it! He looks just like me (poor sod). My family all say he is the spitting image of me and nothing like his Dad. The way they go on about it will make him wonder whether he is the real father lol (he definitely is )

When my DS was born he was the absolute spitting image of his dad. Now, at aged 4, he is my clone.
Babies are supposed to look like their dad when they're born. Its evolution - so the dads can recognise them, bond with them and not reject them.

I've had the "are they yours? What, all of them? REALLY?". No, I'm lying and have kidnapped these small children to keep for my very self.

Oh I absolutely agree that babies do look like their dad when they're first born! My DS was the image of his dad when he was born but now he looks nothing like him.

I now know exactly what I would have looked like I had been a little boy. DS1 has DH's eye colour but my features, but as he's getting older I think DH's face shape is coming through. DS1 is mentally very similar to DH. DS2 looks like my clone.

My family has a strong look. I used to be taken for my second cousin's twin! (Despite a 5 year age gap)

ds1 looks nothing like his father or I - he has green eyes (we're all blue) and olive skin (we're all porcelain) and a roman nose (ours are all unremarkable) - a genetic throwback?

Their eyes can change colour. Ours were both born with blue eyes and after just over a year they turned hazel. All babies look the like Winston Churchill anyway !

Both boys spitting image of their dads and one aunt strangely enough. Not a whiff of me anywhere....... except their intelligence

That's curious how he has taken his Dad's lighter genes. My DH is dark, think Aztec looking 6ft 2, brown skinned black eyes black hair, I'm medium height blonde green eyes... Both DDs are the spitting image of him! I did wonder if it would bother me that I look like the odd one out, but it honestly doesn't it just becomes the norm :D

Wait and see. Ds1 was so like me when he was a baby/toddler that I felt like apologising to dh as there seemed to be so little of him in there. Joke's on me, as it turns out personality wise he's a photo copy of his dad - and now he's a teen he's starting to resemble him more too.

My daughter is the spitting image of her dad and I thought there was none of me in the mix. Now she's developed her own personality she has loads of my traits despite still looking like her dad

*Turns out this is the case and my son looks nothing like me. I'm mixed race with quite dark skin and DS is pale as can be with blue eyes like DH.

AIBU to think he's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen, but to also be a bit sad that I look like the babysitter?*

I could have written this, 12 years ago. In fact a very similar statement is probably is on mumsnet somewhere. I'm mixed race as well. DS1 came out with ginger hair. Then it went blonde and curly, and he had bright blue eyes. The opposite of me in fact.

He still doesn't look like me, his eyes went sort of greeny. His hair is a beautiful mix of colours (but looks mid brown from a distance) Facially you couldn't tell he's mine. He doesn't look much like DH either though. He's small man-sized now, which I am finding quite disconcerting, for an 11 year old.

(His brother looks more like me, facially, but also came out with gold hair which went white blonde, and blue eyes. He is now 9, with greeny eyes and dark blonde hair)

My 3 don’t look like me or my dh!

I have an Iranian father and British mother. I have reddish brown hair, pale skin and greeny brown eyes. Dh is Scottish through and through and is blonde, pale skinned with brown eyes. All 3 dc take after my father and are darker skinned with almost black hair and brown eyes. We get the ‘are they yours? Are you sure? Did you adopt?’ Quite frequently.

DH and all 3 of his siblings look like MIL. Poor FIL just didn't get a look in.

They can change a lot as they get older ime. My first born looked nothing like me, all her childhood she liked like her dad and mil. As an adult she still doesn't have my features, but yet she is very like me, same height and build, same facial expressions, similar voice and mannerisms. She has even been mistaken for me by friends and neighbors when out and about, much to her annoyance!

*looked like