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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think a mother shouldn't say this

124 replies

ShootingstarsHope · 16/08/2019 13:29

I might be BU but I can't shake my head around how a mother can say this.

I befriended a mother in the school playground a couple of years ago - our DDs are friends - and she had her last baby 8 months ago, a boy. She has 6 children in total now four boys, two girls. Oldest is around 14 I believe. She's Caucasian with blue eyes and is married to a man of Hispanic descent and all of her children have beautiful brown eyes except her youngest who has her blue eyes. I recently met up with her and another friend for some coffee and other friend commented on her baby's blue eyes, saying he's mummy's mini.

She responded with "They are definitely mine, 6 children and all I asked is for one of them to have blue eyes. None of them until my DS" and she similarly said a couple of months ago "I waited 14 years to get my blue-eyed baby"

I probably know I am BU but I've had 2 miscarriages in the past and my DD is my only child although I would have loved more. Surely, the only thing you ask is for your baby to be healthy? Not on what you hope they'll have appearance-wise?

I'm friends with her on FB as well, and all of her photos are of baby and one or two with her youngest DD and her baby brother.

OP posts:

CoffeenWalnut · 16/08/2019 14:11

My blonde blue-eyed friend who already had two brown-eyed daughters was pregnant again at the same time I was expecting my second. My elder child has my greenish eyes...
She said she was hoping for a blue-eyed baby.
Her third also had his Dad's brown eyes, whereas my baby has my DH's blue eyes. She said it wasn't fair.
The scientists in my family explained to me that I should tell her that if her husband doesn't have the blue "gene" in his DNA then she can have 30 kids with him but will never have one with blue eyes.
So if I were the partner of the OP's friend I would be wondering if the sixth kid were actually mine!

SoyDora · 16/08/2019 14:11

Definitely overthinking. I have brown eyes, all three DC have blue eyes. I’ve said in the past ‘I hoped at least one of them would have my eyes!’ It’s just jokey chit chat. If one of them had inherited my brown eyes I certainly wouldn’t prefer them because of it!

whattodowith · 16/08/2019 14:11

You’re overthinking it.

Summerunderway · 16/08/2019 14:15

I had 8 before I got a brown eyed one! It was a strange thing tbh, seeing a dc of mine (blue eyes) with brown eyes! Obviously with a brown eyed df it was logical but seeing her was odd for a while!!
Maybe she just wanted to see a mini her for a change!! No malice imo.

Sparklfairy · 16/08/2019 14:19

If one parent has blue eyes and the other has brown, the brown eyed gene is dominant and any children will most likely have brown eyes.

About the only thing I found fascinating in science class at school was this subject We each have two 'alleles' determining eye colour, one from each parent. Brown is dominant, blue is recessive. So brown will always win and children will have brown eyes.

If however, one parent (the father in this case) has one brown eyed and one blue eyed allele, his eyes will be brown but he'll still be a 'carrier' of the blue eyed gene. This can pass through many generations of brown eyed people. So with the last child, he's passed on the blue allele alongside the mum's blue one. Hey presto, blue eyed child.

GCSE biology from nearly 20 years ago... there's something like a 25% chance of this happening. Maybe if you give her my boring nerd rant she'll shut up about it

Funguy · 16/08/2019 14:21

She sounds a vain and superficial idiot is all.

SoyDora · 16/08/2019 14:21

If one parent has blue eyes and the other has brown, the brown eyed gene is dominant and any children will most likely have brown eyes

I have dark brown eyes, DH blue. All three of our children have bright blue eyes which surprised me! I must be a carrier of the blue gene.

Original poster

ShootingstarsHope · 16/08/2019 14:23

I've accepted I'm BU but just to clarify, she didn't say it in a jokey way both times. She sounded completely enamoured and serious.

I think though it's pretty obvious I didn't mean anything deep with the "as long as it's healthy" comment - sorry to those I may have offended. Some parents' (including myself) only wish is for their child to be healthy so they don't suffer in the world more so than they would if they were healthy, but that doesn't mean we would love them any less if they weren't healthy. Although, I do believe there is a difference between that and your preferred eye colour for your child.

Just as I didn't mean anything deep with that, I'm sure she didn't either. I know I was BU.

And as a couple of you seem to believe my losses have no relevance to it when I became pregnant with my DD I wasn't thinking about what I want her hair/eye colour to be, I was just hoping with all my might I could meet her and hold her. I love her as much as my two others that didn't make it to see the world.

OP posts:

kidsdoingmyheadin · 16/08/2019 14:24

I think you’re overthinking. Eldest DC was/is the spit of DH except his blue eyes which changed into my blue/green eye colour. It’s not better that his eyes are blue but it’s nice that he has the exact same shade as me particularly when nothing else resembles me.

corythatwas · 16/08/2019 14:25

The scientists in my family explained to me that I should tell her that if her husband doesn't have the blue "gene" in his DNA then she can have 30 kids with him but will never have one with blue eyes.
So if I were the partner of the OP's friend I would be wondering if the sixth kid were actually mine!

You do realise that human beings have more than one gene for eye colour & that the fact that the OP's friend's dh has had brown-eyed children in the past doesn't mean he can't have a blue eye gene, which hasn't been passed on to the others. "Recessive gene" doesn't mean "can never be passed on"; it simple means "will only show up if combined with another gene of the same kind from the other parent.

I (blue-eyed) and dh (brown-eyed) have one child with each eye colour. As blue eyes is a recessive gene, I deduce that both my eye genes (inherited from each of my parents) are blue and that dh must have blue eyed gene inherited from one of his parents, as well as the brown eyed one that has given him his brown eyes. I have definitely not been unfaithful. Chances of us having a blue-eyed child under the circs were 25%, so not actually terribly low.

P.S. Eye colour is actually a bit more complicated than this, with genes conferring hazel eyes etc.

Sparklfairy · 16/08/2019 14:37

@Musicalstatues both my parents are left handed and I'm the only one out of three kids who is too, really strange!

@SoyDora I love this

timshelthechoice · 16/08/2019 14:40

I have blue eyes and blonde hair and am married to a man of Latin American descent with brown eyes. Got two with chestnut brown hair, very white skin - one with green eyes and one hazel. One with quite olive skin and brown eyes but her hair is dirty blonde (goes totally blonde with lots of sun).

I'd see this as just idle chat.

The human genome is an amazing thing.

MargoLovebutter · 16/08/2019 14:41

That's just a jokey throw away comment, she isn't saying she doesn't want the brown eyed children!

I expect she's had too many people go "six children, really six children - are you catholic, were you trying to for a football team, six children, OMG really?" etc etc etc, so she's developed a little throw away line to head all that shit off.

picklemepopcorn · 16/08/2019 14:41

I have two gorgeous sons, now young adults. In many ways they are clones of their dad and I sometimes joke about why I bothered. Two children I fostered were far more like me than my own!
It is a joke- more so than people saying they will keep trying until they get a girl/boy.

herculepoirot2 · 16/08/2019 14:44

I’m sure if she was called upon to give her life for one of her brown-eyed children she would do it like the rest of us. Don’t overthink it.

FattyPeddledFuriously999 · 16/08/2019 14:45

You've taken it personally but it wasn't intended that way, I always wanted a mixed race child with blue or green eyes or reddish or blonde hair - Never got one! and that's fine!

AntiStuff · 16/08/2019 14:48

YABU and overthinking.

I've lost several babies, and my one and only looks exactly like me. Which is ok, but I still wish that she'd inherited her Asian father's hair and colouring. She's doesn't look like anything like the baby I expected to have, but I'm still exceptionally grateful I have her.

DarlingNikita · 16/08/2019 14:52

I don’t think you are being unreasonable. She’s reinforcing stereotypes that magazines try make us buy into about beauty.

I tend to agree with this. That might make me po-faced but I don't really care. FWIW I don't have kids and don't want them/no issues re miscarriage or infertility etc, so I've no skin in the game, as it were.

Treguna, what's that experiment?

Contraceptionismyfriend · 16/08/2019 14:53

Everyone likes to see aspects of them in their children.

Also I have very very dark brown eyes. DHs are very light and bright blue.
Out of three children one has blue, one has brown and the third is undecided.

My son is perfect. But I was very happy when my daughters blue eyes turned brown.

Doesn't mean I am any less grateful for all of my children.

Sparklfairy · 16/08/2019 14:53

DarlingNikita is there a reason you can't google it yourself?

DarlingNikita · 16/08/2019 15:02

I beg your pardon, Sparklfairy?

ArtieFufkinPolymerRecords · 16/08/2019 15:08

I don’t think you are being unreasonable. She’s reinforcing stereotypes that magazines try make us buy into about beauty.

She wasn't saying she wanted a blue-eyed child because they are more beautiful though, but because it would take after her. I had two blue-eyed blonde babies and have joked about how you'd think one of them could have looked more like me (dark hair and green eyes).

SarahAndQuack · 16/08/2019 15:09

I wonder if perhaps she's responding to more complex dynamics than you're aware of?

When my DD was born, DP and I had been hoping she would have ginger hair, as DP is ginger. She didn't - she had dark hair like mine, which has now lightened (and nowadays she's the spit of my DP). Early on, when people would say to me 'ooh, she looks so like you, she has your hair' I fell into a habit of replying 'oh, we'd hoped she'd turn out to be ginger like her bio mum.'

It wasn't because I didn't like her hair, or love her regardless of her hair colour, but I was keen my DP didn't feel pushed out by people's comments.

In the same way, this woman might be rather defensively saying how much she likes blue eyes because she knows some (silly) people will leap to conclusions about her child's parentage, given all her other children have brown eyes.

purplehamster · 16/08/2019 15:19

Well my DH wishes DS has green eyes like him, but he has blue eyes like me. His blue eyes are the only thing about DS that look like me. DH looks like a mini DH. So maybe that's what the mum was getting at, she wanted to see something of herself in her children, not she's ungrateful for her other children. She probably isn't immediately picked out as her DCs mother. Some of my friends children are like clones of their mothers.

Sparklfairy · 16/08/2019 15:20

@DarlingNikita go to google.com. type 'jane Elliott experiment'. First result is a video. Second result is a Wikipedia article.

How is it more effort to Google something than post an inane question and then wait for a reply which someone else has to write out.

Goo

Gle

Hth

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