Is the blue-eyed trait going the way of the dodo?

[Joker]

Almost all of the redheads I know have light eyes (blue, gray, or green). I think of my DS as being unusual for having red hair but brown eyes. I only know 1 other redhead with brown eyes (a girl I went to summer camp with). She was half-Irish, half-Italian.

 

DS gets the brown eyes from his German-American paternal grandma, and the red hair is from the Irish and Scottish sides. FIL and my dad are Irish and my mom is Scottish.

I thought red hair and brown eyes was common. My dd is both as are many other red heads we know.

[hmvaughan4]

We all have blue eyes too. DS, my brother, dad, and I are all blue eyed lefties. DS3 favors his left hand, but it's too early to tell.

[Mbelle]

Suprisingly we have 2 of 3 children with blue eyes.  Dh has hazel and I have brown as do both of my parents and one of his parents.  I have dark brown/black hair and none of our kids have this color. They are all medium brown like dh.

[PrairieSong]

All of our kids have blue or blue-green eyes like dh and me. One of my brothers has eyes that are different colors...one light brown and one very dark brown. We are all righties.

[mom31257]

These are dd's eyes. We've always been unsure if she's really blue or not. 

[UncleEJ]

Almost all of the redheads I know have light eyes (blue, gray, or green). I think of my DS as being unusual for having red hair but brown eyes. I only know 1 other redhead with brown eyes (a girl I went to summer camp with). She was half-Irish, half-Italian.

 

DS gets the brown eyes from his German-American paternal grandma, and the red hair is from the Irish and Scottish sides. FIL and my dad are Irish and my mom is Scottish.

I am a brown-eyed redhead!! So is my mom. I read something once that said brown-eyed redheads are pretty rare.

 

DH is a blue-eyed blonde and also a lefty. All three kids are brown-eyed blondes and no lefties.

[Mommyof4ks]

I have 2 sons with blue eyes (one is adopted, and his bio sibs might have blue eyes too), I might be the last of the lefties in my family though.

[Matryoshka]

Dh and I both have hazel eyes, but my dad and his mom are blue-eyed, and our twins both ended up blue-eyed (but different colors of blue - one is gray-blue, the other is kind of a cornflower-blue).  Younger dd has hazel eyes.  Dh and younger dd are lefties...

[chiguirre]

We are all brown eyed, brown haired righties! We will dominate the world!!!!

 

MHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[LLMom]

7 of the 9 in my family (myself, dh and 7 dc) have blue eyes, dark brown hair, and dark skin.  (very French)  We have one blue-eyed lefty.  People think he is Hispanic until they see his sky blue eyes.  

[hellen]

I have a blue-eyed lefty! All 3 have blue eyes (dh and I both have green).

We are identical. I have a blue eyed lefty and all three kids have blue eyes. My husband and I both have green. Neither of our parents have blue eyes.

[BlsdMama]

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/08/are-blue-eyes-endangered/

 

Cool video. Watched with DS13, tonight. 

Most important thing he got out of it? "So mom, 16% of the population is blue eyed, and we know 10$ of the population is left handed. Right? You're super special!!"

Yes, son. Yes, I am. 

 

:D

 

LOL!

 

Half my kiddos are blue eyed and half are green or green/blue. 

 

But, and here is a statistical oddity.... NONE (so far) are left handed.

My mother is left handed.

My mother in law is left handed.

I am left handed.

 

I suspect Baby Cate might be.   But I keep waiting for ONE.  My mom's family had FOUR out of twelve kids, eleven living past infancy.

 

[reign]

My girls are all blue eyed and blond haired thanks to my DH (and my mom.) He is still bummed they haven't turned out to be lefties. One of the girls bats left handed. He was silly excited about it. My dad is also a leftie and my brother bats left.

[flyingiguana]

The genetics of eye color is a lot more complicated than we were taught back in elementary school -- or even in college genetics classes.

 

More than anyone probably wants to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color

[liber]

Dh has blue eyes. Mine are a hazely-green. Of our six kids 4 have blue, one brown, one hazel. No lefties here either.

[gaillardia]

DH has brown eyes, brown hair. When he was a kid his hair was blonde. His dad: blue eyed, thick red hair. His mom: brown eyed, brown hair, actually olive complexion but not too obvious.

I have blue eyes.

I have brown hair, but was also very blonde as a child, my complexion was darker when I was younger. My parents were also blue eyed, brown hair.

All of my sibs are blue eyed, both brothers brown hair, one is left-handed. One sister brown hair, one is blonde, naturally and left-handed.

 

[Joyofsixreboot]

I'm a green eyed red head, dh is brown/ brown. Five of our kids are brown/ brown and the the last two are blond/ blue. We're still not sure how that is. Our #3 is a lefty.

[lynn]

My 2 oldest sons are blue eye and left handed.   Statistically we should not have blue eyed children or lefties.   Go figure  Dh is light brown hair/hazel eyes and I have dark brown hair/ brown eyes and we are both right handed.    My oldest is blond/blue and people questioned if he was my baby for quite some time.

 

[Mergath]

You and your dd are anything but boring. :D

 

Aw shucks.  :o

[wapiti]

My dh has dark brown eyes but his dad had light (not sure if they were blue) eyes.  I have blue.  My brother is a blue-eyed leftie.

 

Of our six kids, two have blue eyes and four have brown eyes.  Two of the brown eyed kids are lefties.  My blues are right-handed.

[lorilou]

My dad is a blue-eyed lefty! Mom is a blue-eyed righty as are my 2 siblings and myself.

 

I married a green-eyed righty. Our 3 kids are all blue-eyed and right-handed...one has beautiful red hair!

[MistyMountain]

Almost all of the redheads I know have light eyes (blue, gray, or green). I think of my DS as being unusual for having red hair but brown eyes. I only know 1 other redhead with brown eyes (a girl I went to summer camp with). She was half-Irish, half-Italian.

I have two redheads with dark brown eyes. They do have a lot of Italian and Irish heritage. I see that trait pretty often now that I have kids with it. Redhair isn't linked with eye color like blond hair is because the mutation occurs on a different gene but it occurred most often in places where light eyes are common. There is so much mixing now it isn't super rare.

[AimeeM]

Red hair is disappearing as well. Recessive traits are just highly vulnerable to it in migrating and amalgamating subject pools.

 

ETA - we have three blue eyed kids and one hazel. Who knows what the next one will be. But I come from a brown eyed family and have hazel eyes, myself. But both sides of my family carry the trait recessively.

I have one special husband and eldest child then! Lol. Red hair, blue/grey eyes!

 

In this house, only myself and my youngest have brown eyes; DS5 is sandy blonde with blue eyes, DD13 is red hair with blue/grey eyes, and DH is the red hair/blue eyed son of Italian immigrants (go figure, lol).

 

[YaelAldrich]

My oldest ds left eye is like the eye on the top right of this picture.

My oldest's eyes are like that, the next brother  is more greyish (some days) or greenish and brown shading/highlights.  the next one, a girl, is a rich brown and the last is hazel-green-amber.

 

 

I am Black and Korean (with some AM Ind) (med complexion, drk brown hair, brown eyes) and my husband is Jewish and German (drk brown hair, hazel/amber eyes pale skin).  The two older boys were blond, blue eyed and fair skinned until after 2yo.  People looked at us and then him really funnily...

 

ETA:  We are all righties, but for my daughter (#3) and she takes after my husband's mother in her left handedness and face but with my complexion!

[Dory]

My oldest's eyes are like that, the next brother  is more greyish (some days) or greenish and brown shading/highlights.  the next one, a girl, is a rich brown and the last is hazel-green-amber.

 

 

I am Black and Korean (with some AM Ind) (med complexion, drk brown hair, brown eyes) and my husband is Jewish and German (drk brown hair, hazel/amber eyes pale skin).  The two older boys were blond, blue eyed and fair skinned until after 2yo.  People looked at us and then him really funnily...

 

ETA:  We are all righties, but for my daughter (#3) and she takes after my husband's mother in her left handedness and face but with my complexion!

 

I'm Jewish and Welsh. My dh is German and Norwegian. My skin is super light and my dh is super light. My dd has darker skin on her stomach then either of us do on our arms. It's rather strange. She has a perpetual tan with super blonde hair and blue eyes.

[texasmama]

My brown-eyed self and my hazel-eyed dh have done our part to keep blue eyes going with our blue eyed ds.  Dh is a leftie, but we produced no lefties.

[vonfirmath]

Well... Interesting. I've always called my eyes hazel (and heard them referred to that way) because they vary from blue to green depending on the light they are viewed in. But this webpage has hazel as a definite brown/amber color so I've got to reconsider what color my eyes actually are!

 

[freesia]

We are busy keeping the recessive traits alive here.

 

4 of us are red-headed blue eyed. One of those is left handed.

 

2 are green eyed blondes.

[Laura Corin]

That blue-eyed trait can hang around for generations before being expressed.  Husband has blue eyes, but I have brown, as do both my brothers, both my parents and as did three of my grandparents.  So the blue eyes were hanging around in my family waiting to be expressed in Calvin, who has my dark brown hair and pale skin, but blue eyes; Hobbes meanwhile has Husband's slightly reddish brown hair and golden skin but my brown eyes.  

 

Hobbes is also left handed, which I don't think has occurred in either family in living memory.   He's not strongly left - he does a lot of gross motor stuff with his right hand.

 

L

[Lisbeth]

We all have blue or green eyes here. Including our dog, witb ice blue eyes.

[Grover]

I have dark hair and brown eyes.  DH has blue eyes.  Both of my children have blue eyes.  I am ambidextrous (completely) - I have one righty and one lefty. 

[Lisbeth]

Speaking of rare, is anyone else here cross-dominant? 3 of my kids are (left eye dominant, but right hand dominant.) I also have at least one kid who is left dominant for kicking (soccer) but right-handed. She also is one of ours with left eye dominance. The soccer coach was sad when she decided she didn't like soccer. He was looking forward to a lefty kicker.

[Grover]

I can switch hit and switch kick... coaches love me until they realise how rubbish my vision is! 

[Rosie_0801]

Same with left handedness. That's about 10% of the global population. And that percentage has never been much higher or much lower. A total mystery so far. I've only heard of two theories on why left-handedness remains so rare. 

 

I heard the other day that left handedness might be attributable to mirror twins.

 

Both my kids have blue eyes. Their father's were dark blue and mine are khaki.

[Lolly]

Speaking of rare, is anyone else here cross-dominant? 3 of my kids are (left eye dominant, but right hand dominant.) I also have at least one kid who is left dominant for kicking (soccer) but right-handed. She also is one of ours with left eye dominance. The soccer coach was sad when she decided she didn't like soccer. He was looking forward to a lefty kicker.

 

Lots of that in my family. But, we are pretty much just ambidextrous. For example, I am right handed, but left footed and left eyed. But, I can write with my left hand quite well. If I practiced it as much as I have my right, I would most likely be just as good with it. I tend to prefer my left foot (ex gymnast and in kicking), but when I practice with my right, I can do it just as well. I write with my right, but bat lefty. Of course, I can switch over fairly easily. It is just a matter of which way I have practiced it more than anything else. There must have been a slight preference for this or that way in the beginning though?

 

Ds has been taking some welding classes. His instructor is overjoyed to find that he is just as good with welding left as right. I'm not surprised because all of my kids are able to switch fairly easily at anything. (One less than the others!) It is normal for us. (My whole family growing up was the same.)

[Guest]

My youngest is a blue-eyed lefty. I did not imagine any of my kids would have true blue eyes. Dh has a light hazel and is a lefty. His father had blue eyes. I have brown eyes with a little green, Rh, my mother has blue eyes; dad and one sib are lefty. So I guess little man got blue recessives from both of us and I guess I carry lefty as recessive, too.

 

Genetics fascinate me!

[craftyerin]

awww, I was so hoping one of my children would get DH's beautiful blue eyes.  I am brown eyed, with two brown eyed parents, but I also have 2 blue eyed grandfathers, so I was hoping I had a recessive gene in there somewhere.  No such luck, it appears.  Three brown eyed kids. 

[Lanny]

Years ago, I read, or saw on TV, that everyone with Blue eyes is related to a few people. This goes way back... Blue eyes apparently are a birth defect that was transmitted through many many generations. I have Blue eyes. People with Blue eyes are very distant cousins.

[Caroline]

I have a blue-eyed, blonde, lefty. I also have a blue-eyes blonde righty, a green-eyed blonde righty, and a brown-eyed, brunette, righty. DH has dark hair and green eyes. His father was from India, but you wouldn't know that by looking at DH or our kids. I am a brown-eyed red head. We are both right handed. I had a grandparent on each side with blue eyes, but my sisters and I, and our parents all have dark brown eyes, and with the exception of me, all have dark hair. However, half my parents' grand kids are blue-eyed, and more than half are blonde.

 

Someone once posted on this board that brown-eyed redheaded women were all dumb as posts due to a genetic mutation. I keep that in the back of my head for when I have a bad day. Just think how much smarter I would be if I only had blue eyes! Then maybe I could parallel park better. Or remember to send all of those birthday cards I buy.

[Wheres Toto]

Very interesting.

 

Dh has blue eyes and previously blond hair (he's now white)

I have hazel eyes and brown hair (was lighter and much redder when I was young)

 

Oldest dd (different dad) has red hair and brown eyes (lots of red hair in my family and her dad is a carrot top)

Ds has blonde hair and blue eyes, just like his dad

Youngest dd has blonde hair and hazel eyes.

 

All of us are right handed.

[Anne in CA]

Almost everyone in my family has been born a blue eyed blond, but grown into a blue eyed brunette. My sister has two children who appear they will remain blonds, one 11 and one 14 who are still blond, although they have brown eyes. All three of my kids have blue eyes and brown hair, although the  oldest, my step, colors her hair brown, it is really sandy blonde. 

[cjzimmer1]

awww, I was so hoping one of my children would get DH's beautiful blue eyes.  I am brown eyed, with two brown eyed parents, but I also have 2 blue eyed grandfathers, so I was hoping I had a recessive gene in there somewhere.  No such luck, it appears.  Three brown eyed kids. 

 

I'm just the opposite, I have brown eyes and keep hoping for a brown eyed child.  After 6 kids, I STILL don't have a brown eyed kid.  It's become a bit of a family joke.  I have 3 blue-eyed kids and 3 hazel eyed (Although they have more blue than brown so a quick glance would make you guess blue)

 

[NoseInABook]

Interesting. We have three pairs of blue eyes in the house, two green, and one brown.

[VeritasMama]

I have dark brown eyes, almost black looking. My DH has hazel. Four dc have brown eyes, three have hazel. One of my my ds with hazel eyes is a lefty, one of my ds with brown eyes is ambidextrous. My husband and I are both righties, but his grandmothers were both lefties (and blue eyed).

[Dory]

Speaking of rare, is anyone else here cross-dominant? 3 of my kids are (left eye dominant, but right hand dominant.) I also have at least one kid who is left dominant for kicking (soccer) but right-handed. She also is one of ours with left eye dominance. The soccer coach was sad when she decided she didn't like soccer. He was looking forward to a lefty kicker.

 

I'm ambidextrous. I play hockey left handed. Soccer either way doesn't matter. Archery is left handed as well for me although I can pick up a right handed bow and do just as well. I write right handed, but I can get by writing left handed. Any tests that I've done says that I'm balanced between left and right brain.

[vonfirmath]

Two blue eyed kids. One a lefty. One (probably) a righty. My husband's a lefty and I'm a righty.

[Lady Florida.]

I'm a green eyed lefty. Does that make me special?  :D

I'm a green-eyed lefty too.I had auburn hair as a child, which turned to mousy brown as I got older. I used to try to get that color back, but not even professionals could give me that gorgeous natural color that was wasted on the child version of me. ;)

 

Dh and ds are blue-eyed righties. Dss is a blue-eyed lefty. Dh's family has a high number of blue-eyed children. It doesn't matter who the spouse is, those (hisfamilyname) blue eyes are legendary. They must all have been marrying people with the blue-eyed gene. The only exceptions are in the most recent generations. One niece married a man from Costa Rica and a nephew married a woman from Japan. Both have brown-eyed children.

 

[Wheres Toto]

Someone once posted on this board that brown-eyed redheaded women were all dumb as posts due to a genetic mutation. I keep that in the back of my head for when I have a bad day. Just think how much smarter I would be if I only had blue eyes! Then maybe I could parallel park better. Or remember to send all of those birthday cards I buy.

 

Wow, somehow I missed this my first time at this thread.  I think my brown eyed, red haired, junior in college, making the Dean's List every semester daughter would object to this.

;)

[hornblower]

I'm married to a ginger & we're all blue eyed but I don't carry the gene for red hair so our kids are muddy blondes.
I used to be left handed. It wasn't allowed when I was growing up & I was told to write with my right hand (but I was allowed to draw with my left; that was pointless as I can't draw with either hand LOL). I'm sort of ambidextrous as a result.

[blondeviolin]

All of my kids are blue-eyed. That's their only option. They're also all variations on blonde.

 

What I find interesting is that my maternal grandmother was left-handed. She had six kids and four of them were left-handed, including my mom. My mom had six kids and 30 grand kids (and counting) and so far, nobody is a lefty!