Eye Color in (White) Babies (ventish JAWM)

[Guest]

I always wondered how can we know what others see?

 

People say my boys are so much alike...and I know them so well, I don't agree. But I don't argue with people who say that. Because maybe they only see their coloring or they see a resemblance in certain features. I don't know what they're seeing.

My very philosophical 10yo said something like this at dinnertime recently. He was saying something like, "We both say this is an orange napkin, but you might see a different thing that you call orange than what I see and call orange." Yes, you have a point.

[wathe]

...

Edited November 30, 2015 by wathe

[Jean in Newcastle]

I knew a Japanese woman, married to a British man, who had a blond haired, blue eyed little girl.  (Then the dad died and the little girl was raised in Japan in a totally Japanese environment.  Very difficult socially.)

[Guest]

So does anyone know how that happens? I always heard brown eyes were dominant, but my brown eyed sister (mom german blue eyed, dad Cherokee brown eyed) had a blue eyed, blond haired daughter. Obviously sister had a blue gene from mom, but why is the brown gene not dominant?

I thought the way it worked was if both parents have a recessive gene for blue, even if they do not themselves have blue eyes. The baby gets zero dominant brown eye genes and so the recessive color turns up. But I am also sure that is a very over simplified understanding of how it happens.

[athomeontheprairie]

I'm right there with you. I am fair skinned, platinum blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. My dh has bright green eyes.

my mom insists that both my daughters have brown eyes. Really? Afaik, that's genetically impossible.

[goldberry]

I thought the way it worked was if both parents have a recessive gene for blue, even if they do not themselves have blue eyes. The baby gets zero dominant brown eye genes and so the recessive color turns up. But I am also sure that is a very over simplified understanding of how it happens.

 

But doesn't "dominant" imply that that will be the gene that is passed down?  Or is that wrong?  Is it still just an equal chance of what gets passed down, dominant or recessive?

[DesertBlossom]

Hey, I'm just repeating what I learned in high school biology. ;-)

 

I have a bunch of 1/4 hispanic nieces and nephews. It was thought that because BIL is half hispanic he might have some blue recessive genes to pass on. But all the kids are brown eyed!

[JoJosMom]

A bit off-topic, but genetics are really, really cool.  And complex.  A couple of links, here and here and here.

 

ETA:  I'm sorry that your mom is being a challenge, Quill.

Edited November 29, 2015 by JoJosMom

[JFSinIL]

Reminds me way back when I was a college gal working at a photo store one mom in particular (Hispanic) kept insisting my boss, the store owner (and operator of the print making machine, as we did our own processing in-house) redo photos of her infant daughter over and over as each time he showed her her prints, the infant's eyes were brown. Mom insisted they were blue!!! Drove my boss crazy.

Edited November 29, 2015 by JFSinIL

[Annie G]

Am I understanding this: You didn't know your own eye color?

 

FWIW, I walked to the motor vehicle place to take my learner's permit test.

 

I think at the time I was nervous about filling out that paperwork and taking the test all by myself.  My eyes seem to be a mottled mixture of grayish bluish greenish.   But definitely not blue like my blonde friends. 

 

I'm sure it's weird not to know my own eye color at age 15, but weird pretty much sums up what kind of teenager I was. 

[Matryoshka]

 but I think of Mexican as a nationality, not a race. Some Mexicans are white, some aren't. 

 

True.  I have a friend who is Mexican, born and raised.  She has bright red hair, pasty white skin and lots of freckles.  She looks 100% Irish.  Her ethnicity (where her ancestors emigrated to the New World from), is Spanish and Hungarian.

[maize]

But doesn't "dominant" imply that that will be the gene that is passed down? Or is that wrong? Is it still just an equal chance of what gets passed down, dominant or recessive?

Recessive genes have an equal chance of being passed on, but the trait they code for only shows up if the child gets a recessive gene from each parent. A child who gets one recessive and one dominant will display the dominant trait, but if they themselves have a child with someone who also carries the recessive gene and their child gets a recessive copy from each parent that child will display the recessive trait.

Edited November 29, 2015 by maize

[catz]

LOL - this is actually something that bugs me too.  My ex-SIL when both her kids were born was absolutely obsessed with them ending up with blue eyes.  All eye colors are beautiful.  Who cares?  My son had blue eyes for 2 years before they turned hazel.  He was also very blonde when he was little (as was I).  Now my hair is super dark brown.   DS and DD both have medium brown that lightens up in the summer.  DD bleached her ends.  Again,who cares.  I know exactly what the OP means.  Some people seem very preoccupied with this kind of thing.

Edited November 29, 2015 by WoolySocks

[maize]

Genetics really are fascinating and most traits are not single gene binary (dominant/recessive).

[Butter]

Hey, I'm just repeating what I learned in high school biology. ;-)

 

High school biology and Punnet squares do a disservice to the incredible web we call genetics.

 

Is the MIL blond with blue eyes?  Does she want her granddaughter to "match" her?  Or is she just really weird about eye color.

 

FWIW, Mexicans come in a colors.  I'm blue-eyed and had blond hair as a kid and there are many genetic Latinos who are paler than I am and there are some similar to my coloring and there are some much darker.  It's just like white people and black people.  No matter your base race/ethnicity, we come in lots of shades.  My son had twin friends who are half Latina and they are blond with blue eyes.  Their mother is white and is actually darker in skin tone from the girls.  Their father is 100% Mexican (with European heritage back many, many years).

[athomeontheprairie]

High school biology and Punnet squares do a disservice to the incredible web we call genetics.

 

can you expound on this some?

[SparklyUnicorn]

I always wondered how can we know what others see?

 

People say my boys are so much alike...and I know them so well, I don't agree. But I don't argue with people who say that. Because maybe they only see their coloring or they see a resemblance in certain features. I don't know what they're seeing.

 

Very true.  I often wonder if in fact some people really do see things differently.  Or how much perceptions vary.

[Caclcoca]

All four of my children were born with blue eyes.  Three of them now have brown eyes. My middle son's eyes turned brown very quickly.  My dd's eyes took almost a year to change.  My oldest ds14's eyes stayed blue.  I don't remember when my youngest son's eyes changed.

[PeachyDoodle]

My very philosophical 10yo said something like this at dinnertime recently. He was saying something like, "We both say this is an orange napkin, but you might see a different thing that you call orange than what I see and call orange." Yes, you have a point.

 

Weird... my 10yo and I had this exact conversation a couple of weeks ago! They would get along great! :)

[scoutingmom]

But doesn't "dominant" imply that that will be the gene that is passed down? Or is that wrong? Is it still just an equal chance of what gets passed down, dominant or recessive?

No, there is an equal chance of the gene being passed down from a parent, but if the child gets a dominant gene from one parent, and a recessive gene from the other, it is the dominant gene you see.

 

So BR is brown and dominant, and bl is blue and recessive. If both parents have blue eyes, they only haave the recessive genes to pass down, and all children have blue eyes (my childhood family). If both parents have only BR dominante genes, their children will also only have BR genes.

 

But if the parents have a mixture of genes BRbl, or one parent has blue eyes and the other has mixed genes, you can get the recessive genes show up... so possibility of blue eyes.

 

So, assume Brown eyed parents with mixed genes... BRbl and BRbl. Each parent can pass down either gene to a child. The possibilities are: BRBR, BRbl, blBR, blbl. The first 3 combinations are brown eyes. The last is blue eyes. Statistically, 1 in 4 would have blue eyes with those parents.

 

Now, as mentioned, eye colour is determined by a mixture of genes, so it isn't that simple, and there are mixtures and shades, and other colours like green and hazel....

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[goldberry]

The variety certainly creates some beautiful combinations.

 

I also think it's odd that people make judgments about it though.  When my sister (brown eyed, dark skin, typical Cherokee coloring) had her daughter (VERY light blue eyes, blonde hair, pale skin) she was often asked if she was adopted.  Who has the nerve to go around asking people that?  Even if she was in fact adopted, it's the rudest question ever.  Whose business is it?

[SKL]

Most babies are born with blue eyes.

 

I think "blonde hair and blue eyes" is a colloquialism meaning the person (apparently) does not have the dominant brown-eyed gene.  My mom always used that terminology also, even to describe a child with hazel or green or gray eyes and brown hair.

[Pawz4me]

I think at the time I was nervous about filling out that paperwork and taking the test all by myself.  My eyes seem to be a mottled mixture of grayish bluish greenish.   But definitely not blue like my blonde friends. 

 

I'm sure it's weird not to know my own eye color at age 15, but weird pretty much sums up what kind of teenager I was. 

 

Ummm . . . I'm 52 and I still don't really know what to put down for eye color.  I think mine are probably hazel, but then again they could be green.  Except sometimes they seem to have a bluish tint. I don't think about it much, but when I do it drives me a little nuts--it seems ludicrous to have reached this age and not really know what color your own eyes are.  I've mostly settled on saying they're green just to keep things simple.

[SKL]

On the topic of changing eye color, my eyes became more blue at some point in my adulthood.  I would say hazel when I was a teen, but now I would say my eyes are blue.

[Ali in OR]

I love eye color and the amazing variety of shades genetics can hand out. Dh and I both have obviously green eyes. Anyone looking at our girls would call them all blue-eyed, but the girls themselves see different shades in each. They say oldest is more green (a greenish blue), middle is more blue (but perhaps a bit of gray), and youngest is more gray (but definitely can look blue, blue-green). When middle dd was born, her eyes were so dark that if I was completely ignorant of genetics, I would have said they were brown. Two of my blue-eyed blond siblings married part-Italians with brown eyes but a blue-eyed parent. All of their kids (my niece and nephews) have brown eyes, though one is a bit more hazel. Can't wait to see what their kids look like. As a good friend was having her family, we kept waiting for one of her babies to get her beautiful brown eyes but all three kids are blue-eyed.

 

[Acorn]

Maybe. Maybe that wasn't the intention. It could have gone a different direction. Something like...look how darn pale that baby is. LOL

 

My mother used to tell me that she'd dress me up in a pink frilly dress as a baby and people would say what a cute boy. Haha! Some people are so funny.

Forty some years later my mom still grumbles about a man that didn't clue into a pink coat. Every time it comes up, I say that maybe he was color blind and the coat looked grey. She still won't accept that possibility.

[Guest]

High school biology and Punnet squares do a disservice to the incredible web we call genetics.

 

Is the MIL blond with blue eyes? Does she want her granddaughter to "match" her? Or is she just really weird about eye color.

 

FWIW, Mexicans come in a colors. I'm blue-eyed and had blond hair as a kid and there are many genetic Latinos who are paler than I am and there are some similar to my coloring and there are some much darker. It's just like white people and black people. No matter your base race/ethnicity, we come in lots of shades. My son had twin friends who are half Latina and they are blond with blue eyes. Their mother is white and is actually darker in skin tone from the girls. Their father is 100% Mexican (with European heritage back many, many years).

No, she is weird about eye (and hair) color. She has said before that she thinks dark hair with blue eyes is "the prettiest" coloring (this is her coloring), followed by blonde/blue. She also said there was one color combination that she never thinks is pretty. I remember how weird I thought that was. I think any coloring may be beautiful.

 

I do think this emphasis on coloring was more common in her generation. Women like Elizabeth Taylor, for instance, were much better known by eye and hair color.

[SKL]

I guess I am wondering what is meant by "white" in the first place.  :)  It seems to me that the child is "mixed" unless both parents' families are "white" going all the way back through time.

 

I have to confess that when I was young, I liked blue eyes so much, "blue eyes" was on my list of requirements for the perfect mate for me.  I didn't realize how gorgeous brown eyes could be.  Eventually I fell for a few different pairs of brown eyes.  :)  Now my kids have very dark brown eyes, and they are just killer gorgeous IMO.

[Guest]

Most babies are born with blue eyes.

 

I think "blonde hair and blue eyes" is a colloquialism meaning the person (apparently) does not have the dominant brown-eyed gene. My mom always used that terminology also, even to describe a child with hazel or green or gray eyes and brown hair.

Interesting. I don't think that is true in this case.

[SKL]

Interesting. I don't think that is true in this case.

 

Have you asked your mom about it?

 

[Chris in VA]

Ugh, this makes me think of that Toni Morrison book, The Bluest Eye.

 

*shudder

 

 

I do wonder what having blue eyes "means" to your mom.

[Guest]

A bit off-topic, but genetics are really, really cool. And complex. A couple of links, here and here and here.

 

ETA: I'm sorry that your mom is being a challenge, Quill.

I do think it is very interesting.

 

DD became very interested at one point in genetics because of studying cat coat markings and eye color. She concluded that our cats, though siblings, don't have the same father because of some complicated heritability factor. (Can't remember, but the mother cat was a grey tabby, one of our kittens is a tortie and the other is black. She had some logic to it but I can't remember what.)

[Guest]

Have you asked your mom about it?

 

No, but she is not using it in a general way. She is going through all these descriptive gymnastics to true and say her eyes are "blue" and her hair is "blonde," for instance she'll point out that DGD doesn't have dark eyebrows, or saying she has blonde highlights.

[Guest]

Ugh, this makes me think of that Toni Morrison book, The Bluest Eye.

 

*shudder

 

 

I do wonder what having blue eyes "means" to your mom.

It's "the prettiest." I think that is all it boils down to. She thinks blue eyes are the prettiest.

[Katy]

Interesting.  Quill did your call your eyes blue too?  DH's eyes fit the same description as yours Quill.  But we call them hazel.  They change colors with his mood.

 

I have a niece that's still a baby.  Her eyes are very dark. Both her parents have pale blue eyes and she otherwise looks almost exactly like her dad so I'm sure they'll lighten, but you really have to do a double take to see that they're navy blue.  They are so dark that on first glance they're blackish brown.  When her mom was a baby her eyes were dark blue too, and lightened.  But they were not as dark as the baby's.

 

Alexis Bledel is Mexican and very pale with blue eyes.

[maize]

My hair is nearly black, but two of my children are blond. I understand the genetics behind it, but there is something in me that kind of reacted in shock when my first blond son was born--sort of "how did that child come from me?"

 

I'm still waiting for one as dark as me..,

[maize]

Interesting. Quill did your call your eyes blue too? DH's eyes fit the same description as yours Quill. But we call them hazel. They change colors with his mood.

 

I have a niece that's still a baby. Her eyes are very dark. Both her parents have pale blue eyes and she otherwise looks almost exactly like her dad so I'm sure they'll lighten, but you really have to do a double take to see that they're navy blue. They are so dark that on first glance they're blackish brown. When her mom was a baby her eyes were dark blue too, and lightened. But they were not as dark as the baby's.

 

Alexis Bledel is Mexican and very pale with blue eyes.

It is possible for two blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed baby. This happened in my grandmother's family.

 

http://genetics.thetech.org/how-blue-eyed-parents-can-have-brown-eyed-children

[8circles]

This sort of thing drives me batty.

 

My MIL thinks its a mystery how my kids have blue eyes. I have blue eyes and so does one of DH's siblings. Where's the mystery?

Edited November 30, 2015 by 8circles

[Guest]

Interesting. Quill did your call your eyes blue too? DH's eyes fit the same description as yours Quill. But we call them hazel. They change colors with his mood.

 

I have a niece that's still a baby. Her eyes are very dark. Both her parents have pale blue eyes and she otherwise looks almost exactly like her dad so I'm sure they'll lighten, but you really have to do a double take to see that they're navy blue. They are so dark that on first glance they're blackish brown. When her mom was a baby her eyes were dark blue too, and lightened. But they were not as dark as the baby's.

 

Alexis Bledel is Mexican and very pale with blue eyes.

No, I call my eyes brown. The impression one gets is that my eyes are brown. One doesn't much notice the green in them unless the light is right in my eyes and someone is really looking carefully.

[Katy]

It is possible for two blue eyed parents to have a brown eyed baby. This happened in my grandmother's family.

 

http://genetics.thetech.org/how-blue-eyed-parents-can-have-brown-eyed-children

 

That's true.  Though when you get her in bright light they're clearly navy.  Navy is a rare eye color though, so at least with me that's not the first assumption I make from a distance when I see dark eyes.

 

ETA:  This is a picture of a doll (I don't put details of my kids on the internet, I'm certainly not going to share one from the extended family), but this is similar, though slightly lighter than the baby's eyes:  http://pictures.bountifulbaby.com/paisley/paisleypaci5.jpg

Edited November 30, 2015 by Katy

[Guest]

Definitely not impossible. Eye color and genetics have more to it than just the presenting eye color in a parent.

 

My mom's eyes are dark brown, my dads are bright blue. Mine are a grey/blue color.

 

To add to the matter not all Mexican people are dark skinned, with brown eyes and hair....there are many blue eyed/blond Mexican people, so the father may not only have brown eye/hair genes.

Most of my kids have blue and green eyes despite me having hazel eyes with two brown eyed parents and hubby's being bright blue. Eye genetics are complex.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Adding to the MIL stories - my MIL cried the day she noticed my son's eyes turning from blue to brown. He was about 6 months old and we were walking outside; I guess the light was just right because she looked down at him and burst out crying, exclaiming "This isn't possible.  All of my grandchildren have blue eyes."  DS was the 4th grandchild and indeed the other 3 all have blue eyes.  To this day,  she treats DS a bit differently than she treats the others. DS and I are the only brown eyed people in the family.  SIL's children both married blue eyed people and have blue eyed children.  My DGD has blue eyes.  

 

She no longer cries over it but has mentioned it a couple of times over the years, usually after a family picture has been taken.

 

ETA:  I'm a caucasian and I have never had blue eyes.  I was born with dark brown eyes.  My sister and brother both have light blue eyes. :huh:  My mom's eyes are blue and my dad's were hazel.  I remember learning about the eye color Punnet square and crying because the teacher said, in front of the class, that my mom must have cheated on my dad because it was genetically impossible for them to have a brown eyed baby. :glare:

Edited November 30, 2015 by ScoutermominIL

[Katy]

Adding to the MIL stories - my MIL cried the day she noticed my son's eyes turning from blue to brown. He was about 6 months old and we were walking outside; I guess the light was just right because she looked down at him and burst out crying, exclaiming "This isn't possible.  All of my grandchildren have blue eyes."  DS was the 4th grandchild and indeed the other 3 all have blue eyes.  To this day,  she treats DS a bit differently than she treats the others. DS and I are the only brown eyed people in the family.  SIL's children both married blue eyed people and have blue eyed children.  My DGD has blue eyes.  

 

She no longer cries over it but has mentioned it a couple of times over the years, usually after a family picture has been taken.

 

ETA:  I'm a caucasian and I have never had blue eyes.  I was born with dark brown eyes.  My sister and brother both have light blue eyes. :huh:  My mom's eyes are blue and my dad's were hazel.  I remember learning about the eye color Punnet square and crying because the teacher said, in front of the class, that my mom must have cheated on my dad because it was genetically impossible for them to have a brown eyed baby. :glare:

 

OMG!  Please tell me your parents had that woman fired. 

 

And MIL is a nutcase.

[redsquirrel]

I am sorry Quill.  That would drive me NUTS if only because it isn't true, it obviously isn't true but she keeps saying it.

 

My sister is the only brown eyed one of my siblings.  We three have very light eyes and hers are very dark brown.  She knows a lot about people favouring blue eyes over brown eyes and light hair over dark.

 

 

[Guest]

What an ass! I'm sorry she said that to you - I was taught the same in multiple bio classes and it was in the past decade, I believe as a result of the human genome project, that they realized eye color was somewhat sex linked and could be influenced by other genetic factors than just, say, albinism.

[Ellie]

It's probably impossible for her to have blue eyes. If niece's dad is Mexican he's likely got 2 dominant brown genes for eye color so having a blue-eyed baby is unlikely. Weire that she is so obsessed over this

 

IDK. I have seen people who have one Mexican parent and one not-Mexican, who have green eyes and blond-ish hair. They are beautiful. :-)

[Jean in Newcastle]

I had a friend in college who had one blue eye and one hazel eye

[SKL]

My granny has brown eyes, but I don't think any of her grandkids does.  (Not really sure as I haven't seen some of them in a long time.)

[Guest]

Recessive genes have an equal chance of being passed on, but the trait they code for only shows up if the child gets a recessive gene from each parent. A child who gets one recessive and one dominant will display the dominant trait, but if they themselves have a child with someone who also carries the recessive gene and their child gets a recessive copy from each parent that child will display the recessive trait.

 

And let me add the EACH CHILD gets its own copy of the "same" genes when they have the same parents, to do with whatever nature has in store for them!

 

Someone in my family seems to think dominant means that 2/3 (or whatever fraction is in her head) kids will show that gene. And recessive means the other 1/3 shows the results of the recessive genes. That's definitely not how it worksssssssss!!!!!

[Wheres Toto]

Genetics is fascinating and people are screwy.

 

I'm a basic Anglo/European mix (Irish, Swedish, German, English).  I have dark brown hair that used to look redder (mom and brother have red/auburn hair) and hazel eyes.

 

Oldest is Italian and Welsh on her dad's side.  She was born with brown eyes and bald.  Her hair is now an unusual shade of red - too blonde for auburn, too brown for strawberry blonde, definitely red but no trace of orange.  She is also the palest skinned of all my kids and will not tan even slightly.

 

Dh is the same mix as me but Polish instead of Swedish.   Ds is evidently a spitting image of his dad when he was younger.  He was born blonde haired and blue eyed and stayed that way.   Youngest dd was born with brown hair and hazel eyes.  I figured I finally had a kid that looked like me. :laugh:   Her hair actually got lighter so she's now as blonde as her brother.    My younger kids are more olive skinned and get very tan in the summer.

 

People who primarily know me/have known me longest think my kids look like me, those who know their fathers think they look like them.  Outside of coloring, younger dd is the only one I can see any resemblances.  She is the spitting image of my mother (who I also resemble) in facial structure/shape.