I saw this article today about a British couple that recently delivered a second set of fraternal twins. While multiples like that by itself was unusual, what was fascinating about these children is that in each pair one was light skinned and the other dark skinned ~ each taking physical characteristics from different parents.

The story made me think of a friend who recently had a baby girl. She and her ex-husband were also a bi-racial couple. Her youngest daughter has her father’s dark eyes and black hair, but she also has her mother’s ivory skin. Baby S is a gorgeous child.

Talking about how beautiful I though Baby S was, another friend and I struck up a conversation about bi-racial couples and I told her I didn’t think I would care if either of my children fell in love and married a person from a different ethnic or racial background. My friend was shocked.

She is of my mother’s generation and still feels races should not ‘mix.’ I asked her why.

Her main rationale was that by ‘mixing the races,’ any offspring wouldn’t know what at least half of their family looked like. I tried to wrap my head around that reasoning. I think she was saying that if these children grew to favor their ‘other’ side of the family, part of their heritage would be lost? I think.

I pointed out to her that both of my children strongly favored me… and looked more like my side of the family than Hubs. In fact, neither take after their dad that much, or each other for that matter.

Both are going to be very tall. As of a few months ago, WK passed us all, and Hubs is now the more vertically challenged of our bunch. Height was my gift to them ~ both my dad and grandfather were well over 6-foot tall.

WK, unlike the rest of us, has green eyes, where we have dark brown. WK had platinum blond hair when he was younger, JM is almost a strawberry blonde. Hubs has always had dark brown hair (well, it’s more silver now). Those coloring quirks are all from my family branch too.

Using the same reasoning, looking at my kids you would think I made them from kits and not with half of Hub’s genetic syrup. Does that mean WK and JM won’t know what half their family looks like? Have I done irreparable harm to my kids’ psyche by having dominate genes? Should I have search harder for a potential mate with the same physical family traits, the same height, hair and eye coloring, facial structure, blah, blah, blah?

The family resemblance argument was sophistry at it’s best.

Does it really matter who your children look like? Is is not more important what their character is, rather than their characteristics?