# How much do your bio kids look like you? How closely do you resemble your bio parents? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 6, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429 "2011-09-06T20:25:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/61 "2011-09-07T13:23:22Z")
More than one person has told me that my son looks exactly like me, except that he is handsome. Some friends I have. I do look like my parents and syblings in face and body type but they are all fair skinned with very light hair and I am oddly dark haired and tan very easily. ---
**Author:** ![Gus\_Gusterson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@Gus\_Gusterson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gus_Gusterson)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/62 "2011-09-07T14:04:41Z")
I get recognized as a member of the Gusterson family all the time by people who know my family but have never met me. We all (7 kids) share similar features. My kids (son and daughter) look like my wife. Our daughter is a clone of my wife. I have picked up pictures of our daughter and asked my wife when they were taken because I didn’t recognize the clothing. Invariably, they were actually pictures of my wife when she was a kid. Our son has my wife’s eyes. He does resemble me in some ways (he has my long, thick eyelashes), but the eyes give away that he is my wife’s child. People have stopped me to remark on the kids’ eyes and always note that they couldn’t have gotten them from me. One woman actually thought that I must be a friend or uncle because the kids look so different from me. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/63 "2011-09-07T15:46:42Z")
I look a lot like my brother, and both of us are a mix of features of both our parents. I wouldn’t say we favor either; we got Mom’s shoulders, Dad’s height, and our facial features are a mix as well- a slightly different mix, but easily identifiable (he got Dad’s nose, I got Mom’s, for example). At least as a baby, my son looks a lot like me- enough to where it is one of the major comments people make when they see him. He has my wife’s nose though! ---
**Author:** ![Foxy40](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Foxy40](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foxy40)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/64 "2011-09-07T16:19:36Z")
My son and I look very much alike, from eye color to shape of face, nose and lips. Even ear lobes. I have had people ask if my daughter was adopted as she is dark skinned, eyes and hair. Spitting image of her father. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/65 "2011-09-07T16:48:44Z")
I look and specially sound a lot like my mother. There are maybe three people who can tell which one of us has answered the phone, but it’s because they actually pay attention: Mom says “¿dígame?”, I say “¿diga?” Everybody else, if they call one of us and the other one answers, they just start talking. Our seamstress says we’re actually, from her PoV, surprisingly different. “You two are proof that it’s possible to have almost-identical measurements and still be different”. Mom’s waist measurement is much bigger than mine, her bust is also larger, but our other measurements are identical - and yet, our tailored (well, “seamstressed”) trousers are absolutely not interchangeable (and not just at the waist)… but it takes a seamstress to notice. Littlebro is the Bro who’s supposed to be “Dad’s clone”, but most people can’t describe my brothers apart. One of the ways to get Mom to shut the hell up about how much Littlebro takes after Daddy “while Middlebro doesn’t, at all” is to remind her of those conversations… Someone: I saw your brother yesterday! Me: That’s nice. Do you know which one? S: Oh, the tall one. M: They’re the same height. S: Really? M: 1’78. Promise. S: Glasses? Thin? M: OK, so it was either one or the other 😃 S: Well, he was about this tall, and thin, and had brown hair, and was with a kid? M: The other or one, as I said. People used to spend a lot of time discussing which feature had The Kidlet gotten from each Proud Parent. Then The Kidlette came along and simplified things: “I don’t know which parent they look like, but they sure look a lot like each other!” ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/66 "2011-09-07T17:05:46Z")
I was at a movie night at my kids’ school and this little girl, not more than 6 years old, came up and pointed at my 4 children. “How come they all look like each other, but none of them look like you?” she asked me. I guess I could have answered that when a blue eyed, red haired woman marries a dark haired, dark eyed man, she gets genetically trumped. But I just murmured, “I’ve been wondering that myself for years.” No one has ever told me my kids look like me. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/67 "2011-09-07T17:19:17Z")
I look like a younger female version of my dad. We can even wear the same clothes (in that he’s stolen my jeans and undershirts before.) ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/68 "2011-09-07T19:18:49Z")
I don’t see a strong resemblance to me, in either kid. I never thought I looked much like my mother either - until I saw a photo of her when she was 16 and there was something about the angle of her head, or expression - that had me do a double-take to make sure it wasn’t ME. **Moon Unit** has her dad’s eyes. **Typo Knig** (said dad) thinks she looks a lot like a sketch we have of his mother. I don’t necessarily see the resemblance, but then I’m generally lousy at picking out facial resemblances. In fact I have trouble telling people apart sometimes. **Dweezil** looks like a mishmash of my family, except at some angles where it’s CLEAR he’s from the **Knig** family. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/69 "2011-09-07T19:33:16Z")
I always thought I resembled my mom. Then, at my grandfather’s funeral a few years ago, this guy walked up to me and said, “Are you Dadzilla’s daughter?” Why, yes, I am, do I know you? Turns out the guy had gone to high school with my dad and owned a restaurant to which my grandfather had sold food & supplies. If I’d ever met the guy, it was as a child. I was in my late 30s at the time and I asked how he knew (of all the potential women my age in the room, including my sister) who I was. He told me that I look exactly like my dad, only the female version. My sister’s daughter looks like me; most people think she’s my daughter if we’re all out together. Her son looks exactly like a male version of her. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/70 "2011-09-07T19:50:55Z")
I have no kids. I once showed a picture of my dad as a young man to my stepbrother without identifying who it was. I asked him, “Doesn’t this look just like my brother?” He said, “I thought that was your brother.” I once saw a picture of my dad and one of my uncles as teens. I swear, if I hadn’t known better, it could have been my brother and me. My brother could have been my dad and I could have been my uncle. Sometimes I look in the mirror and jump because I see my dad looking back at me, especially the older I get. My brother looks kind of like me if I was stretched out to his 6’5", from my 5’11", plus dyed my hair blond. Our sister is more a combination of our parents, slightly favoring Dad’s side of the family. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/71 "2011-09-07T21:00:42Z")
I look like a clone of my dad except that I am muscular from 20+ years of working out and he’s skinny from childhood polio. If I was fat, I’d look like a clone of any of my uncles. And yeah, I’ve had those moments when I glance at a reflective surface and see dad looking back. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/72 "2011-09-08T02:04:21Z")
I don’t much resemble either of my parents, but I do look a lot like my mom’s sister. My cousins have said it’s not fair that I look more like their mom than they do, and one of them even mistook me for her several times when he was younger. My sister and I hear all the time how much we look alike, but I think it’s because people can’t get past the fact that we have the same unusual shade of red hair. Sister looks a lot like our paternal grandma. I don’t have kids but my almost 3-year-old niece is a spitting image of me at that age. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/73 "2011-09-08T02:07:10Z")
I look just like all the women in my mom’s family. I don’t have kids but my brother’s kids take more after SIL than Bro. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/74 "2011-09-08T02:58:33Z")
My son sort of shape shifts. For the most part he strongly resmbles his dad, and his dad’s brothers, and their dad, and their grandfather, who all look remarkably alike. The four brothers’ kids also look remarkably alike considering all of the mothers look different from eachother, and from their husbands. Very strong genes. Oddly though, at the same time, my son at many different ages has looked remarkably like photographs of my dad at the same age. It’s especially interesting to me because I don’t see any resemblence between my dad and my son’s dad. My sister looks like our dad, but I don’t look like either of my parents really. My folks split up when I was six, and they really split up. I didn’t see my dad or his side of the family for over twenty years. My mom also got rid of all photographic evidence of him, except his arm around my sister’s shoulder in a photo that my mom thought was too good of her to throw out so she just tore out my dad. The first contact I made was with his parents. I sat down with them and looked through their family photos. When my grandfather got to a studio portrait of his mother (whose name, coincidentally is my middle name) I finally looked like someone. Exactly. Except for the 1910s hairstyle. My father has a pronounced underbite. If I mimic that then suddenly I do look lke him, but only for about a minute at a time 'cause it’s uncomfortable. ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/75 "2011-09-08T06:31:03Z")
[Me and my mom](http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1280872027527&set=a.1280864307334.2039942.1401845193&type=1&theater) - nose, cheeks, neck. I’m taller, but we have a nearly identical build (check out those mini-me collarbones). She’s a lovely woman, so it’s a good thing overall, but I’m starting to get the same lines between my eyes. Yay…genetics. [Me and my dad](http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1280872227532&set=a.1280864307334.2039942.1401845193&type=1&theater) - forehead, eyebrows, eyes [With mom and dad](http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1280873547565&set=a.1280864307334.2039942.1401845193&type=1&theater) - definitely related to both Now, my brother is the spitting image of my dad, it’s eerie to see how many expressions and mannerisms they share. He has my mom’s dark eyes, though. I can’t find a great pic online where they look super similar. Here’s[one](http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1173861792338&set=a.1173852632109.2027031.1401845193&type=1&theater). (sorry about the FB pics, there used to be an option to share a link with anybody, it seems to be gone with the latest revamp) My husband looks exactly like his dad. I found a picture of him lying on a riverbank wearing a white cowboy hat and I asked him “when did you have a cowboy hat?” Was his dad, around his age (I never met his father, he died a few years before my husband and I met). ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/76 "2011-09-08T11:31:03Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > Having now read all the other posts, I’m reminded of two things. > > This: I have a rather high pitched pre-teen voice, which embarrasses the hell out of me to this day. (I’m 60.) Until I was about 20 my voice was almost exactly my mother’s. I sometimes would answer the phone and string her friends along for a minute or so before my ruse was blown by what I was saying. I suppose this would have cute or warm and fuzzy, except that I’m male. > > And this, which still makes me teary-eyed 20 years after the fact. > > My Dad was adopted at birth, by a single working woman. When he was about 18, his Mother told him as much as she knew about his bio-mom, including her name. Bio-Mom had been an unwed teenager whose father forced her to give up the baby. This would have been in 1925. > > Dad’s Mom died just a few years later. As time passed he began to get curious about his bio-mother, and he was in his 30’s when he began to look for her. Adoption agencies and such records were lost or otherwise unavailable to him, but he knew what general part of the country she had came from and he would search public records for her name. Never got any hits. Every ten years or so he’d get the bug again and renew the search, always coming up with nothing. > > When he was 65, Dad called one night to tell me the news. Having decided to give it one last half-hearted try, he’d finally found her. It turned out that no birth certificate had ever been on file for her, and she didn’t appear in any of the usual data banks until her death certificate was generated. He’d missed her by seven years. But further digging quickly gave him the name of her one surviving brother, who was now in his 80’s. > > After agonizing for several weeks, and terribly frightened of who knew what the response might be, Dad made the long-distance call. His uncle answered the phone, listened to Dad nervously introduce himself and then ask if he remembered his younger sister having had a child 65 years before. Uncle said yes, was quiet for a moment, and then said “Am I talking to that child?” After more tentatively friendly sharing of information, Uncle asked Dad if he’d send them a photograph while he talked with his wife about it. Dad sent them a picture of himself at about age 35. > > Their return letter arrived a week or two later, and Dad called us together to see what was in that letter. A glossy 4x6 photo of a woman in her thirties, and when we saw it my wife, sisters and I gasped and sat back with our mouths hanging open. It looked like a soft-focus portrait of Dad in makeup and a wig. She couldn’t have resembled him more closely, right down to the characteristic smile that was always on his face. It was an “Oh. My. God.” moment. > > Handwritten on the back of the picture: “Welcome to your family.” Dad’s Uncle and immediate family accepted him with open arms, and despite having missed his mother by seven heartbreaking years, Dad, whose life with my mother had not been pleasant, was the happiest I’d ever seen him for the rest of his life. I’ll never forget what those wonderful people did for him. > > I guess I could have simply said my Dad looked like his mother, but I felt like telling the story. There really are some good people in this world. > > . This is lovely, just lovely. BOT, We have two children. Spawn #1 looks exactly like his father (but has my sense of humor and the drive of we don’t know who but are very grateful.) Spawn #2 is my twin with light brown eyes and a dimple. She has my sense of humor and logic skills ( so does her brother, but he is nearly perfect if he wasn’t such a first born child.) Her skin tone is not as whitey-mcwhitepants as mine so she browns up gorgeously. My son got my skin and looks like a lobster half the summer. She also has very little self esteem issues and the boys are ga-ga over her. I’m torn between locking her in a box or living through her vicariously. I hope neither have the depression issues I have. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/77 "2011-09-08T14:11:27Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > The other day we finally got the baby to roll over enough that we got a profile view of her in a sonogram and my husband said, “Oh, thank god, she looks just like you!” I kind of looked at him and said, “It’s a sonogram sweetie, not a photograph. Right now she mostly looks like Mr. Game & Watch.” You’d be surprised, though. I have sonogram pictures of each of my kids and there’s so much that does not change. I didn’t even have to look at the dates to know which picture belonged to which kid because their profiles are so distinctive. > [@elfkin477](#): > > **Everyone** declares that we both look like our mom because we have the same coloring as she does - blue eyes (Dad has them too), red hair, very fair skin - but beyond being colored with the genetic crayon neither little bro or I look _that_ much like her. As someone else said, people really do get hung up on coloring. My best friend has a son with a red-haired guy. The son also has red hair, so people automatically say, “He looks just like his Dad!” But if you look at his face and his features, the boy looks more like his mom. My daughter looks just like me to the point where I once got distracted as I was trying to lay down some discipline. I couldn’t get the words out because it was like talking to myself. Her legs and hands are also mini versions of mine. I do think she is prettier, though. My son looks very much like both sides of the family. Sometimes I see my brother in him, sometimes I see my husband. ALthough to be honest, my husband and I share quite a few similarities. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/78 "2011-09-08T14:40:21Z")
My kids look a bit like me and a bit like their dad, and a lot like each other. To me, they generally look like my husband’s side of the family. My daughter in particular looks very much like one of her cousins, which relates to the story you told, Skald, because her cousin is biracial, and my daughter is very fair with blonde hair. They definitely look different from a racial perspective, but their features and the shape of their faces are very similar. And their dimples, which they inherited from their grandma. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/79 "2011-09-08T15:15:08Z")
No kids. I don’t look like either of my parents. My father had very dark hair; my mother’s hair was kind of auburn, from what I can determine (she died when I was little, but I have a few pictures). I’m a blond and so was my late sister, and I have a male cousin with blond hair. We don’t know where that came from. I look like my paternal grandfather. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429/80 "2011-09-08T15:19:03Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m black, and my son’s mother is white. My son was blond and fair-skinned; moost people who saw him had no clue that he was biracial. Nonetheless, when his mother brought him and his sister to visit me at work one day when he was about two, one of my coworkers (who’d never met any of them) immediately pegged him as mine; she pegged it by his ears and nose. My coworker realized just as quickly that his sister wasn’t related to me. Interesting, I am mulatto as well and almost no one ever pegs me as such, and most strangers don’t even realize I am with my mother when we are walking together (she is black, I have a pretty “Italian” looking complexion with fairly straight caucasian style hair). I have even had a guy start cursing at my mother because of the job she did parking-she really is terrible at parking-right in front of me because he assumed we weren’t together, before I charged at the car and tried to snatch him out of it before he floored it out of the parking lot. 😛 My father is white and I am mildly more brown or “tan” than him, but facially I don’t look very much like him at all. I wasn’t raised by him. My mother I get my nose from and some of the features, but I don’t really take after anyone in my family, on either side. It’s a pretty weird experience growing up in a family where you don’t look like anybody and strangers flat out ask you why you are with those people. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-do-your-bio-kids-look-like-you-how-closely-do-you-resemble-your-bio-parents/595429.md?page=5)