I’ve noticed this in my own son and other mixed race kids, my own son has lighter hair than either parent and easily has the lightest hair in either family line.
I’ve seen the same hair color in numerous mixed race children with one black parent, including ones where the other parent was asian or hispanic and again lighter than either parent. My wife said she has heard it called gingery hair, there is an annoying banner ad that shows a baby with the exact hair tone I’m talking about(although the “mother” could be an actress and the father is unknown) but just for example:
Is there an actual name for this?
(Braces before the chorus of you’re nuts grude!:p)
But seriously, this is exactly what you;d expect to see. It’s classic inheritance. Hair colour doesn’t follow classic Mendelian recessive/dominance patterns, but its close enough.
If we pretend that it is simple recessive/dominant, then you really only have three options: You can have a black haired couple with a child having black hair, or it can noticably lighter than either parent. Or you can have a couple with one parent with dark hair and one with light, and a child about teh same as the lighter parent.
Since nobody is ever going to notice another typical Black couple with a black haired child, and is unlikely to notice a child that has the same hair as one parent, the only thing you will ever notice is a Black couple with a child with hair much lighter than either parent.
In simple terms, the parents can be homozygous for black hair (BB) or heterozygous for black hair (Bb). Either way they have black hair. Or they could be homozygous for brown hair, in which case they will have brown hair.
If either parent is homozygous black, then all children will have black hair (either BB or Bb). If both parents are heterozygous, then 25% of the children will have noticably lighter hair than either parent (bb) and the rest wil be just as dark as the parents (Bb or BB). And if either parent has lighter hair, then at least 25% of children will have hair as light as that parent.
Hair colour isn’t simple recessive dominant, but it;s close enough that what you are seeing is expected, given that you unconsciously screen out the 75%+ kids who have black hair, just like Mum and Dad.
Really, it’s no more odd than pointing out that you sometimes see dark haired White parents with red or blonde hair. That’s because nobody comments on a White coupe with Blonde hair having blonde kids, so you really can never comment on anything else. In exactly the same way, you can never comment on a Black couple except when hey have hair noticeably lighter than either parent, because they can;t possibly have hair that is noticeably darker.
Also, many children have lighter hair than they will have when they grow up. Goldenhaired children end up ashblonde/lightbrown, coppery-brown end up dark brown, etc. The genotype is the same in the goldenhaired 3yo as in the ashy 30yo, but the phenotype, the expression of the genotype, changes. Is your child’s hair lighter than yours, and your siblings, and your parents, were at the same age?
