Comments on: About Face

By: T

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:56:07 +0000

I’m not an adoptive parent. I notice these similarities in some other families, and I see similarities between my son and his father, but I honestly cannot find any visual resemblance between any of my three kids and me. It’s weird.

By: JoAnn

JoAnn — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:27:59 +0000

I don’t really study faces, but whenever there are stark resemblances, they jump out at me. What gets me is when I see my sister’s kids in my daughter’s expressions. She has an expression that is dead-on for my nephew when he was her age.

I also have a photo that my grandmother saved of my mom when she was 18-months old. She and my daughter (around that same age) look ALMOST EXACTLY alike in the photo. In fact, when I pulled it out of the envelope, my first thought was how Grandma got a black-and-white photo of Claire. I was stunned to see the similarities. Here is a link to if if you’re curious: http://thecasualperfectionist.com/2009/07/in-remembrance/

We have some friends who adopted a little boy from Russia, and he honestly looks like he’s biologically related to them. I wonder how they handle those similarity questions?

That being said, people always asked me where I got my red hair, since my parents are both brunettes now. I’d been told time and time again that I had my grandmothers’ hair (on both sides), so that was my go-to answer.

By: Lori in Denver

Lori in Denver — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 19:20:38 +0000

Gwen — we get genetic comments, too. When people say, “where did they get the blond hair?” I answer “somewhere back in the gene pool.”

Which is totally true.

I’ve been following your story here — could be an exciting year!

Melissa — it’s odd because I don’t see family resemblance among my parents, siblings and me. But others do.

Rebecca — I have heard that is a tough moment for adoptees, when people mistakenly assign some aspect of them to their parents. Do they speak up? Do they squash it and just say “uh huh”? Tough moments.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:35:42 +0000

Interesting! I don’t do the face study too often, but my daughter shared with me how hard it is for her when people say we look alike – almost like she is “faking it”… She does not necessarily look like her birthparents either, but it was through tears that she told me how much it bothers her when people say that. With red hair, MANY people ask her “Where did you get that red hair?” Ouch. Constant reminder for her. hmmm

By: Mel

Mel — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:00:49 +0000

I don’t do the face comparison thing, but I think it’s also because I never see it–I never see the similarities, even when someone points them out to me.

I was very drawn to that photo too.

By: Gwen

Gwen — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:30:04 +0000

I think us adoptive parents think to look for these things. People constantly tell my son how much he looks like my husband and how he has my blue eyes. Which of course isn’t genetically possible. But I don’t think biological parents think to look for the physical traits. It’s not something they’re “trained” to do, so they assume every child they see is biological (unless, of course, it’s blatantly obvious). I just smile and say thank you. Our next child might be dark skinned and black hair…then it’ll be interesting to see what the public’s reactions are.