How do I answer questions about my redheaded baby?

Question

Anyone who sees my son is so amazed by his beautiful red hair. I constantly get asked where did his red hair come from. I get stumped because I dont know how to correctly answer them. I dont have red hair nor does his father. The only thing I know is that I and his father carry the genes to have our beautiful redheaded son. My son and I are enrolled in Mommy and Me summer school. All the other mothers ask me about his hair. Please help me. What can I say? I want to know what Im talking about.

the mailman answers are lame... some answers are very good.. Thank You! one of you will win 10 points!

Answer 1

Many people with brown hair may be carrying a red hair gene that is masked by the darkness of their hair. Your child has your genes, but they are expressed in a different way. I know a couple, both with brown hair, who had two children with bright red hair, so I know it can happen. (My parents both had dark brown hair and all of us kids turned out blond!) So where did your baby's red hair come from? Just say it was his gift from God and his ancestors. (And make sure to use lots of sunscreen. Redheads tend to have vulnerable skin!)

Answer 2

Red hair is a recessive gene. You both gave the gene for red hair. It only shows up when both of you give the red hair gene. There is a 1/4 chance of that happening and a 3/4 chance for brown hair - the dominant gene.

Answer 3

Red hair is a recessive gene given by two parents.
Someone in both of your families must have had red hair because it seems that both of you carry the red-headed gene and you both happened to give it to your son.
He had a one-in-four chance of being red-headed. If both you and your husband have brown hair, we'll say, you'll have a brown-haired gene (B) and a red-headed gene (b). Since brown hair is dominant, it is what shows up in the both of you.
When we combine the "mighty hair genes," we get four possibilites (this is taking one gene from each of you):
BB Bb Bb bb
In the first instance, your child would have had brown hair and would not have been a recessive carrier of red-haired-ness.
In the second and third instance, your son would have had brown hair and would have carried the red-hair gene and could pass it to his children.
The fourth instance is what your son has: red hair. Congratulations to him! ( :

Answer 4

The genetics of red hair:

http://www.geocities.com/red_head_stranger66/genetics.htm

You can read it at your leisure but the red headed gene can commonly skip generations and show up even when neither parent has red hair themselves (they just carry the gene for it).

As for people, just smile and say thank you he is beautiful and leave it at that.. it really isn't their business and you shouldn't feel like you have to give them a lesson in genetics.

Answer 5

Just tell them that the red hair must have come from way back in the past generations.

Sometimes, genes just pop up spontaneously, and that's another possibility (AAMOF, that's how evolution works--through spontaneous mutations).

But it's WAY more-likely that you have some ancestors on both sides who had red hair, and your baby's hair color was the equivalent of "genetic roulette."

Answer 6

Ask your parents and your husband's parents is any of their siblings, parents, aunts or uncles had red hair. Sometimes it skips a couple of generations.

If you come up blank - and it isn't anyone's business anyway, a nice straight lie ("his grandfather") will stop the Q.

So will "My husband's former job exposed him to so much plutonium that we had to adopt. Little Johnny's father was an Irish-Canadian who died saving his platoon from an Al-Quida ambush. His mother was a nurse. Since she was a Catholic and he was a Protestant, she gave the child up to live here in the USA, where there isn't as much hatred."

Answer 7

My mother had blonde hair, father had dark brown/black. My mom's mom had red hair. Its not just your genes that go into making the baby, you have some from your parents and some from your husband's parents that will make the child look like they do.

Answer 8

My dad had black hair & my mom is a brunette. Of their 5 children 3 are red headed. I hated having red hair when I was growing up. But now I'm glad because it's not so ordinary. Neither set of grandparents were red headed.

Answer 9

I have a red headed daughter. Her grandfather is the only one who had red hair. It make sick how people will come up and start talking about how beautiful her hair is but will not say a word about my son! My answer to them is my son got his hair from me and my daughter got her hair from her grandfather!

Answer 10

We have one redhead out of three children. Neither my husband nor I have red hair. I always just tell people that it goes back generations.