Combinations Of Grandparents

Sometimes, we even end up looking like our grandparents. Why does this happen?

Approximately half our genes come from our parents, approximately half from our grandparents. There’s also the combination variable of two recessive genes to occasionally throw that off. Its simple and complicated too; our great-grandparents’ genes are in there. To understand more, look at a genetics chart that includes great-grandparents as well as information about what happens when there’s recessive gene combination. Occasionally there’s a relative who’s been adopted, so their heritage/genes are unknown. Recent advances in this field make it possible to ascribe ancestry to racially as well.

If my grandparents lived long, will I live as long too?

First off, it depends.Even if genetics plays a large role in determining how long you’ll live. The largest portion will be on lifestyle and behavior. If your grandparents all lived to a nice ripe age, the first question would be how healthy they were. Did they exercise regularly and avoid vices like smoking and drinking alcohol? Are you doing the same? Did they have low or high stress jobs? Do you have a high stress job? How about marriage? Are you married? Is it a good marriage or are you constantly stressed?There are many many factors that could go into how long a person lives. Genetics, at most, will only play a small role in that number.

It is best for a baby to stay with grandparents or to go to day care?

Both. It must be a combination . Grandparents have a very important role to play in the life of every child . Their position or place in child's life and growing years cannot be substituted or compared to any other service available in the market . However, please remember that these grandparents have passed their prime age of bringing up children . They brought you up and did a great job indeed . It's done . They played their role well . Now it's not their job to bring up your children too ! That's very selfish and egoistic thing to expect of them . However, seeing the positive and healthy influence that they can impart in a child's life , a grandparent must not be expected to watch over or mind the children the whole day ! They indeed love to hang out with grandchildren , play with them , cook for them , take them out to garden , movies etc . More like a friend than a care giver . When care giver is required , a professional and a kind space is required . Here is where the parents must look out for a good day care where children can spend some learning and social interaction time in a day, in a child friendly environment. This mix of fun and learn is the balanced and best approach in a child's growing up years . This way the grandparents too can get a breather from the Herculean task of running behind these bundles of energies and child also gets an environment to learn and mix with peers . Thank you .

Can a baby come out darker than both her parents if one of their grandparents are darker? Could a baby come out lighter than both of her parents if one of their grandparents is lighter?

My son came out at birth considerably darker than either me or my wife or any of his grandparents, he was really quite dark. However over the first six months he became significantly lighter, though he’s always retained a darker complexion than his parents and sibling. Simply skin pigmentation is complex and when certain combinations of genes come together you can get surprises.BTW It was obvious he was genetically my son even at birth because of other distinctive traits, but if anyone is in any doubt we recently put the whole family through 23andme (not specifically to check parentage!) and so its definitive. Not that I’d have cared what the result was. (People probably shouldn't do these things if they’re very uptight or have trouble handling truth.)

Does it makes sense to say that "potentially" we were already present in our parents, or grandparents, etc. and that when we are conceived we become an "instance" of the possible genetic combinations, in a biological sense?

No, I’d say it does not make sense.Whom we end up becoming is only partially down to genetics. Environmental, developmental, epigenetic, cultural, and familial factors all play huge roles in finishing the incomplete potentiality of the germ line. In some sense, our genetic basis is foreshadowed in our ancestors but that doesn’t get very far towards a rich sense of what a human being is.Talking in terms of “transforming ourselves” assigns too much agency to a biological process. You could say that conception represents the instantiation of one possible outcome although it could equally have been many others. Assigning the collapse of probabilities to the eventual consciousness (that may or may not develop from it) is more or less meaningless without some heavy theology. Probabilities collapse in nature all the time without a conscious agent directing the outcome.