Look at your beautiful children. Now look at your spouse. Now look again at the kids. Those kids you love so much, the ones you believe share half your genetic make-up with half of his? Think again. They may very well be your ex-boyfriend's children instead.
You know, the crazy one who drank too much and cheated at least twice.
At least this is according to an insane new study that will drive fear into the heart of every mother. God help us all.
The study, thankfully, was on fruit flies, not people (yet!). But we all know the saying "what's good for the fly is good for the human" (I made that up). In seriousness, though, here's how it works: Female fruit flies mated with more than one partner, each of different sizes. They found that the size of the baby fruit flies was determined by the size of the first male the mother mated with rather than the second male who was ACTUALLY the father.
How's that for terrifying?
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Apparently sperm can't live in the body, but it CAN alter DNA in that region. At least in fruit flies.
I can't lie. I have more than once looked at my kids, particularly the middle boy, and thought of my ex-boyfriend.
Ah, my sweet middle child. So funny. So silly. So spacey. So … blond. "Where did he get that hair?" my friends ask, incredulous over his white-blond hair, especially when looking at me, a definite brunette, or my husband, a nearly hairless former brown-haired guy. From what deep, dark gene pool did our son's light towhead emerge?
His face is all mine, but I've searched and searched for my husband in there somewhere and … nada.
Oh no! I'm a fruit fly!
But wait … our son may not look anything like my husband, but his personality is all my dad. And that dimpled chin? That comes from my husband's grandfather. What about his blond hair, though? Could that possibly be my crazy ex-boyfriend's? God, no!
But then you can look at photos of my husband and me at 5. Both of us were light-haired. Maybe not AS blond as our son, but blond all the same.
Whew. I got a little lost there for a minute. It's okay. My boy is all ours. We are humans, not flies, after all. And there was nearly a decade between my son's birth and my last date with that old ex.
His paternity is safe. Had me scared for a minute there, crazy study!
Have you ever thought your kid looked like an ex?
Image via Drew XXX/Flickr
