I'll let you be the judge. Here is my daughter at 16 (she's 23 now) and me when I was 18.

{{!gwi}}

Jodi-

Jodi--that is almost eerie! You look exactly alike!

Parts of them..But sometimes it's hard for people to see past their skin tone to realize just how much they look like me.

Wow, Jodi! That's uncanny!

My daughter looks a lot like me, except she has shorter legs. My son looks a lot like his dad, except he is blond and fair skinned and his father is Italian-with dark skin and very dark hair. They look like a salt and pepper version of each other.

Lauren looks a little bit like me, her dimples, chin and basic shape of her face, and she is built like me from the hips down. She has her father's family's frizzy hair (which she absolutely hates), their eyes and her grandmother's mouth and that side of the family's chest. She kinda has a combo of her father and my nose.

Alex looks kinda like my brother, Bill, when he was younger. Has eyes like my brother, David, and my dad's mom side of the family: big and brown (which are getting lighter as he gets older) He has my hair, straight and dark. He has his father's nose and height. He's also build more like his father, thin.

Here is my dad and granddaddy:
{{!gwi}}

And my great-grandmother (dad's dad's mom) and my aunt (dad's sister and me at her wedding (I was about 15 and she was 25):
{{!gwi}}{{!gwi}}

I look like my mom in my senior picture but do not have it on this computer. otherwise, I have always looked taken after my dad's side of the family- physically, mentally, and health. My dad and I won a "mother-daughter look-a-like" contest when I was in ninth grade. Wonder where that picture is, we even had the same stance in the picture! LOL

Jodi...one would swear that those pictures are of the same person a few years apart.
Janie....I see a strong family resemblance in all of those pictures. Dottie

DS and I used to look more alike than we do now.
Several years ago my dad's youngest sister told me I look just like my mom.

We have been talking about this in our house lately. DS has been learning about genetics and dominant traits, and that dark hair and eyes are dominant. However, our children do not follow the "rules" about dominant traits that DS has learned.

I have light brown hair and hazel eyes now, but I was blond and blue eyed until I was almost 20. DH has always had very dark hair and green eyes. DS insists that by the rules he's learned of traits, the kids in our our family should be brown haired and green eyed. However, we have 3 kids with very blonde hair and light blue eyes; we have one with dark brown hair and green eyes. When people see me with all four, they think the dark haired one is a friend. When they realize they all belong to me, they are amused at the odds and say "he must look like his dad." The joke in my family is that I cloned DD. Pictures of the two of us at the same age are identical. (They also say she acts like me... and I wish I could deny it, but I can't.) So the three blondes look like me or my family; only the one looks like DH and his family (actually, he looks most like DH's father, and acts like him). My 6 y/o DS looks like my 15 y/o DS. DS's "girl" friends think it's cute. ;o) "Aww! Your little brother looks just like you!" It is cute. They also look like my nephews, my brother's boys. (Evidently, my genes are dominant over DH's, and I like rubbing it in. LOL)

I look like my mother. More so every day. I even sound like her. I find myself sitting like her, similar mannerisms. Scary!

When I was growing up, we girls had Dad's coloring, and my brother had my mother's. However, we did not even look alike. Now in our 60s and 70s, we look quite alike.

My kids don't look like us particularly or each other, but my grandson looks like my DH at this point. He has his mother's light coloring, but his father's chin.

MY DH has small feet, and all our kids have small feet. I would guess that small feet would be recessive, but.....

My two boys look like me (poor things) and my two girls look like their dad.

My kids look more like other relatives than they do me or dh. DS#1 looks a lot like fil in the face except for his lighter coloring and light green eyes. DS#2 got the recessive genes and looks more like one of my brothers than he does anyone else. He has my family's red hair, blue eyes and mil's lily white skin. He's a string bean with no butt like my dad's family. He does have dh's feet. DD looks like and acts like my sil except she has my lips and skin color. I'm not sure where her color of red hair comes from because dh and I both have red hair in our families, but I've never seen that particular shade.

My DD is a tiny petite thing and I am a Amazon. She does have some of my facial features as well as DH's, but she takes after DH's family in stature.

None of my kids look like me. I'm blonde, green eyed and they have dark hair and blue eyes, one has black hair and brown eyes. My husband comes from Italy so they took more after him. The amusing thing is my sisters children are adopted and they look just like their adoptive parents lol.

None of our kids look exactly like either of us. Maybe that's because DH and I have similar features, I don't know. Middle DS looks the most like me, though.

I was told when I was young that I looked just my Dad, who was rather slim and youngest brother, the farmer, and I resemble one another, but I have Dad'd hazel eyes and he has Mom's brown ones.

Mom had post-partum depression, I think, after her youngest, was in psych. hosp. for several years and died young, of TB.

Middle brother, who died in a car smash at 45, when his kids were teens, was stockier and rounder faced, as Mom's family and he had Mom's brown eyes, too.

We thought that neither of our young ones looked much like either Sue or me, but Kathryn, who had overbite, had a bit cut off of her protruding chin, like mine, when she had the overbite repaired.

They don't seem to resemble one another much, either.

ole joyful

My daughter and son look mostly like me..especially my daughter. They of course look like brother and sister but the scary thing is their kids...son has a daugher and DD has a son . Those kids are identical with blonde hair and huge light blue eyes even tho my kids have green eyes. Our family genes completely canceled out both other sides of their families.

My kids tend to look like both of us. When people see the other one of us with the kids they are always surprised. DH and I don't share any traits whatsoever but our kids have a bit of each of us and resemble whichever parent they are with.

DD shares more of DH's traits. DS mine.

Both kids are tall like dad. I'm the dwarf in the family at 5'1" to DD's 5'10" and DS's 6'2" or there-about.

I would say DD had my eyes while DS looks more like me in most other ways.

When people meet my DD and I separately they don't connect us.

When peeps who know DS meet me they often get that where have I seen her before thing going. Not so much because we look alike but we share so many mannerisms unique to us. The way we enter a room, the way we sit, hand position etc.

I remember one time my friend and I were in a place and DS and some friends walked in. His first time there. Now she knew him all along but she couldn't get over how he entered the room, where his friends stood in relation to him, place where he chose to sit (my usual spot but I was talking to some other peeps) and how he placed his hands on the table. She kept laughing and asking me if I "taught" him all my moves. Nope. Just is. Poor guy. LOL

People say we do.

My years of helping birth families and adult adoptees reunite was an eye-opener. Often there were physical resenblances, but more surprising were similar mannerisms, even preferences in food, colors, attraction to friends and partners. It was always 'grounding' for adoptees, who had often felt so 'different' within their adoptive families, even if they hadn't ever spoken about it. One young man said he no longer felt like "an alien, dropped from space". (This had nothing to do with adoptees' love for adoptive family; it's something that those of us who are not adopted wouldn't think about.) Studies of twins raised apart bear out these inherited similarities.

Our DS is the image of his birth father and his parental grandpather. ALL the boys in the family are clones of the parental line, and virtually all of the offspring are male.

I've often thought that nature has a neat trick of making babies and very young children resemble their fathers -- a handy 'claiming' thing.

Chisue - My DH is adopted and was (sadly) adopted into an abusive family. He wound up leaving them to live on a boys ranch and then a group home when he was in Jr. High. After he graduated he went in to the Marine Corp then later became a Paramedic. After our children were born he decided to get his "non identifying" information from the state and found out his birth father had been in the Marines and his birth grandmother was a nurse. I thought that was interesting. I've tried to convince him to find his birth family. I think it would be so great to find people that look like you and possibly siblings, but it's such a personal decision. One of our sons has a nose that doesn't look like anyone else in our family, and that is so intriguing to me. I'd also like to know about medical history. Unfortunately, DH's adoptive family was so bad that he says he's afraid to either open the door to yet another messed up family or find out how great it could have been. I can't help him with that.

Our daughters don't look like us at all. But our older daughter looks just like my husband's aunt. I don't have pics, sorry!

Each of my kids have "parts" of me in them, but none really resembles me im my opinion. DS got his coloring from HIS dad, but in every other way including personality, is a exact replica of my dad even though he looks nothing like my dad.

Anyone who was at the Fredericksburg get together knows I look like my mom..alot!

Not one little bit.

If I hadn't given birth to him, I'd swear my husband cheated on me ;)

When people see pictures of my DS, they know he is my child. He doesn't look like his sister at all but when I am with my DD, people say we look alike.
One day I went in to see her at work and a new co-worker went back to tell her someone was there to see her but she didn't know who it was.....and then added, but she looks just like you.

not so much now when oldest son was around 12 he borrowed one of my wigs and went trick or treating in the apartment complex people thought it was me .

Not at all; I'm caucasian and my daughter is East Indian. One day she said, "Mommy, I wish you were brown so we'd all match." I said, "Honey, we do - our hearts match perfectly."

danihoney -- My DH is also an adoptee. He was never told and only found out after his adoptive (and emotionally abusive) mother died. Our DS was about nine at the time.

It took DH a little time to decide to search. I'd hoped very much he would find a loving birth mom, but she was so mired in her *shame* that she couldn't be forthcoming. She had gone on to marry his birthfather; had two children with first husband and two with birthfather; many grandchildren she was afraid would 'judge' her.

However, even in that situation, he did meet his eldest sibling (half-brother) who gave him photos of the family. DH is a virtual twin of the youngest sib, a girl.

Even though there was no big welcoming family, DH got what all the adoptees I've worked with got: a sense of who they are via birth and who via adoption; who they LOOK LIKE; and answers direct from the 'horse's mouth' about 'why' they were given up. (Only social workers and adoptive parents use the term 'placed for adoption'. it doesn't feel that way to adoptees and it doesn't feel that way to most birthmoms, either. Adoptees feel abandoned and most birthmoms weren't given the *choice* that 'placement' infers.)

Search means flouting a whole society that doesn't want to think about a dark side to adoption, and it means giving up long-nurtured fantasies. Most people I know were strengthened by doing it and having sure knowledge to replace the 'maybe's' -- regardless of what was found. But, it has to be the individual's choice -- much as dear wives or husbands think it would be beneficial.

I have been one of few adoptive parents who embraced search. Many were afraid to 'lose' their 'child' or that he or she would be 'hurt' by finding the truth. But, a strange thing happened after search, when the adoptive family almost always became stronger; there was no longer some unknown to fear.

missindia2020 -- Might you have pushed away your daughter's wish to talk frankly with you about her feelings of being adopted and 'non-matching' when you changing the direction of her question with your reply?

Our DS once expressed something similar, saying it would have been so much 'simpler' if he'd just been born into our family! He and I went on to talk about both the sad and happy parts of how we DID become family.

As adoptive parents, we think much less about the fact of adoption than our adopted children do. We have our child, our family, but the adoptee has also lost something most people take for granted.

I remember one young boy, Chinese by birth, who asked to know all about China. Having been given books and pictures and told about that great country...his question was, "How can it be that in a country with so many people nobody wanted ME?"

Even for 'matching, white, infant-placed' adoptees, life presents daily events where their difference hits them: A neighbor has a baby and the family 'claims' it, talking about it having 'Grandpa's nose' and 'eyes like Auntie So-and-so'; there's a school project on genetics or to make a family tree; a little friend has a CabbagePatch doll that came with 'adoption papers'.

Adult adoptees I've known fall into two categories: The minority claim to have no interest in the facts of their adoption or their families of origin. The majority want to know, but fear hurting or alienating their adoptive parents. Lucky ones have adoptive parents who are willing to discuss real feelings without emotional blackmail.

No, my son looks like his Italian father with the darker Italian features, dark hair, olive skin and brown eyes. I am fair skinned with blond hair and blue eyes.

Oh, I forgot to mention that my dog looks more like me, other than the eye color. LOL! We have the same hair color.

Chisue, she is 7. I don't think she has really deep feelings about it yet. We are VERY close and VERY open. We talk about anything and everything. She was 4 when she said that.

missindia2020
I think you answered perfectly TMI too soon could be harming.

Our DS had questions when he was in pre-K. "Where is my birthmother? Is she OK? Why didn't she keep me?" It's hard to explain these things to a child below the age of reason, but seven is perfect timing, and...she is putting a toe in the water. Believe me, she has feelings about it.