A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Hi I have a question concerning genetics. So I have green eyes and brown curly hair and my boyfriend has brown eyes and black curly hair. Also, I am white and he is puerto rican. We have one child with brown eyes and brown curly hair with very light skin. I am curious to know if I will ever have a child with green eyes? My mother has green eyes and my father has brown. His mother has brown eyes and I think his father has lighter brown eyes? Has anyone had a child with green eyes when one of the parents had brown eyes? Im willing to keep having kids if I can get a green eyed child haha. Also, does anyone know if black hair or brown hair is more dominant? Sorry if this is a little confusing. Please share with me if you had a colored eyed child when a parent has brown eyes. (especially if the grandparents had brown eyes too). Thank you so much!! Reply to this Question
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male
reader, EuropeanGuy87 +, writes (23 April 2011):
Depends, and don't listen to what I've seen some of the comments below..they don't make any sense..and this can't be answered because you did not put any details..First of all is your Husband European Hispanic or South American Native Puerto Rican ?? Here is the thing.. you cannot produce a child with blue or green eyes if you're husband has aboriginal ancestry (because those people don't have the gene mutation to produce light eyes). Blue and green eyes are very recessive, so the child needs a copy of that recessive gene from both parents in order to get green eyes. So if your husband and his family all have brown eyes..There are literally NO chance. What about your parents in law? You might need to be better prepared next time when you ask a genetic question so I can give you some statistics. I can tell you one thing for sure if any of your husband blood related family has light eyes.. then YES that means he has European influence and there are chances for you to have a child with light eyes.. but you might need to try many times, until an offspring has green eyes
I know this German girl got married with a pure blood Mexican guy .. they have 7 beautiful children and none have blue or green eyes.. 3 of the children got the dirty blond hair and a fair complexion..but literally all of them have dark brown eyes..
A
female
reader, RCK  +, writes (8 April 2010):
OK my husbands mum and dad both have brown eyes and their 3 kids have different coloured eyes. The eldest has hazel eyes, my husband has green eyes and the youngest has two tone hazel green eyes. Now the eldest son married a woman with medium brown eyes and they have a girl with the biggest blue eyes and blond hair. The youngest has 2 children with dark brown eyes person (samoan) and they too have a girl with the brightest and lightest blue eyes and their youngst girl has hazel eyes? We still haven't had any kids yet but either way they will be as gorgeous as all every little baby
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female
reader, RCK +, writes (8 April 2010):
OK my husbands mum and dad both have brown eyes and their 3 kids have different coloured eyes. The eldest has hazel eyes, my husband has green eyes and the youngest has two tone hazel green eyes. Now the eldest son married a woman with medium brown eyes and they have a girl with the biggest blue eyes and blond hair. The youngest has 2 children with dark brown eyes person (samoan) and they too have a girl with the brightest and lightest blue eyes and their youngst girl has hazel eyes? We still haven't had any kids yet but either way they will be as gorgeous as every little baby
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reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2010): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionHi everyone I want to tank you all for your postings so far. Having a child with green eyes is only important to me because green eyes are so rare and I loveeee green eyes. Race is not the thing, as almasdp was concerned about. If race were the thing then I would not be with a Puerto Rican lol. I would love to have a dark skinned child with green eyes omg they would be gorgeous! I want about five or six kids anyhow, but I wont go far enough to have a football team, but that was very funny and made me laugh lol. I guess I wont get my hopes up for a green eyed child because odds are it wont happen, but Im glad to hear that my grandchildren could have green eyes. I am going to do my best to find out what color eyes his dad has. His dad lives in Puerto Rico so he never sees him and he is not really sure what color eyes he has, maybe I will call his dad lol. Thank you all very much :).
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2010): Gergor Mendel discovered dominant and recessive genes by breeding pea plants. Purple flowers trump white flowers! Anyway, you really cant base anything off of other family members. The representation goes something like this in regards to eye color:
R r
r
R
If you make a chart like cross multiplying you get this:
RR Rr
rr
Rr
What the heck does that mean? LOL It means that there are dominant genes (R) and recessive (r). Sadly brown is dominant over green. Funny thing, my boyfriend has green eyes an I brown. We have a hazel eyed boy and a brown eyes girl. The chart there is the four possibilities a baby could get. The RR is deffinitely brown. The two Rr's are a combo or brown and green, so maybe brown or maybe hazel. somewhere in there though. The rr is deffinitely green.
Without being a genetic counselor I have no idea what gene types you and your boyfriend have. For instance he could have brown eyes from having a RR gene and you could have green eyes from a Rr gene. Then your chart would be this:
RR Rr
Rr
RR
the result in a child would be this:
RR Rr
RR RRRR RRRr
Rr RRRr RRrr
That has virtually no possibility for green eyes.
My advise hope, but don't keep trying until you have a green eyed baby because you may end up with 12 kids! LOL Good luck!
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2010): Yes of course your next child could have green eyes, gosh. But seriously , why would you care so much what colour eyes they had!
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A
male
reader, baddogbj  +, writes (7 April 2010):
 I have green eyes although neither of my parents do. None of my children do though. Having said that, my children all have red hair despite my wife being apparently 100% Han Chinese - born and bred in central China. Recessive genes (such as red hair or green eyes) can stay dormant for many generations.
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A
female
reader, Not My Name  +, writes (7 April 2010):
 This link may be useful -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color
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A
female
reader, SirenaBlusera  +, writes (7 April 2010):
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punnett_square
My square didn't turn out like I wanted it to.
Here's a better example on Wiki.
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A
female
reader, SirenaBlusera +, writes (7 April 2010):
Genetics is a complicated discipline, but I'll just give the rules of thumb.
It depends on your boyfriend's genotype.
A quick lesson:
phenotype: This means the physical traits you can see... ie, brown eyes, green eyes, red hair, black hair, white fur and pink eyes in guinea pigs.
genotyhpe: A person or animals' genetic makeup.
Recessive traits, dominant traits, recessive genes and dominant genes.
For example, green eyes are a recessive trait. If you have a recessive and a dominant gene, then you will get the dominant trait.
Some qualities, like eye colour, are controlled by two genes... one from mom, one from dad. There are dominant and recessive traits. If a trait is dominant, then that means that if you have one dominant and one recessive gene, you will have the dominant trait. If a trait is recessive, then you have to have two recessive genes in order to have that trait.
Every person has two genes for eye colour. You get one from mom, and one from dad. Brown eyes are dominant over green eyes. That means that if a person inherits a green eye gene, and a brown eye gene, that person will have brown eyes. However, they will still carry the gene for green eyes, and be able to pass it down to their kids.
I have brown eyes (dominant), but my mom has greenish (let's just say green to simplify things) eyes. Ok. So, I carry the gene for green eyes. How do I know I carry the green eye gene? Because my mom passed it down to me. She has green eyes, a recessive trait.
I'm what's called heterozygous dominant, btw. It just means I have the dominant trait, but I have a dominant gene and a recessive gene.
Even though I have brown eyes, I could pass the green eye gene along to my kid, if I were to have a kid.
The only way a kid can have green eyes, as a rule, is if each parent passes on a gene for green eyes.
It's possible for a brown eyed person to be a carrier of the green eye gene (like me), but it's not possible for a green eyed person to be a carrier of the brown eyed gene. If you were a carrier of the dominant gene, you'd have the dominant trait.
Since your boyfriend has brown eyes, he could technically carry the gene for green eyes (most Puerto Ricans are dark, but we're saying technically). Brown is dominant over green, so if he has two brown eye genes, or one brown eye gene and one green eye gene, he's still gonna have brown eyes.
Two dominant genes means that you're homozygous dominant. Heterozygous dominant means that you have one recessive, and one dominant, gene.
In order for you to have a kid with green eyes, your boyfriend would have to not only be a carrier of the green eye gene (heterozygous dominant), but also pass it down to the kid.
byt the way, the terms heterozygous and homozygous have nothing to do with sexual orientation. They just define genetic makeup.
How do we know if he's a heterozygous dominant or homozygous dominant? The only way to know for SURE is if he has a green eyed parent. I know I have the recessive gene because my mom has it, so she can only pass a recessive gene to me.
In animals, when they are trying to determine their genotype, they do a "test cross." This means that they breed the animal with another animal who is recessive. For example, if you breed a black guinea pig (dominant) with an albino guinea pig (recessive) and some of the babies are albinos, then the black guinea pig is a carrier of the albino gene (heterozygous dominant).
Of course, in humans it would be unethical to do a test cross, lol.
I think that my dad is most likely homozygous dominant because my bro also has dark brown eyes.
Which gene will I pass on, should I have a kid (a big IF)? It's totally random, luck of the draw.
So what's the chance of the two of you having a green eyed kid?
You have green eyes, that's recessive, so you'll pass on a green eye gene to the kid.
If your boyfriend has two brown eye genes, you'll have a brown eyed kid, because he will pass down a brown eye gene.
If your boyfriend has a green eye gene and a brown eye gene, then there's a 50 50 chance your kid will have green eyes.
In genetics we have a Punnett square. It's a tool that shows the probability of a certain genotype/phenotype.
Let's say that your boyfriend has a brown eye gene (B) and a green eye gene (b). So his genotype, let's say (hypothetically) is Bb. Your genotype is bb.
You: bb
Your boyfriend: Bb(I'm just speculating; we don't know his real genotype)
What's the chance of a green eyed kid, given this information?
B | b ---Your bf
______________
b Bb | bb
______________
b Bb | bb
______________
^
|
You
You see, there are four possible outcomes. There's a fifty percent chance that your kid will have a genotype of Bb (resulting in brown eyes) and a fifty percent chance of a genotype of bb (green eyes).
The odds are the same each time you have a kid, like flipping a coin.
I hope this helps...
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A
female
reader, Lexie88 +, writes (7 April 2010):
 I doubt you'll ever have a child with him who is blue or green eyed. I think he'd have to carry a blue/green recessive gene for that to happen, and being Puerto Rican makes me think that both his genes are for brown eyes.
My mum has brown eyes and my dad green, I'm green eyed and my sis is blue. One of my mum's sisters has green/hazel eyes so I think they have the recessive genes in their family, and although my mum's eyes are brown, I think she has a brown and a blue/green gene, and so I've gotten the green eyes.
But why is eye colour so important?
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A
female
reader, Not My Name +, writes (7 April 2010):
My mother has blue eyes, my father brown eyes, and I have green eyes. So yep, it's possible,for a brown eyes parent to produce a green eyes child, .. but you know that because your own father had brown eyes and you have green.
My ex has medium brown eyes. Our son was born with green/grey eyes but by three months they had turned to a really really dark brown. Way darker than anyone elses eyes in either of our families.
It used to be thought that eye color worked soley on dominant and recessive principles meaning that brown always overrode all other colors, blue was only possible if the parents had blue eyes or carried a recessive (not displayed) gene for it, grey was a diluted version of blue, and that green being the rarest color, was something that could occassionally come out from parents carrying blue or blue recessives on both sides.
It is now know that it is a lot more complicated than that, that multiple genes are responsible and that a persons melanin (pigmentations) levels affect the colors too.
Still tho, brown is the most common eye color, followed by blue, with the rarest color being green - so odds are stacked against you for starters, ..and eye color alone is certainly not a reason to keep having children. You might end up with a football team and not a green eye in sight.
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