eye color

[Principessa]

In the past the concept of inheriting eye color was considered simple. A la parents brown and blue eyed can give 3/4 brown eyed and 1/4 blue eyed children (assuming the brown eyed parent is heterozygote). But over time it was noticed that the inheritance of eye color is not that simple. Especially as beside the pure colors there are also a lot of mixtures. Of weird colors popping up, not expected based on the eye-color of the direct (blood) relatives.

For example in the past I thought I had brown eyes. But as you would look into my eyes now, dependend on the angle and light, you would notice a bit brown, dark green and grey. My parents have grey (dad) and brown (mom) eyes, while my paternal grandparents had both grey-blue and maternal grandparents blue and brown. It isn't known where the green is coming from (perhaps a blend of the brown and grey/blue or so)

An interesting phenomenon.

[Thistle]

I've green eyes, pure green. Mom is brown and dad's were brown, grandparents all 4 had brownish eyes. It seems that one of my great-grandpas had green eyes. Interesting is my sister has blue eyes (deep blue) and one of our great-grandparents had blue eyes too. We both got eye colors from 3 generations back.

[Lady Willoughby]

It's really shocking the amount of people who don't have even a basic understanding of all the variables. If I had a nickel for every time I had to explain that our daughter could have inherited her bright blue eyes from 3 of her blue eyed great great parents or my blue eyed father I could retire.

I've had people get right into my face to look and make sure they were seeing correctly that I have green eyes while my husband has brown & then rather rudely suggest it's questionable that we had a blue eyed child. 

[Thistle]

My mom had the same experience with me and my sister. She would roll her eyes and go "not again"

[PeDe]

I had jade green eyes growing up, light but intense colour.....my mom told me about experiences where people came up to her addressed my eye colour, and pitied her that she had a blind child          LOOOOOOOOL

Over the course of the years, my eyes decided to add two more olours, I have orange around my pupil, then jade green, and a dark green outer rim. Depending on the light and/or angle, you think they are either light Hazel, or Jade green....very funny.

My mom had bright blue eyes + and blond hair; my father had blue/grey eyes and auburn hair; my sister has blue eyes and blond hair; my son's eyes look brown, but they are bottle green....really neat.

[Suzerain]

Eye colour is indeed an interesting phenomenon. In addition to inheritance there are such things as mutations that might affect your eye colour randomly.

My eyes are multicoloured and have changed colour with age. It's weird.

[editorathome]

So many Dishers with green eyes - I'm envious! (mine are brown)

[lynda]

on my passport they say my eyes are green.      On my drivers license they say blue.

[Suzerain]

on my passport they say my eyes are green.      On my drivers license they say blue.

 

Luckily mine say nothing about my physical appearance, otherwise they'd have to change it I guess with the eye colour changing! 

And I fear in the future my height might change too, sadly.

[editorathome]

on my passport they say my eyes are green.      On my drivers license they say blue.

What does your mirror say?

[Principessa]

on my passport they say my eyes are green.      On my drivers license they say blue.

What does your mirror say?

Well then also define the angle you look into them, with specifications of the light.
In the past a lady (a hairdresser) said to me I should use a red color for my hair, because I had green eyes
Later a guy was challenged by a friend to define eye color of some strangers. He had a look at me and my eyes and said typical brown eyes.
And past weekend the new hairdresser I visited said my eyes were more grey colored.

[carolzebs]

Indeed it is an interesting topic. I used to think the thing about the eye colour "jumping a generation" to be bullshit, but I have seen it in so many couples (children of couples both with brown eyes, for example, inheriting blue or green eyes from a grandparent or great-grandparent).

I have brown eyes (so have the last two generations of direct family) and my husband has blue eyes (so has the last three generations in all his family!). I have only one daughter, and as I was pregnant I was so sure she would be born with brown eyes that I told my husband: "If she is born with brown eyes it is the evidence of the power of my blood". Needless to say my daughter has blue eyes!

Another story: as she was a baby, I was all proud of her blue eyes.  So I met this woman casually in a shop, she looks at my daughter and says: "Oh, she has blue eyes". I smiled all happy, but the lady looked disappointed. She says to me then: "You know, I have four children. First one was born, blue eyes; second one was born, blues eyes;third was born, blue eyes. Finally in the forth one I got lucky and she was born with beautiful brown eyes like her father".
I went away smiling, it is all always a matter of perspective. 

[getafix]

eye colours always reminds me of this:

https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/Stereotypng

G

[Lizardcandy]

I have two kids, my oldest has the most incredible sea-grey eyes, and my little one has deep chocolate brown eyes.

My husband and I both have green/brown hazel eyes.  Eye color is complex! My father in law has blue eyes and my grandmother had blue eyes and my mom's eyes are green, but all the other family members have brown eyes.

[Princess BlueEyes]

Very interesting topic.  My paternal grandparents had blue-grey and hazel eyes. My maternal grandparents both had blue-grey.

My father has grey eyes, my mother has blue-grey and my three siblings all have blue-grey eyes.

My eyes are intensely blue and sometimes take on a turquoise hue. When I am very well rested even the whites can appear to be a very pale blue.  No one in my family (aunts, uncles, cousins) have eyes that are the same colour as mine; blood relatives have blue-grey, hazel or light brown.

I have had people say my eyes are so blue that it almost hurts to look at them.       Others - even strangers - ask me where I got them or if they are real.      A WWII navy veteran tells me they are the colour of the Aegean Sea. 

It seems I may have inherited my eye colour from my maternal grandfather's mother's sister who is remembered to have had very bright blue eyes.

Clearly not as straight-forward as we were taught in biology class.