Why all mums say baby looks just like daddy

 Add your view

2006/11/More than a Touch of Frost: David Jason and Sophie May at six weeks

It is a much-favoured pastime for parents, spotting the parental likenesses in their new arrival.

But there may be more to mummy's assessment than meets the eye (or the nose, mouth or dimpled chin).

Gallery...

Babies who look like their dads

A new mother, research suggests, is most likely to find paternal similarities in her baby, even when there aren't any.

Her motives, according to the experts, are self-serving and built firmly into her evolutionary psyche.

Seemingly innocent comments such as 'He's got his father's eyes' or 'She's got her daddy's hair' are in fact a concerted, if subconscious, effort by a mother to convince their partner that he really is the father.

Scientists who conducted the research believe the female strategy has evolved over time to allay male anxiety about paternity. If a father is reassured that the child looks just like him, it makes him fatherly and more prepared to look after both infant and mother, they conclude.

There are many high-profile instances in which such devious tactics would not appear to be necessary, of course. Mick Jagger insisted on a DNA test to prove

Scientists who conducted the research believe the female strategy has evolved over time to allay male anxiety about paternity. If a paternity of his son Lucas by model Luciana Morad, despite facial traits which have since developed into a quite dramatic likeness.

Although Jagger disputed paternity until it was proved he was the father, he is now close to his son and contributes to his upkeep.

Boris Becker, who also disputed parenthood following a fleeting affair - in his case a fumble in a restaurant broom cupboard - need hardly have bothered with the DNA test, as the unmistakable features of red-haired Anna, now six, began to emerge.

Jamie Oliver (daughter Poppy Honey), David Jason (Sophie May), Rod Stewart (Alastair) and Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff (Holly), are other examples of nature taking care of paternal confirmation.

Those who took part in the survey, however, appear to have had no such assistance. Sixty-nine families with a total of 83 children up to the age of six were studied by scientists from Sheffield University and Montpellier University in France. The parents-were asked who their babies and children most resembled.

Pictures of the children were then shown to 209 independent judges who were asked to study them for similarities to their parents, and the two sets of results were then compared.

All the mothers said boys looked liked their father, and 77 per cent said girls looked like him too. More than eight out of ten men also thought the child took after them.

Yet the judges decided half the babies looked like mum, with only one in three looking like dad.

The report says: 'We found that mothers claim a paternal resemblance at birth that does not correspond to the actual resemblance, suggesting possible manipulation of the perception of facial resemblance to increase confidence of paternity.'

The research, to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour, found that for newborns, boys and girls actually resemble their mothers more.

Girls continue to resemble their mothers as they grow older, while boys begin to resemble their fathers more between the ages of two and three.

 

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter