Your baby looks like your Ex

Your baby looks like your
ex? This research is scarier
than Alien

Your ex is not meant to lurk inside you,
defying your current partner’s sperm and
waiting to break forth in miniature form
‘What you won’t often witness is the father
turning tenderly to the mother and murmuring,
‘Hey, he looks just like Phil! You know, your ex?
With the motorbike, and sociopathic tendencies?'.'
Photograph: Alamy
Parents and parenting Family Children
Thursday 2 October 2014 08.08 EDT
If you were to spend time in a maternity
ward listening to proud new parents,
you’d definitely hear them discussing
their offspring’s genetic heritage. Does
the new baby have her eyes or his?
Could that be great Uncle Charlie’s nose?
What you won’t often witness is the
father turning tenderly to the mother and
murmuring, “Hey, he looks just like Phil!
You know, your ex? With the motorbike,
and sociopathic tendencies?” But new
research suggests that this scenario is
more plausible than it sounds.
It has been shown that newborns may
resemble a mother’s previous sexual
partner, after scientists at the University
of South Wales observed an instance of
telegony – physical traits of previous
sexual partners being passed down to
future children.
The researchers found that, for fruit flies,
the size of the offspring matched the size
of the first male the mother mated with –
not its biological father. It is thought that
molecules of the semen produced by the
first partner might be absorbed by the
mother’s immature eggs.
“We don’t know yet whether this applies
to other species,” explains author of the
study, Dr Angela Crean. Too late, Dr
Crean! I’m already working my way
through a mental Powerpoint
presentation of my exes and trying to
work out whether I can travel back in
time with a box of Durex.
The idea of our unborn children
resembling partners past might initially
fill us with horror, no matter how
amicably your relationship ended. Your
ex is not supposed to lurk inside you,
waiting to burst forth in miniature form.
This idea is scarier than Alien.
I’m sure plenty of prospective mothers
feel incredibly guilty about the fact that
they might be, unwittingly, about to fill
the world with children who blow their
nose on their sleeves, claim they have a
moral objection to booking restaurants,
and pronounce the eighth letter of the
alphabet “haitch”.
However, if the hypothesis holds, it
might not be entirely bad news. Whether
we like it or not, the people we choose to
date, and sleep with, reflect something of
ourselves. It’s easy to write off past
relationships in the same way we
shudder at old pictures in which you’re
wearing embellished, stonewashed
denim. “Past me was such an idiot!” I
often think. “I’m much wiser now.” But
we ought to give our old selves more
credit for doing what seemed right at the
time – or at least acknowledge the fact
that every decision which feels right now
could seem just as foolish in five years.
If your children do share some traits with
your former partners, it probably only
shows the way that you were previously
nurtured affects their nature. You’re
human, and just as you’ll face difficult
choices and make mistakes after they’re
born, the way you behaved before they
were born could impact on them too.
Essentially, you have to accept that your
old partners had admirable qualities
which drew you to them in the first
place, and that you’d be happy to pass
them on to a child - or you have to admit
that your current partner might also have
bad qualities, and you’d be better off if
you didn’t have children with anyone.
Despite the fact there’s still no solid
evidence that the study applies to human
reproduction, small children and exes
can be equally irritating. You might,
sleep deprived and frazzled, look at the
freshly bathed toddler who has just
started to massage their scalp with
spaghetti hoops and think, “My ex used
to make me feel this weepy and panicky!
This must be his baby!” – when they
don’t really have anything in common,
just that your former partner used to act
like a big baby and your infant child
actually is one.
Ultimately, it’s down to you to teach your
child to be a responsible citizen and
happy human being. You may not have
had the power to change your ex’s worst
habits, but if the theory of telegony is
true, you can find some satisfaction in
taking control of the way their
descendants behave.