Via my guiltiest pleasure, “ohnotheydidnt“– behold, Ikhyd Edgar Arular Bronfman (click to enlarge):
I can’t believe Ikhyd is so big! He is almost 18-months old. The last time we showed you a picture of him, it was almost exactly a year ago; Abhi, alarmed by Ikhyd’s onesie, was ardently pleading with PETA to take on the cause of albino ladybugs. No word on whether PETA has made any progress with that, but there are plenty of words about Mathangi’s new album (mixed reviews) and cute offspring (certified hit). On a wholly superficial and politically incorrect note, I’m always fascinated by babies, specifically how they turn out– it’s so interesting to see which parent they take after. And no, let me issue the obligatory disclaimer: I don’t believe that interracial children are automatically extra-gorgeous, I will not be so cliche-ridden and insensitive as to generalize, stereotype and deny that a few of them, like the rest of us, are quite plain looking. They are not magical hybrids, blah blah blah.
No, it’s more of a pure sense of wonder at how the genetic lottery works. I have a distant cousin (100% Malayalee, wears the same shade of makeup I do) who married a very Irish person; her baby looks white. Not ethnic at all. Black Irish, if anything. On his father’s side, Ikhyd’s grandmother is African-American and his grandfather is white and Jewish (and reeeeeally rich); this beautiful baby boy is black, white and brown but he looks mad desi to me– like a little kid I’d see running around at church or a family party. Whatevs, yo. Yenjoy some cute with your day. 🙂
Cute! Baby pics are addictive, so I wasn’t surprised to discover that some blogs focus just on babies of celebs. On that note, here’s a recent photo of Padma Lakshmi’s little daughter wearing the tiniest anklets and huge ear muffs.
Cute kid, but why does his pacifier look so weird? I can’t place my finger on it, but it looks kinda…poopy.
Wow, that is one cute baby. MIA is a hot mess in that outfit, though.
The genetic lottery is interesting. My babe looks exactly like her (white, can-trace-some-ancestors-back-to-1600s-New-England) dad, though many of her facial expressions look like my family members (all born in S. India except me). She’s still under a year old so I’m curious to see how/if that changes as she gets older.
I’ve had a few strangers in public ask me if she’s mine 😛 which is sort of annoying but well-intentioned and just curious, I guess.
Anna, it’s too bad you don’t live near Seattle. I get the sense you love babies and you’d be that kickass cool glamorous babysitter that all the little girls love 🙂
@Miki – his paci is probably one of those German-made natural rubber super expensive ones. I can’t remember the brand but they do look kind of weird. Don’t ask why I know this…
i luv babies. very cute.
this sort of “genetic mash up” is why it’s pretty stupid when people say we’re losing diversity through interracial pairings; the diversity is transmuted and recombined.
I’ve had a few strangers in public ask me if she’s mine 😛 which is sort of annoying but well-intentioned and just curious, I guess.
i’ve heard this from other parents in your situation (sometimes different racial combinations obviously). i hope that as this becomes more common people really re-norm their politeness boundaries. my parents had some family friends in the 80s, and the dad was bangladeshi and mom very fair red-headed irish american. the kids ended up brown-haired, with brunette white skin and hazel-green eyes. the dad told a story once when in the late 70s the one of the kids was ill he took him to the hospital, and he was pretty sure that the nurse was wondering if he’d kidnapped a white kids she was acting so weird.
hubby looks indian. Seagrams must make JWBlack or something.
@razib – hi! I love reading your comments since I used to be a molecular biologist in a past life.
Where we live, probably half (or more!) of the couples I see out and about are interracial, typically Asian/white, but I see others as well. It probably explains why I don’t get more weird questions when I’m out with BabyT. It’s also why I’m really glad she’s going to grow up in this city, and hopefully will go through less angsty racial stuff than I did growing up.
In the 70s/80s though, I bet that was really rough.
Being a former biologist, I should have known better but for some reason when I was pregnant I was 100% sure our baby would have black hair, dark brown eyes and be some intermediate shade of brown. Boy was I surprised when she was born with steel grey/blue eyes that stuck around for months, until eventually turning into a light brown/green/hazelish color. And she has the same medium-dark brown hair as her dad. Hooray for genetics 😀
Being a former biologist, I should have known better but for some reason when I was pregnant I was 100% sure our baby would have black hair, dark brown eyes and be some intermediate shade of brown. Boy was I surprised when she was born with steel grey/blue eyes that stuck around for months, until eventually turning into a light brown/green/hazelish color. And she has the same medium-dark brown hair as her dad. Hooray for genetics 😀
well, i got the 23andme stuff done for my partner and i. you can “cross” for traits that they’ve sequenced now. to switch back into bio-lingo, i was a bit chagrined to find out that she has more heterozygosity on pigment related genes than i do (i have a lot of variation across genes, but i’m homozygous on a given locus), since i’m in the middle of the human distribution and she is on the tail. running the eye color genes we’ve got in our portfolio i’ve given a 60% probability that any given child will have unequivocally brown eyes. 0-5% probability of blue eyes. if you run the math with multiple offspring you’re bound to get some variance.
very cute baby btw. intense but adorable expression.
M.I.A.’s son is adorable! I love M.I.A. she has her own style and fashion sense! I also love the fact that M.I.A. she isn’t a follower she speaks her mind and stands up for what she believes in.
@razib – thanks. Of course every mama likes compliments on her baby’s cuteness 🙂 But yeah, she tends to make some people uncomfortable because she will just stare and won’t smile until she’s warmed up to them. I suspect she’ll be an introvert like both of her parents.
The 23andme thing looks pretty cool. I didn’t look into it closely, but I’m assuming it’s a heck of a lot more scientific than those stupid “what breed is your dog?” “DNA tests”? (My fave are the ones where they ask you to send in a picture. I assume the company throws out your blood sample at that point and takes a poll of the office workers to decide what they think your dog is.)
but I’m assuming it’s a heck of a lot more scientific than those stupid “what breed is your dog?” “DNA tests”?
550,000 SNPs. and if you have complete edition (i do) you can download them and do your own analysis. one interesting point is that i found out that both me and my partner are lactose intolerant genetically. neither of us carry the persistent variant of LCT. that’s kind of useful to know once we have kids.
Yes! Socks with sandals are back! I’m so ahead of the curve on this one.
Aww, that’s sweet. I do love babies and I’d like to think that I am that Chechi, Akka, Auntie. 🙂
Clever boy. 😉
I paid a decent amount for one of those “stupid” DNA tests after we rescued a surrendered puppy from the Humane Society. We had been told that she was a Cocker Spaniel-Beagle but the problem was, she didn’t act or look like a Beagle– or a Cocker. We knew her Mom was a Cocker Spaniel, for sure. I swabbed her cheek 16 times and six weeks later, I found out that she was a Cocker- Boston Terrier, which explained her anomalous coloring, eyes, back leg shape, fur type and lack of barking. The test asked us to send in a picture because they create a certificate with it. I forgot to enclose one and got a certificate with an unfortunate blank spot. Maybe I’m hyper-loyal to Davis and all the cool genetics work occurring there, but I think they were pretty legit.
I love her too, but her own fashion sense is criminal at best. She makes Rihanna’s wardrobe look tastefully understated and well-planned.
I’m very sorry to hear that. May your style rest in peace.
@ANNA I’d trust a dog DNA test from Davis (which has the best vet school in the country from what i hear!). I read an article in a magazine that did tests from 3 different places and got three different answers. I’m sure it’s not easy to figure out what breed a mutt-dog is given all the genetic variation in dogs, but those tests made me feel like they were made up to separate us dog lovers from our hard earned money. I’ve wanted to know forever what kind of dog our Peanut is – he’s Rottweiler and something else, but I can’t bring myself to pay for one of those after reading the article. Not sure if they used the one at UCD or not.
MIA’s baby is cute for sure. I just wish MIA would stop singing, if you can call that singing and what she makes music!
M.I.A.’s fiance is not Indian he is mixed race/ The man is is part African American and white European.
for the humor/context challenged, manju was joking 🙂
No claims of “genocidie” by MIA, whilst taking her baby out? Now that’s strange.
MIA is yet another expat uspifier (only Chennai Tamizh guys would understand that term). She does all her politiciking (and the drivel she calls music) from the safe confines of foreign shores. But does her family make for a fine picture. Wow! they are beautiful!
From the picture, I also just assumed MIA’s man was desi until I actually read the post.
I guess it shows the power of context; put him next to a desi woman, on a desi blog, and he looks desi. Put him in a different context and he might be seen as black.
That’s a somewhat desi hairstyle he’s rocking, though; I think that’s the clincher.
That baby is going to be so rich.
Me thinks part of Anna’s adoration of MIA comes from the similarity in their looks 😛
Mia is pretty. I am just getting into her music.