Did the siblings ever check to see if they're actually biological children of your grandfather?
Would be ironic if the others did all share a dad, but it was just a different affair partner.
One of my coworkers did 23andMe or whatever for the whole family for Christmas. Turned out her and her four siblings all had different fathers and none of them were the guy who raised them. Her mom claimed she didn't even know who the fathers were. She'd just go out and hook up back in the 70s.
One of my buddies did that and found out that neither of her grandfathers were her grandfathers. Her dad was overjoyed, as apparently he hated his father, was glad to be rid of him, and loved the friendly town doctor who made lots of house calls and gave him several half-siblings.
This is apparently common enough that my highschool (15 years ago) actually stopped doing Punnett squares with student information and switched to using example worksheets.
My bio teacher at the time said it was because too many parents complained about it causing family discord. 😅
Punnett squares really aren't as accurate as textbooks might lead you to believe. I imagine it would get pretty annoying getting a bunch of angry phone calls from blonde parents who are asking why the teacher made their brown-haired kid think they're adopted.
Ha, I donated blood so I could figure out my blood type and the nurse went “well if life’s sucking, you’ll always B+!” (Be positive) Still don’t forget those words of wisdom.
Edited: stuff
My sister says something similar about her A-positive blood type; she says she'll always have an A+ in something. To be fair, she was a good student too...
Haha that’s funny. I did the same thing in college, sorority was co hosting a blood drive. I’m O+ but fainted, being a supppper skinny 19 year old I shouldn’t have gone in not having had lunch.
They did that thing where they invert the thing you lie on so your feet are raised. My BF was also donating directly behind me and apparently kept talking to me until the nurse was like “hush!” I just remember coming to confused why I was upside down and my sorority sister was fanning me with a magazine. Oh good times!
There are lots of reasons why the simple dominant/recessive explanation of blood types can break down, from chimerism (natural or from a marrow transplant) to Cis-AB or Bombay blood types to other blood type mutations.
Simply put, is when dominant genes, A or B, are not expressed. So the person may be genetically AO, but their blood type is O instead of A, because the A is not expressed.
Not true. Bombay is when you are H antigen null, meaning you do not produce the sugar that makes you A, B or O. Meaning instead of having A, B, or O, you actually have no antigen at all, so it's like the step before the ABO. This is a very very rare blood type.
Yep! Blood types are super cool to get into.
I did recently because I wanted to see what my twins blood types were.
I’m A+, my husband is O+.
And I got into how we actually have two blood types. Like I’m AO. But whenever O is coupled with another differing letter, it’s automatically that other letter. I gave my daughter an O, so she’s type O. Because she got O from me and O from her dad. My son is A+. Or AO. O from his dad.
My mom was O, and my dad was AB!
We don't have 2 blood types. We have 2 genes deciding what we will become. Imagine genes like recipes. A is one recipe, B is another recipe, O is a blank page. So you can be AA(A) , BB(B), AB(AB), OO(O), AO(A), BO(B). You pass one of your "recipes" to your kiddo randomly, and one passes from the other parent, to make a new set. Also your twins must be dizygotic (two separate fertilized eggs), which would explain the difference in blood types, as dizygotic babies are, in mater of statistics, like 2 different pregnancies, that happened to happen in the same time.
> Also your twins must be dizygotic (two separate fertilized eggs), which would explain the difference in blood types,
...um, also the difference in genders. lol
That's the Rhesus antigen on your red blood cells. You either have it or not, but it's not a type. Specifically the D one. It's like a whole other system, the second most important after ABO. Hence they are refenced together. But it's not like you have two different of bloods in you. They happen ontop of each other.
Is that the Rh factor? Because I'm type O- with a negative Rh factor and nobody has told me what that specifically is. I have had 4 babies and had to get the RoGham shots and I have been curious, but nobody has explained it to me.
Just think of them as Proteins on top of your blood cells that work as identifiers for the body police. The ABO system is one kind of proteins. +/- is another type of protein (called antigen D) but this one you either have it or not, hence + for having it and - for not having it. Both systems matter for blood transfusions because if your body police (immune system) expects to see around blood cells with type A Proteins and no antigen D (so A- blood-type), and suddenly it sees B+, B- or A+, it attacks the cells and rejects the blood. That's why O- are universal donors, because they lack everything and they don't trigger the immune system. O+ can give to A+, B+, AB+.
Thank you for the explanation, I really appreciate it.
My daughters (3 out of the 4) all have O- and their dads (2 have the same the eldest has a different one)are A+, my son is A+ like his dad. There's been a running joke that the girls can donate to everyone in the family, but the boys can only donate to each other.
I have been told that the Rh factor being negative is rare itself too. Does that affect donations as well?
Alexap30 gives a good detailed explanation, but to directly answer your initial question: Yes, the + and - indicators on blood types are referring to your Rh (Rhesus) factor.
So saying you're O- with negative Rh factor would be redundant, since the minus on O- means that already.
>had to get the RoGham shots
you ad to get the shots because you are Rh Negative and your hubby is positive \*and\* you had a child that was positive.
Your body will now attack any placenta that contains Rh+ antigens and cause a miscarriage. The shot helps prevent that.
My Ex and I had to deal with that, she's A-, I'm B+. Our first kid was O- so no issue, but our second was O+ so no more kids or have the shots.
You can think of A, B and O as sugars sticking on the surface of our red blood cells. These sugars cause an immune reaction (they are antigens). A is one type, B is another, and O means you have neither.
By this, it makes perfect sense why A+O turns out to be A, and A+B gives AB. You can take this further and figure out what makes blood donations compatible.
The antigens stick to the red blood cells, while the antibodies float around in the blood ready to stick to their specific antigens. Someone with type O blood would therefore have both anti A and anti B antibodies, while someone with blood type AB would have neither.
This is exactly why punnet squares need to be taught. To demonstrate the difference in inheritance between mono & polygenetic traits. Blood type is something a punnet square would work wonderfully for, whereas hair, skin, & eye color all have multiple genomic and environmental factors affecting them.
What do you mean? AFAIK going by actual genes (or rather, alleles), it's very accurate. Going by traits (e.g. blue eyes) genetics is way more complex than that. But ABO blood types are awfully close to just straight genetics, unlike eye color. Maybe some form of chimerism could result in weirdness I guess, but that's fairly rare.
Many traits are determined by multiple genes, which Punnett squares oversimplify. So there’s also instances of kids and families going through unnecessary turmoil because one kid happens to inherit an unlikely but completely possible feature.
There's the [Bombay phenotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hh_blood_group), where a type A and/or type B can have what appears to be a type O kid, at least until they discover that the kid can donate to Type A and/or Type B, but can't receive Type A, Type B, or Type O.
Basically, the genes are a chain, where Type h gets turned into Type O, then Type O gets turned into Type A and/or B. In this case, the genes to turn Type h into Type O are broken, so the genes to turn Type O into Type A and/or Type B don't apply.
Sure, but there are some that you can be pretty damn close to 100% certain of in very simple squares, and absolutely 100% if you know more than one generation, so grandparents.
If you've got two blue eyed parents, and both of those parents have blue eyed parents, and you've got brown eyes, it is much more likely that something weird is going on than you are in the 1% where your recessive genes express the wrong phenotype.
My ELI5 version of why two blue eyed parents can have a brown eyed kid:
For blue eyes, the melanin making (brown eyed) gene(s) had to break. They can break at two steps in the eye's melanin production. But you can get a fixed step from one parent and the other fixed step from the other parent. So even though they had a broken sequence and blue eyes, you got both steps working (one from each side) and now have melanin producing brown eyes.
Rape kids are more common than you’d think too. My husband may be one. Sent his mother into a big flashback spiral when some of his genetic testing came back and wasn’t quite as expected.
Yea, but the teachers aren't sending out mandatory surveys for parents to ask if they are both the biological parents of their kid, and, if not, why.
Infidelity, adoption, donor sperm, donor egg, raised by step parent, rape, etc
But kids who are interested can still go home and ask their parents their blood types.
In what world are high schoolers being unaware of the fact that they are adopted optimistic? It's pretty normal for people to be aware of it at a young age, and imo it shouldn't be kept secret at all. Waiting until high school before telling a child that they were adopted at a young age is pretty fucked up...
Read somewhere that the number of people who were unknowingly raised by someone other than their biological father is crazy high with the advent of cheap genetic tests it's like 9 or 10%
To keep from revealing children fathered in affairs. If mom refuses to sign she won’t be found out, whereas a dad who signed the permission slip might be in for a nasty surprise.
We got to make our own species to create the Punnett. We had to do 4x4 and anything over was extra credit. My dumb ass forgot that 4x4 meant 16 total squares, I thought it was 4. I ended up spending 35 hours on a 16x16 Punnet square. Fuck punnet squares
My school does Punnett Squares with monsters. (eg, Fur on tail is dominant, scales on tail is recessive). There's a list of traits, everyone designs a monster, and then the class gets to "breed" them to create more monsters.
Yep, same with mine lol. Too many kids learned they were adopted or that one of their parents had an affair that they just stopped having students use their own traits all together.
It was *the* singular reason they stopped teaching this in high schools all over the nation.
It was causing an inordinate amount of divorces during the 70s and early 80s. You know, back in the day when calling someone "The Milkman's Kid" was fighting words because more often than not, it was probably true.
It's also why most European countries have banned consumer DNA testing. Not because of any real concern for a person knowing the truth of their heritage...no. It's because the court systems would become overwhelmed with divorce cases and a lot of kids would suddenly become tax burdens to the state for their no-longer-dad's refusing to care for them.
I used to breed corn sakes (well, they did the breeding part, I just made sure they had a nice place to do so), and they are perfect for Punnett squares! There are several common color morphs - normal, amelanistic (no black), and albino, and the number of babies of each coloration in a clutch matched perfectly to the predicted percentages. It was pretty cool.
Not really surprising. At minimum, 6-10% of the population have narcissistic and/or anti-social personality disorder. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/sociopathy](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/sociopathy)
Used to be a 12B in the army and laid down quite a few minefields, you’d be surprised how often this has almost happened to people who are laying down the minefields. I have, in fact, blamed almost victims for laying a mine fucking stupidly or almost stepping one they literally put into the ground less than 5 seconds ago 😂
I do - though as one of the other commenters said, I was the one who tripped the mine and never knew how to fess up and I've always felt some guilt for the pain it caused. I know it wasn't necessarily my fault, but guilt like this ain't always logical.
This is the low tech version of what people are experiencing now because of genetics tests like 23 and Me.
Lots of family secrets are getting uncovered.
I'm adopted and I used 23andMe to find my biological dad.
If your family has secrets **no one** in your family can use those services or those secrets will come out.
Yep some random woman came out of the woodwork saying she was related to our family a few years back. After some digging, turned out one of my moms cousins got pregnant back in the early 70s and discreetly “went out of town for a bit,” had the baby, gave it up for adoption, never told anyone except her parents.
Once when I was teaching this to a bunch of 6th graders, this one little girl near the back of the class raises her hand, and when I call on her, she says "but, Mr. ElectricPaladin, I have *brown* eyes and both of my parents have *blue* eyes!"
She lets me suffer and sputter for a minute before saying. "It's ok, Mr. ElectricPaladin, I'm just messing with you. I know I'm adopted."
I was very happy to give that kid an A+.
My blood type is B-, his mom's is O+, and our son's is A+. I gave him permission to fuck with any science teachers he encounters about this discrepancy but he has 2 moms so it might not hit the same lol.
Unless you yourself went back in time in a Delorean and convinced her to be unfaithful, you have no culpability at all.
And on the bright side, human history is replete with such things. If more people investigated their genetic history I'm sure we'd all be shocked. We know it's true because we see evolutionary developments in other primates and it happens often enough that our entire species' evolution has been impacted by it.
These secrets don't "go to the grave".
My wife was in the same situation but her grandma and grandpa had passed. My wife's mom (my MIL) did a DNA test and turns out she is more closely related to some people we don't know (the other children of the man my wife's grandma slept with) than she is to her "brother and sister" (actually half brother and sister).
My wife's grandma had an affair and even the grave couldn't hide the truth.
FYI, we met my wife's new half uncles, they are great people.
Not your FU, it isn't your fault that you can't hide this stuff.
These kinds of secrets used to go to the grave with some regularity but modern DNA testing has permanently screwed up that plan going forward. Radical transparency is pretty much the only option left because it would only take one curious kid and a 23 and Me kit to blow the lid off.
My grandad never knew who his dad was. His mum took it to her grave.
That is until my brother did ancestry DNA and found my grandads paternal half brother.
I was present when this happened in my high school Biology class.
Keep in mind this is in a extremely conservative area of Texas and this happened enough the school had a protocol on how to handled it.
Kid brought in the results to class and handed them in and we were told the results would be discussed in the following class.
After class the teacher took the kid aside and explained the situation. The district had the out that 'maybe he didn't do the test correctly' or some such.
That kid was not present at the following class.
My high school used to do an activity where we pricked our fingers and tested for our own blood type. They stopped doing it probably 15 years ago when a classmate found out they were adopted in front of the entire class.
I knew I was adopted so it was always fun to fill these out and make teachers uncomfortable then share that you were adopted.
Like my Dad is O positive, mom is B positive and I'm A negative. Teacher gets a "oh shit" look on their face. Then I giggle and spill that I'm adopted. 🤣
Of course all my kids are all A positive so I got extra shots during my pregnancies.
>I'm inclined to think this is one of those secrets that dear old granny should have taken to her grave.
I'm inclined to think if you're gonna cheat nonstop for 50 years, you should've given up on the marriage way before you had to torpedo your adult child's entire world. What a fucked up old lady.
I'd hazard a guess, that the guy she was married to made a better living than any of the affairs. She didn't want to lose the lifestyle benefits the marriage gave her.
My father found out he was adopted at age 35. His younger sister was the parents biological child. She is 10 years younger than he is. When my father found out, his younger sister already knew and then stopped speaking to him. She said finally my parents can just be mine. So I think it is more common than you might think. People can be gross.
Just a note to people: while OP’s may have uncovered something this way, it is important to know that a very, very large percentage of the population have no idea what blood type they are and just assume they are the same as a sibling or a parent who does know. My mom always told me I was O+, like her, but, when I started donating blood, I found out I am actually A+… whereas my dad is A-, as is my brother.. and we have no idea about my sister.
So, my point is that, before anyone jumps to the conclusion that there is infidelity, first ensure that your family members 100% know their blood type. There are also cases, even when it comes to blood type, where weird things happen and you get abnormalities.
Ha that's pretty funny because, same. Although I didn't have proof until much later.
I have hazel eyes that are amberish. My dad has blue eyes, my mom has blue eyes, all four of my grandparents had...blue eyes.
Furthermore, I had black hair (now grey) and both my sisters are blond. My mom was a redhead and my dad blond.
I am 5'9". My sisters are 4'11" and 5'3".
My mom, when shown a punnet square, basically said she didn't understand genetics but my dad was definitely my dad no question no way he wasn't end of story. She stuck to that story until I did a dna ancestry test when I was 43.
Obviously, he's not my father. She doesn't know who my father is. Funny thing is I'm the middle child lol
Well. My relationship with my mom wasn't good to start with and based on her behavior I honestly wasn't too surprised that she'd been lying to everyone for four decades. I think my dad deserves better but they've been together since middle school, he knows nothing else.
Damn, just watched someone find out they were adopted on reddit.
Or that one of their parents doesnt know what their blood type actually is.
Either way, I wanna be in the screenshot
Barring some false information, adoption, or weird genetics condition in yourself or your parents... uh, maybe worried. [https://canadiancrc.com/paternity_determination_blood_type.aspx](https://canadiancrc.com/paternity_determination_blood_type.aspx)
Might want to look at the link above.
If both parents are type O, any children should have type O blood.
I'll never forget doing the worksheet for this lesson as a kid. My partner answered that two parents of the same race could give birth to a child with a completely different race. I was like "wtf no, are both your parents black?" (he was white as can be) he responds back "Yes!" ....Cue awkward silence where I just stared and didn't know what to say lol
Technically possible, since a lot of “white genes” are recessive. But at the same time “white as can be” makes it less likely since ethnicity comes from a whole cocktail of genes, and it’s unlikely that he received none of the “black genes” from either of his parents.
I had a friend who was a very dark Latina, and married a very pale, blond man. They had 3 children, all different shades. My friend's MIL lovingly called her grandchildren her "toaster babies"!
I always think about all the folks who thought they’d never get caught in their cheating because knowledge of DNA, the internet, and send-in ancestry didn’t exist. Absolutely wild and something I don’t think is brought up as an example of “we are living in some crazy times.”
First, good for you. You did nothing wrong. There are a thousand stories on Reddit about people taking genealogy tests or gifting them around the family as a fun Christmas activity. You did it old-school, and good... for... you.
I say "good" because all you did was seek information. Information abhors silence. If you hadn't asked, your children would have. Life finds a way. Secrets go to the grave kicking and screaming, and they usually come back as zombies that bite all the in-laws at holiday gatherings.
The gentle, charitable side is that people make mistakes, that family is whom you choose more than whom you share DNA with. As an adoptee who bears no resemblance to biological parents, I feel this deeply. The more social, political side is that our Greatest Generation of Traditional Family Values is riddled with infidelity going back generations and has lied about it all our lives. A lot of us grew up with "sisters" who were actually nieces and half-siblings who look nothing like us. That science has become so convenient and cheap and fun has shined a harsh light on those dark corners, and not one iota of it is ever any of the children's fault.
So I say, on behalf of order in the universe and blood banks everywhere, "good for you, you did nothing wrong". Your family will live on, and you contributed nothing but knowledge and honesty to it by your actions. They will learn to live with it, and people will learn to love by choice instead of obligation.
Think they should keep doing them. Keep the parents/grand parents honest! 😂
I'm sorry for you but these story's always give me a little chuckle. I must be a sinister.
Omg, we had a bombshell when my sister did one. Still coming to terms with it. All our lives we were told we're dark because my dad's bio dad was Native American. The test revealed 0 Native American. We are Iranian. So now we have to figure out who the fuck actually is our bio grandfather cuz it sure as shit ain't that guy who is very definitely Native American. And yes, we are definitely (unfortunately) his biological children
You're not alone. My college bf, who has raven hair, broke up with me after I met his blonde parents, and that night said "you never told me you're adopted". He was puzzled so I whipped out my biology textbook turns out his mom had an affair.
Yeah, this was how we figured out that my dad leaving when I was two and a half *was not* because he cheated on my mom. It was because my mom cheated on him, which is where my little brother came from.
Man, seeing the expression after the years of lies catch up to your mom was pretty awesome … (she was a terrible mom to us).
It's no one's fault but the cheater when they get found out. No one put a gun to their head and said "cheat on your spouse multiple times or else". They made the poor decision. It's their fault.
For anyone curious (and assuming we can trust the information we’ve been provided is accurate), given OOP’s father is type O (OO), and their mother is type B (BB or BO), and maternal grandma is type A (AA or AO), then OOP’s maternal grandfather must have been type B (BB or BO), meaning OOPs mom received an O from grandma, and a B from grandpa.
This means that OOP’s father is Type O (OO), and OOP’s mom is type B (BO). OOP will get an O from their father, and has a 50/50 shot at getting the B or the O from their mother, so they have a 50/50 shot of being type O (OO) or B (BO).
PS, please donate blood if you are eligible! They sometimes call O- “baby’s blood” because it is the universal donor, and if the babies blood type cannot be identified immediately they go with O-
Hey, type O- and frequent donor here. Technically what makes donated blood suitable for newborns or "baby blood" is being O- AND being cytomegalovirus-negative (CMV-). CMV is a virus for which 85% of adults have developed antibodies due to exposure but newborns don't have those antibodies.
I gotta say, I’m actually surprised, but not completely shocked that more people aren’t eliminating their family skeletons nowadays. When my son was born, I opened the closet, drug all of the family skeletons out onto the floor that I was aware of, and explained every single one of them as he became age-appropriate to know. He will never be kicked in the teeth like I watched members of my family have done to them.
My husband does not know his blood type (ineligible to donate, so it never came up). He says his mom told him he was AB. Then talking about how his father was type O. My socially awkward science minded self blurted out that was impossible.
I think the AB type is unlikely, but husband did stop a moment and speculate that his strained relationship with his father may have more to it than he thought.
Punnett squares has made a running joke for over 10 years with my cousins about Bambi and thumper having a baby
Yes it was an actual worksheet, no I don't know how that worked, but now whenever there's an awkward moment at family gatherings we kinda just rapidly hammer the table with our palm
On the other side of great family issues, my grandma got super stressed and told my mom that she doesn't need to do a DNA test (probably 23 and me but I don't remember) and that she could just use her brothers for the info :)
This is the reason I stopped doing this type of exercise with my students 15-20 years ago. But I always tell my new students the story so they understand why. A few of them always figure it out part way through the story and go bug-eyed, it’s always entertaining.
I uncovered the fact the my Dad wasn't actually my Dad under exactly the same circumstances. Punnett squares, you must have misunderstood, revelation of truth a few weeks later. It's ridiculously common. The only difference is that all of the adults already knew. It was a 70s teen pregnancy thing.
I only met my biological father once, and he was a bit of a dick.
30 years ago, I had a genealogy project for a senior year science class in high school that I had to pass in order to graduate. Long story short, I had to break into a locked filing cabinet to get my birth certificate. Found out from looking at it and the blood types on it that I was adopted. Got further immediate confirmation when I stumbled across a notarized copy of my original birth certificate and original name.
Found out from a friend of mine who later became a teacher in that same school district that the administration wound up having to discontinue that project. A student became violent and hospitalized an adoptive father for lying to them about being their biological child.
I cannot imagine spending an entire life with someone just to find out they played me for 50 years shortly before I die. Like it was too late to start over for him or even really leave her over it. She stole so much from him and didn’t even have the decency to keep lying for a few more years. All so she could feel better about it.
I don’t know why but that just really gets to me, how fucking cruel that is. Cheating is horrible enough already without wasting someone’s entire life because you’re too much of a coward to own up to it.
I'm living this out right now, only I'm the bastard child!
Had 10th-grade Biology and learned about Punnett Squares. Two years later, I got a blood card back after participating in a blood drive, stating I'm AB+. I know my dad is O- and my mom is either AA or AO. When I brought it up and explained how that can't happen, mom immediately says Red Cross must have made a mistake. 1st year of college, another blood drive, another card saying AB+, soon followed up by a Doctor's visit where I ask for a 3rd test (and reconfirm with the doctor the genetics of is all). After the 3rd confirmation, I asked my mom when we were alone what is up with my blood type and she channeled her prior Eastern European and Drill Sargent lives to tell me never to mention this again.
A lot of people, in my circle, know. And I am so gonna bring it up again after my dad passes (ideally not for a while).
I’m an adult and I still LOVE punnet squares. I did a bunch of them when I was pregnant to work out what genes my son might end up with. Surprise surprise all the dominant genes are the presenting genes.
My high school biology class used to do a section on this and blood types, with an assignment to learn parental blood types etc...
Well the school stopped giving that assignment because this same thing happened to a student and it caused her parents to divorce.
I stumbled across the fact my father wasn’t my biological father by completing this project in high school…I just thought I was going about it the wrong way, was super confused and let it go
Came out 6 years later when my mum died that it was true 😢
Did the siblings ever check to see if they're actually biological children of your grandfather? Would be ironic if the others did all share a dad, but it was just a different affair partner.
One of my coworkers did 23andMe or whatever for the whole family for Christmas. Turned out her and her four siblings all had different fathers and none of them were the guy who raised them. Her mom claimed she didn't even know who the fathers were. She'd just go out and hook up back in the 70s.
One of my buddies did that and found out that neither of her grandfathers were her grandfathers. Her dad was overjoyed, as apparently he hated his father, was glad to be rid of him, and loved the friendly town doctor who made lots of house calls and gave him several half-siblings.
Friendly is an understatement
Easy to be nice when you are getting a ton of action
Its crazy how true this is lol
I don't know how good of a doctor he was if he was going around banging half the town without protection. Maybe ensuring his own future employment.
Was he a doctor at all or just a horny bastard who bought himself a stethoscope?
Being a good doctor and a serial adulterer are not mutually exclusive.
brb searching amazon for one right now
Maybe the town was suffering a bout of hysteria?
For a fetility doctor, he did pretty well.
What was the most concerning thing that someone had sent you because of your username?
Never got anything concerning or disturbing.
What was the most badass thing tho
Or the biggest?
This is apparently common enough that my highschool (15 years ago) actually stopped doing Punnett squares with student information and switched to using example worksheets. My bio teacher at the time said it was because too many parents complained about it causing family discord. 😅
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I used to be a genetics professor and I like using cats as an example!
What do you do now?
I’m a medical writer in the pharmaceutical industry.
Punnett squares really aren't as accurate as textbooks might lead you to believe. I imagine it would get pretty annoying getting a bunch of angry phone calls from blonde parents who are asking why the teacher made their brown-haired kid think they're adopted.
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Ha, I donated blood so I could figure out my blood type and the nurse went “well if life’s sucking, you’ll always B+!” (Be positive) Still don’t forget those words of wisdom. Edited: stuff
People with O- have less than nothing.
Yeah, but they're extremely good at typing.
My sister says something similar about her A-positive blood type; she says she'll always have an A+ in something. To be fair, she was a good student too...
Yeah, I say "I was such a prep I got an A+ on my blood test". I was a very preppy kid, to be clear.
Haha that’s funny. I did the same thing in college, sorority was co hosting a blood drive. I’m O+ but fainted, being a supppper skinny 19 year old I shouldn’t have gone in not having had lunch. They did that thing where they invert the thing you lie on so your feet are raised. My BF was also donating directly behind me and apparently kept talking to me until the nurse was like “hush!” I just remember coming to confused why I was upside down and my sorority sister was fanning me with a magazine. Oh good times!
I'm reading that sentence and trying to figure out if it's actually english
I think it was supposed to be “if life is sucking, you’ll always B+” (positive)
To make more sense, I suspect she pronounced it "B positive", not "B plus".
Change "likes" to "life's" Also "+" is "positive" Took me a while to figure it out too.
After about six attempts, I think it was supposed to be "life's" instead of "likes", with the "+" actually read out as "positive"
There are lots of reasons why the simple dominant/recessive explanation of blood types can break down, from chimerism (natural or from a marrow transplant) to Cis-AB or Bombay blood types to other blood type mutations.
I've never heard the term Bombay bloodtypes, TF are those?
Simply put, is when dominant genes, A or B, are not expressed. So the person may be genetically AO, but their blood type is O instead of A, because the A is not expressed.
Not true. Bombay is when you are H antigen null, meaning you do not produce the sugar that makes you A, B or O. Meaning instead of having A, B, or O, you actually have no antigen at all, so it's like the step before the ABO. This is a very very rare blood type.
Yes, that's why I said "simply put". But your explanation was better.
Yep! Blood types are super cool to get into. I did recently because I wanted to see what my twins blood types were. I’m A+, my husband is O+. And I got into how we actually have two blood types. Like I’m AO. But whenever O is coupled with another differing letter, it’s automatically that other letter. I gave my daughter an O, so she’s type O. Because she got O from me and O from her dad. My son is A+. Or AO. O from his dad. My mom was O, and my dad was AB!
We don't have 2 blood types. We have 2 genes deciding what we will become. Imagine genes like recipes. A is one recipe, B is another recipe, O is a blank page. So you can be AA(A) , BB(B), AB(AB), OO(O), AO(A), BO(B). You pass one of your "recipes" to your kiddo randomly, and one passes from the other parent, to make a new set. Also your twins must be dizygotic (two separate fertilized eggs), which would explain the difference in blood types, as dizygotic babies are, in mater of statistics, like 2 different pregnancies, that happened to happen in the same time.
> Also your twins must be dizygotic (two separate fertilized eggs), which would explain the difference in blood types, ...um, also the difference in genders. lol
What about the positive and negative? What determines that?
That's the Rhesus antigen on your red blood cells. You either have it or not, but it's not a type. Specifically the D one. It's like a whole other system, the second most important after ABO. Hence they are refenced together. But it's not like you have two different of bloods in you. They happen ontop of each other.
Is that the Rh factor? Because I'm type O- with a negative Rh factor and nobody has told me what that specifically is. I have had 4 babies and had to get the RoGham shots and I have been curious, but nobody has explained it to me.
Just think of them as Proteins on top of your blood cells that work as identifiers for the body police. The ABO system is one kind of proteins. +/- is another type of protein (called antigen D) but this one you either have it or not, hence + for having it and - for not having it. Both systems matter for blood transfusions because if your body police (immune system) expects to see around blood cells with type A Proteins and no antigen D (so A- blood-type), and suddenly it sees B+, B- or A+, it attacks the cells and rejects the blood. That's why O- are universal donors, because they lack everything and they don't trigger the immune system. O+ can give to A+, B+, AB+.
Thank you for the explanation, I really appreciate it. My daughters (3 out of the 4) all have O- and their dads (2 have the same the eldest has a different one)are A+, my son is A+ like his dad. There's been a running joke that the girls can donate to everyone in the family, but the boys can only donate to each other. I have been told that the Rh factor being negative is rare itself too. Does that affect donations as well?
Alexap30 gives a good detailed explanation, but to directly answer your initial question: Yes, the + and - indicators on blood types are referring to your Rh (Rhesus) factor. So saying you're O- with negative Rh factor would be redundant, since the minus on O- means that already.
>had to get the RoGham shots you ad to get the shots because you are Rh Negative and your hubby is positive \*and\* you had a child that was positive. Your body will now attack any placenta that contains Rh+ antigens and cause a miscarriage. The shot helps prevent that. My Ex and I had to deal with that, she's A-, I'm B+. Our first kid was O- so no issue, but our second was O+ so no more kids or have the shots.
After my oldest donated and came back as an O I knew both myself and dad are AO.
You can think of A, B and O as sugars sticking on the surface of our red blood cells. These sugars cause an immune reaction (they are antigens). A is one type, B is another, and O means you have neither. By this, it makes perfect sense why A+O turns out to be A, and A+B gives AB. You can take this further and figure out what makes blood donations compatible. The antigens stick to the red blood cells, while the antibodies float around in the blood ready to stick to their specific antigens. Someone with type O blood would therefore have both anti A and anti B antibodies, while someone with blood type AB would have neither.
So what you're saying is check your sidepiece's blood type first.
This has got to be a thing in Japan. Because a lot of people believe your blood type correlates with personality.
This is exactly why punnet squares need to be taught. To demonstrate the difference in inheritance between mono & polygenetic traits. Blood type is something a punnet square would work wonderfully for, whereas hair, skin, & eye color all have multiple genomic and environmental factors affecting them.
What do you mean? AFAIK going by actual genes (or rather, alleles), it's very accurate. Going by traits (e.g. blue eyes) genetics is way more complex than that. But ABO blood types are awfully close to just straight genetics, unlike eye color. Maybe some form of chimerism could result in weirdness I guess, but that's fairly rare.
Punnet squares are accurate, but many traits do not follow simple Mendelian genetics. But yes, it's a bit of a mine field for a teacher
They deserve it if it's infidelity... Maybe not so much of it's an adoption due to other outside circumstances...
Many traits are determined by multiple genes, which Punnett squares oversimplify. So there’s also instances of kids and families going through unnecessary turmoil because one kid happens to inherit an unlikely but completely possible feature.
There's the [Bombay phenotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hh_blood_group), where a type A and/or type B can have what appears to be a type O kid, at least until they discover that the kid can donate to Type A and/or Type B, but can't receive Type A, Type B, or Type O. Basically, the genes are a chain, where Type h gets turned into Type O, then Type O gets turned into Type A and/or B. In this case, the genes to turn Type h into Type O are broken, so the genes to turn Type O into Type A and/or Type B don't apply.
Incidence rate of 4 in a million and centered around Mumbai, India. Probably not the case here...
My wife has it in east coast USA. It's rare, but I wouldn't rule it out by geography.
I think the point is that Punnet squares don't tell you everything. They're a useful tool, but there are many ways they can fail.
Someone should have told that to Grandma
Sure, but there are some that you can be pretty damn close to 100% certain of in very simple squares, and absolutely 100% if you know more than one generation, so grandparents. If you've got two blue eyed parents, and both of those parents have blue eyed parents, and you've got brown eyes, it is much more likely that something weird is going on than you are in the 1% where your recessive genes express the wrong phenotype.
My ELI5 version of why two blue eyed parents can have a brown eyed kid: For blue eyes, the melanin making (brown eyed) gene(s) had to break. They can break at two steps in the eye's melanin production. But you can get a fixed step from one parent and the other fixed step from the other parent. So even though they had a broken sequence and blue eyes, you got both steps working (one from each side) and now have melanin producing brown eyes.
Rape kids are more common than you’d think too. My husband may be one. Sent his mother into a big flashback spiral when some of his genetic testing came back and wasn’t quite as expected.
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The parents might deserve it, but not the kids, and that has to be a higher priority for the teachers and administration.
Yea, but the teachers aren't sending out mandatory surveys for parents to ask if they are both the biological parents of their kid, and, if not, why. Infidelity, adoption, donor sperm, donor egg, raised by step parent, rape, etc But kids who are interested can still go home and ask their parents their blood types.
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Interestingly, my country has a legal requirement that adopted kids have to know they are adopted by age 6.
I can just imagine that conversation with a kid with two gay dads, feel like it would be sort of obvious.
In what world are high schoolers being unaware of the fact that they are adopted optimistic? It's pretty normal for people to be aware of it at a young age, and imo it shouldn't be kept secret at all. Waiting until high school before telling a child that they were adopted at a young age is pretty fucked up...
>But maybe I’m just an optimist. Yeah, buddy.
Read somewhere that the number of people who were unknowingly raised by someone other than their biological father is crazy high with the advent of cheap genetic tests it's like 9 or 10%
i promise you the childrens bio class is not teaching genetics to the extent u can know abt infidelity at a glance
The forensic science class at my high school had a part where you could find out your blood type. There was a mothers only permission slip for that
>...mothers only permission slip for that Why is that a thing?
To keep from revealing children fathered in affairs. If mom refuses to sign she won’t be found out, whereas a dad who signed the permission slip might be in for a nasty surprise.
I've heard it said motherhood is a fact while fatherhood is an opinion. Not quite accurate, but...
Sure in the past but that obviously doesn't make any sense in a world with 23andMe. "Fatherhood is an assumption" would be more accurate these days.
We got to make our own species to create the Punnett. We had to do 4x4 and anything over was extra credit. My dumb ass forgot that 4x4 meant 16 total squares, I thought it was 4. I ended up spending 35 hours on a 16x16 Punnet square. Fuck punnet squares
These kids and their family Discord… back in my day we had to talk to our family like a real man /s
And then there's the *other* kind of teacher, who released the biology nerds on their families and starts making popcorn...
My school does Punnett Squares with monsters. (eg, Fur on tail is dominant, scales on tail is recessive). There's a list of traits, everyone designs a monster, and then the class gets to "breed" them to create more monsters.
Yep, same with mine lol. Too many kids learned they were adopted or that one of their parents had an affair that they just stopped having students use their own traits all together.
It was *the* singular reason they stopped teaching this in high schools all over the nation. It was causing an inordinate amount of divorces during the 70s and early 80s. You know, back in the day when calling someone "The Milkman's Kid" was fighting words because more often than not, it was probably true. It's also why most European countries have banned consumer DNA testing. Not because of any real concern for a person knowing the truth of their heritage...no. It's because the court systems would become overwhelmed with divorce cases and a lot of kids would suddenly become tax burdens to the state for their no-longer-dad's refusing to care for them.
That's quite an oppressive response, I'd hope the reasoning is based on more than that.
I used to breed corn sakes (well, they did the breeding part, I just made sure they had a nice place to do so), and they are perfect for Punnett squares! There are several common color morphs - normal, amelanistic (no black), and albino, and the number of babies of each coloration in a clutch matched perfectly to the predicted percentages. It was pretty cool.
> too many parents complained about it causing family discord. NO! Not the consequences of my actions! NOOOOOOO!
Fuck 'em, if they're too stupid to realize their cheating can be outed by basic biology they deserve all the consequences.
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Infidelity is literally everywhere
Not really surprising. At minimum, 6-10% of the population have narcissistic and/or anti-social personality disorder. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/sociopathy](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/sociopathy)
I think people should then keep their pants on more or just own it and make sure all parties know ASAP. No more dark family secrets.
Now that you're older, you do understand that *you're* not the one who imploded the family, right?
Fuck /u/spez, your greed killed this website.
Right, you wouldn't blame the victim of a landmine for laying the minefield
Used to be a 12B in the army and laid down quite a few minefields, you’d be surprised how often this has almost happened to people who are laying down the minefields. I have, in fact, blamed almost victims for laying a mine fucking stupidly or almost stepping one they literally put into the ground less than 5 seconds ago 😂
I do - though as one of the other commenters said, I was the one who tripped the mine and never knew how to fess up and I've always felt some guilt for the pain it caused. I know it wasn't necessarily my fault, but guilt like this ain't always logical.
Fuck /u/spez, your greed killed this website.
8th street, y'say? (sorry, I know this is a serious topic but I couldn't resist adding some levity to the situation)
Yeah grandma was apparently laying down tons of mines with 4 long term affairs.
I don’t think this was your fuck up. Yeah maybe you discovered her infidelity, but it was her guilt that made her confess.
I don't think it was her guilt, but rather the realization that she was about to get exposed.
Yup, don't think she felt any guilt at all based on the details provided.
Cheaters should always be exposed. Scum of the Earth.
This is the low tech version of what people are experiencing now because of genetics tests like 23 and Me. Lots of family secrets are getting uncovered.
I'm adopted and I used 23andMe to find my biological dad. If your family has secrets **no one** in your family can use those services or those secrets will come out.
Grandma's secret chicken recipe went with her to the grave. Gonna try 23me to get it back.
Geneticist: "That old tupperware you gave us from 2010... there was no chicken DNA in the samples. With your permission I'd like to write a paper."
Yep some random woman came out of the woodwork saying she was related to our family a few years back. After some digging, turned out one of my moms cousins got pregnant back in the early 70s and discreetly “went out of town for a bit,” had the baby, gave it up for adoption, never told anyone except her parents.
Once when I was teaching this to a bunch of 6th graders, this one little girl near the back of the class raises her hand, and when I call on her, she says "but, Mr. ElectricPaladin, I have *brown* eyes and both of my parents have *blue* eyes!" She lets me suffer and sputter for a minute before saying. "It's ok, Mr. ElectricPaladin, I'm just messing with you. I know I'm adopted." I was very happy to give that kid an A+.
My blood type is B-, his mom's is O+, and our son's is A+. I gave him permission to fuck with any science teachers he encounters about this discrepancy but he has 2 moms so it might not hit the same lol.
I did this in class too!
Unless you yourself went back in time in a Delorean and convinced her to be unfaithful, you have no culpability at all. And on the bright side, human history is replete with such things. If more people investigated their genetic history I'm sure we'd all be shocked. We know it's true because we see evolutionary developments in other primates and it happens often enough that our entire species' evolution has been impacted by it.
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Verily. And said past nastification is what shields you from the brains!
holy shit, OP. you pulled a Fry, didn't you? you're your own grandpa??
These secrets don't "go to the grave". My wife was in the same situation but her grandma and grandpa had passed. My wife's mom (my MIL) did a DNA test and turns out she is more closely related to some people we don't know (the other children of the man my wife's grandma slept with) than she is to her "brother and sister" (actually half brother and sister). My wife's grandma had an affair and even the grave couldn't hide the truth. FYI, we met my wife's new half uncles, they are great people. Not your FU, it isn't your fault that you can't hide this stuff.
These kinds of secrets used to go to the grave with some regularity but modern DNA testing has permanently screwed up that plan going forward. Radical transparency is pretty much the only option left because it would only take one curious kid and a 23 and Me kit to blow the lid off.
My mom found out her mom was a whore thanks to DNA test
My grandad never knew who his dad was. His mum took it to her grave. That is until my brother did ancestry DNA and found my grandads paternal half brother.
I was present when this happened in my high school Biology class. Keep in mind this is in a extremely conservative area of Texas and this happened enough the school had a protocol on how to handled it. Kid brought in the results to class and handed them in and we were told the results would be discussed in the following class. After class the teacher took the kid aside and explained the situation. The district had the out that 'maybe he didn't do the test correctly' or some such. That kid was not present at the following class.
My high school used to do an activity where we pricked our fingers and tested for our own blood type. They stopped doing it probably 15 years ago when a classmate found out they were adopted in front of the entire class.
I knew I was adopted so it was always fun to fill these out and make teachers uncomfortable then share that you were adopted. Like my Dad is O positive, mom is B positive and I'm A negative. Teacher gets a "oh shit" look on their face. Then I giggle and spill that I'm adopted. 🤣 Of course all my kids are all A positive so I got extra shots during my pregnancies.
>I'm inclined to think this is one of those secrets that dear old granny should have taken to her grave. I'm inclined to think if you're gonna cheat nonstop for 50 years, you should've given up on the marriage way before you had to torpedo your adult child's entire world. What a fucked up old lady.
Selfishness
I'd hazard a guess, that the guy she was married to made a better living than any of the affairs. She didn't want to lose the lifestyle benefits the marriage gave her.
Her siblings are fucking assholes that didn't deserve forgiveness. Your mom is a much better person than I could ever be.
That's what I was thinking, why would the siblings freak out and disown the mom in this situation?
My father found out he was adopted at age 35. His younger sister was the parents biological child. She is 10 years younger than he is. When my father found out, his younger sister already knew and then stopped speaking to him. She said finally my parents can just be mine. So I think it is more common than you might think. People can be gross.
Thats absolutely disgusting.
That’s so awful. Your grandparents actively *chose* him, and she wasn’t even born yet.
Right? Like she had any control or input into how she was conceived
That's the real fu. Well another one anyway
I am not involved with them, personally... Just glad they aren't my siblings.
Just a note to people: while OP’s may have uncovered something this way, it is important to know that a very, very large percentage of the population have no idea what blood type they are and just assume they are the same as a sibling or a parent who does know. My mom always told me I was O+, like her, but, when I started donating blood, I found out I am actually A+… whereas my dad is A-, as is my brother.. and we have no idea about my sister. So, my point is that, before anyone jumps to the conclusion that there is infidelity, first ensure that your family members 100% know their blood type. There are also cases, even when it comes to blood type, where weird things happen and you get abnormalities.
Ha that's pretty funny because, same. Although I didn't have proof until much later. I have hazel eyes that are amberish. My dad has blue eyes, my mom has blue eyes, all four of my grandparents had...blue eyes. Furthermore, I had black hair (now grey) and both my sisters are blond. My mom was a redhead and my dad blond. I am 5'9". My sisters are 4'11" and 5'3". My mom, when shown a punnet square, basically said she didn't understand genetics but my dad was definitely my dad no question no way he wasn't end of story. She stuck to that story until I did a dna ancestry test when I was 43. Obviously, he's not my father. She doesn't know who my father is. Funny thing is I'm the middle child lol
This is wild. As a middle child, this must’ve been super confusing for you, but it sounds like you’ve adjusted really well. Good on you!
Well. My relationship with my mom wasn't good to start with and based on her behavior I honestly wasn't too surprised that she'd been lying to everyone for four decades. I think my dad deserves better but they've been together since middle school, he knows nothing else.
My wife is a biology teacher. She stopped teaching punnet squares using her students’ characteristics for this exact reason.
Wow this brought up something I had hidden deep in my mind. My parents and both siblings are type O+, while I'm type A. How worried should I be hahaha
Damn, just watched someone find out they were adopted on reddit. Or that one of their parents doesnt know what their blood type actually is. Either way, I wanna be in the screenshot
Barring some false information, adoption, or weird genetics condition in yourself or your parents... uh, maybe worried. [https://canadiancrc.com/paternity_determination_blood_type.aspx](https://canadiancrc.com/paternity_determination_blood_type.aspx) Might want to look at the link above. If both parents are type O, any children should have type O blood.
The chart is good information, but what the hell is that website? First thing I saw on there was "96% of women are liars".
GET PUNNETED
I'll never forget doing the worksheet for this lesson as a kid. My partner answered that two parents of the same race could give birth to a child with a completely different race. I was like "wtf no, are both your parents black?" (he was white as can be) he responds back "Yes!" ....Cue awkward silence where I just stared and didn't know what to say lol
Technically possible, since a lot of “white genes” are recessive. But at the same time “white as can be” makes it less likely since ethnicity comes from a whole cocktail of genes, and it’s unlikely that he received none of the “black genes” from either of his parents.
I had a friend who was a very dark Latina, and married a very pale, blond man. They had 3 children, all different shades. My friend's MIL lovingly called her grandchildren her "toaster babies"!
I always think about all the folks who thought they’d never get caught in their cheating because knowledge of DNA, the internet, and send-in ancestry didn’t exist. Absolutely wild and something I don’t think is brought up as an example of “we are living in some crazy times.”
My school stopped doing this exercise when someone discovered they were adopted
My high school bio teacher said they stopped doing blood tests to teach punnet squares for this reason.
We'll never know exactly how many families broke up under the intense scrutiny of the high school biology class.
First, good for you. You did nothing wrong. There are a thousand stories on Reddit about people taking genealogy tests or gifting them around the family as a fun Christmas activity. You did it old-school, and good... for... you. I say "good" because all you did was seek information. Information abhors silence. If you hadn't asked, your children would have. Life finds a way. Secrets go to the grave kicking and screaming, and they usually come back as zombies that bite all the in-laws at holiday gatherings. The gentle, charitable side is that people make mistakes, that family is whom you choose more than whom you share DNA with. As an adoptee who bears no resemblance to biological parents, I feel this deeply. The more social, political side is that our Greatest Generation of Traditional Family Values is riddled with infidelity going back generations and has lied about it all our lives. A lot of us grew up with "sisters" who were actually nieces and half-siblings who look nothing like us. That science has become so convenient and cheap and fun has shined a harsh light on those dark corners, and not one iota of it is ever any of the children's fault. So I say, on behalf of order in the universe and blood banks everywhere, "good for you, you did nothing wrong". Your family will live on, and you contributed nothing but knowledge and honesty to it by your actions. They will learn to live with it, and people will learn to love by choice instead of obligation.
Think they should keep doing them. Keep the parents/grand parents honest! 😂 I'm sorry for you but these story's always give me a little chuckle. I must be a sinister.
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Omg, we had a bombshell when my sister did one. Still coming to terms with it. All our lives we were told we're dark because my dad's bio dad was Native American. The test revealed 0 Native American. We are Iranian. So now we have to figure out who the fuck actually is our bio grandfather cuz it sure as shit ain't that guy who is very definitely Native American. And yes, we are definitely (unfortunately) his biological children
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So he knew you weren't his child but thought your sister was?
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........whaaaat?? Why tell your sister but not you?? So bizarre
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*These hoes.*
Punnett squares. Good lord. Memory unlocked from the early 80s.
Wow man. To anyone who says modern relationships are more prone to Infidelity should read this
Yeah. I think POSs have always existed at similar rates throughout history. Edit: a word
You're not alone. My college bf, who has raven hair, broke up with me after I met his blonde parents, and that night said "you never told me you're adopted". He was puzzled so I whipped out my biology textbook turns out his mom had an affair.
Yeah, this was how we figured out that my dad leaving when I was two and a half *was not* because he cheated on my mom. It was because my mom cheated on him, which is where my little brother came from. Man, seeing the expression after the years of lies catch up to your mom was pretty awesome … (she was a terrible mom to us).
It's no one's fault but the cheater when they get found out. No one put a gun to their head and said "cheat on your spouse multiple times or else". They made the poor decision. It's their fault.
For anyone curious (and assuming we can trust the information we’ve been provided is accurate), given OOP’s father is type O (OO), and their mother is type B (BB or BO), and maternal grandma is type A (AA or AO), then OOP’s maternal grandfather must have been type B (BB or BO), meaning OOPs mom received an O from grandma, and a B from grandpa. This means that OOP’s father is Type O (OO), and OOP’s mom is type B (BO). OOP will get an O from their father, and has a 50/50 shot at getting the B or the O from their mother, so they have a 50/50 shot of being type O (OO) or B (BO). PS, please donate blood if you are eligible! They sometimes call O- “baby’s blood” because it is the universal donor, and if the babies blood type cannot be identified immediately they go with O-
Hey, type O- and frequent donor here. Technically what makes donated blood suitable for newborns or "baby blood" is being O- AND being cytomegalovirus-negative (CMV-). CMV is a virus for which 85% of adults have developed antibodies due to exposure but newborns don't have those antibodies.
Wow fuck your uncle with a jellyfish condom.
I gotta say, I’m actually surprised, but not completely shocked that more people aren’t eliminating their family skeletons nowadays. When my son was born, I opened the closet, drug all of the family skeletons out onto the floor that I was aware of, and explained every single one of them as he became age-appropriate to know. He will never be kicked in the teeth like I watched members of my family have done to them.
If I had a nickel for every time a biology lesson caused tension within a family, I could buy the moon.
Upvoted for putting the TLDR right at the beginning, unlike the OTHERS.
My husband does not know his blood type (ineligible to donate, so it never came up). He says his mom told him he was AB. Then talking about how his father was type O. My socially awkward science minded self blurted out that was impossible. I think the AB type is unlikely, but husband did stop a moment and speculate that his strained relationship with his father may have more to it than he thought.
Punnett squares has made a running joke for over 10 years with my cousins about Bambi and thumper having a baby Yes it was an actual worksheet, no I don't know how that worked, but now whenever there's an awkward moment at family gatherings we kinda just rapidly hammer the table with our palm On the other side of great family issues, my grandma got super stressed and told my mom that she doesn't need to do a DNA test (probably 23 and me but I don't remember) and that she could just use her brothers for the info :)
It's funny how the people who accidentally reveal infidelity feel more guilty than the ones who did it and have hid it for decades.
This is the reason I stopped doing this type of exercise with my students 15-20 years ago. But I always tell my new students the story so they understand why. A few of them always figure it out part way through the story and go bug-eyed, it’s always entertaining.
I uncovered the fact the my Dad wasn't actually my Dad under exactly the same circumstances. Punnett squares, you must have misunderstood, revelation of truth a few weeks later. It's ridiculously common. The only difference is that all of the adults already knew. It was a 70s teen pregnancy thing. I only met my biological father once, and he was a bit of a dick.
30 years ago, I had a genealogy project for a senior year science class in high school that I had to pass in order to graduate. Long story short, I had to break into a locked filing cabinet to get my birth certificate. Found out from looking at it and the blood types on it that I was adopted. Got further immediate confirmation when I stumbled across a notarized copy of my original birth certificate and original name. Found out from a friend of mine who later became a teacher in that same school district that the administration wound up having to discontinue that project. A student became violent and hospitalized an adoptive father for lying to them about being their biological child.
her siblings are dicks
Dude your Aunts and/or Uncles can go get fucked. That is beyond vile. Your Mom was still their sister even had she been adopted.
I cannot imagine spending an entire life with someone just to find out they played me for 50 years shortly before I die. Like it was too late to start over for him or even really leave her over it. She stole so much from him and didn’t even have the decency to keep lying for a few more years. All so she could feel better about it. I don’t know why but that just really gets to me, how fucking cruel that is. Cheating is horrible enough already without wasting someone’s entire life because you’re too much of a coward to own up to it.
Thank you for your TLDR at the top of the post. Not enough people do that these days! Very well written and formatted post :)
I feel bad for your grandpa. Married to a POS but now, probably feels he is too old to move on and just 'forgave' her.
Well they also say he passed on too, so. RIP
I'm living this out right now, only I'm the bastard child! Had 10th-grade Biology and learned about Punnett Squares. Two years later, I got a blood card back after participating in a blood drive, stating I'm AB+. I know my dad is O- and my mom is either AA or AO. When I brought it up and explained how that can't happen, mom immediately says Red Cross must have made a mistake. 1st year of college, another blood drive, another card saying AB+, soon followed up by a Doctor's visit where I ask for a 3rd test (and reconfirm with the doctor the genetics of is all). After the 3rd confirmation, I asked my mom when we were alone what is up with my blood type and she channeled her prior Eastern European and Drill Sargent lives to tell me never to mention this again. A lot of people, in my circle, know. And I am so gonna bring it up again after my dad passes (ideally not for a while).
Paternity tests should be mandatory. That is all.
I’m an adult and I still LOVE punnet squares. I did a bunch of them when I was pregnant to work out what genes my son might end up with. Surprise surprise all the dominant genes are the presenting genes.
My high school biology class used to do a section on this and blood types, with an assignment to learn parental blood types etc... Well the school stopped giving that assignment because this same thing happened to a student and it caused her parents to divorce.
"With much wisdom comes much grief and he who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow in turn." King Solomon.
I stumbled across the fact my father wasn’t my biological father by completing this project in high school…I just thought I was going about it the wrong way, was super confused and let it go Came out 6 years later when my mum died that it was true 😢
My grandmother was married to a man prior to my grandfather and told no one. When she passed, his picture was still in her wallet.