32 (and counting) Half-siblings

[moon_custafer]

I’m 20. I Have 32 Half-siblings. This Is My Family Portrait.

I imagine we’re going to see more of this kind of thing – sperm banks have now been around long enough for there to be a fair number of adults conceived this way, and we’re in a period between easier availability of genetic testing for genealogical purposes, and revision of sperm bank procedures to deal with that.

At the same time, looking at all the portraits, I feel as though this is more dramatic, but not all that different, from attending a family reunion and suddenly realizing you’re in a room full of people who look like you – I’ve begun seeing this with my mom’s family (not so much my dad’s, partly because there are fewer of them): we’re by no means identical, but we all appear to have been assembled from the same parts catalogue, and it only offers two noses.

One big difference is that Mom’s family reunions are multi-generational, so you start to notice people who look like the same individual at different ages—it strikes me that a lot of portrayals of parenthood focus on a parent either wanting or fearing a mini-me, and yet it must be just as common an experience to look at your kid and suddenly realize you’re raising a miniature version of your own mother or father, or one of your siblings, or some more distant relation. In related news, I’ve no idea whether this is true, but I saw a claim the other day that the nickname “Skip/Skippy” is specifically for guys who don’t look much like either parent but do resemble one of their grandparents. Now wondering if “Sport” is for people who don’t look like anyone else in their family.

Comments

[sovay]

we’re by no means identical, but we all appear to have been assembled from the same parts catalogue, and it only offers two noses.

This is an excellent line.

a claim the other day that the nickname “Skip/Skippy” is specifically for guys who don’t look much like either parent but do resemble one of their grandparents.

I've never heard that.

"...only...two noses."

[dewline]

Sums up a situation, doesn't it.

[moon_custafer]

Yeah, I'm still not sure I believe it, but otoh I can't think of any alternate etymology for the nickname.

[sovay]

Yeah, I'm still not sure I believe it, but otoh I can't think of any alternate etymology for the nickname.

I always thought it came from "Skipper."

[moon_custafer]

Ooh, you're probably right. I was trying to fit it into the "physical trait/inverse of physical trait" nickname logic.

[sabotabby]

When I clicked that link, I thought it was going to be an article about one of my students' families, because there was a very similar case here and I know one of them. But to my knowledge they haven't all met each other.

[moon_custafer]

It sounds as though even the reputable sperm banks have trouble recruiting a large number of donors; and this article implied that clients often request that a donor be used whose sperm has already produced at least one healthy birth, so they know it "works." Between those two things it's probably a recipe for this situation happening often.

[thanate]

My daughter looked very distinctly like my grandmother for her first few months; it was quite peculiar, especially since I don't recognize my grandmother in photos taken before I was born, so it was specifically a resemblance between my grandmother as an old lady & my daughter as an infant.

(We have the more usual sort of family resemblances too, of course.)