A physical resemblance can be a way to feel truly connected to your extended family, adding a rich layer to identity.
Elizabeth Wheat
Family are those people with whom, though accident of birth, you are affiliated for life, who you otherwise would not be friends with were you to randomly meet. I guess Family means complex relationships, caring, estrangement, responsibility and friction.
Nancy Moline
Family isn’t only about DNA.
It’s about shared experiences and love.
Ann Ouellette
Although I resemble some of the other members of my family, my likeness to my mother attracts the most attention. People say we look 'exactly alike.' They stop us on the street, in the airport, approach our table in a restaurant to express their amazement. By my mid-twenties I had grown accustomed to the intrusions. Now we easily pause our conversation and share our connection with others.
Dana Kathryn Kassel
I love hearing the one of my sons looks like me or someone else in our family. There's a certain sense of pride knowing that some of the genes we possess can be shared and that people see it.
Deb Wieberdink
When my daughter Mackenzie was about two months old we introduced her to a friend who took one look at her and said, “Oh my gosh! It’s Jim in a dress!”
Jim Zenk
I am adopted and never knew anyone who truly resembled me until I had my daughters. When people say my kids look so much like me, it makes me feel connected and like I have someplace to belong.
Jennifer Rotty
I was adopted as an infant and never knew anyone who looked like me. Growing up, I was hyper-aware of family resemblances: something that many people take for granted was so fascinating to me. Then, in 1995 I found my birth mother! It was one of the most exciting times of my life. We have so many things in common, including resemblance.
Joy Liberman
A lot of people say that I look like my brother or my father, but I don’t see it. As a young man, I tried hard not to be my father but as I’ve grown older the issues that separated us have been forgotten or become understood. And I now see being like my father as an asset and I enjoy the fact that my appearance causes some people to remember him.
Fritz Basgen
The six of us came to Minnesota in 1979, in the first wave of Southeast Asian refugees. It felt like there was no one here who looked like us, so our resemblance to each other was heightened in comparison to Minnesotans at that time. When there’s only six of you on Mars, family means everything.
Souliyahn Keobounpheng
I have almost every single one of my dad’s features, but I believe I have my mom’s smile. Resembling them makes me feel like I belong in this world.
Sydney Jackson
Having a very outgoing older brother frustrated me for much of my upbringing. Now I find it funny how similar we look and sound despite how different our personalities are.
Cooper Johnson
Resemblance reminds us that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves; that we’re made up of pieces of people who came before us, whether it’s a nose or
a laugh, a curve of the eyebrow or a facility with numbers. It reminds us that we’re not self-made, or immortal, or alone.
Angela Wilcox
I delight in seeing my husband in the faces of my sons. It's a natural, intuitive way to be reminded of the intention and passion that went into the creation of our family.
Rebecca Stewart
A parent always remembers what it felt like to see his or her newborn child for the first time. It’s pure magic. It’s especially magical when the child looks almost identical to yourself.
Ike Whiting
Both my wife Sarah and myself were transracially adopted and grew up in caucasian families. We lived a life without resemblance. We both experienced growing up in homes where we were the only people of color in every family portrait. We have talked about this experience as a subtle, yet unintended, form of perpetual othering.
Mike Hoyt
When I found out I was going to have a baby sister,
I wondered if she would be born with my amazing curly hair—and she was!
Owen O’Neill Ruzicka
Family is history and story, patterns and beliefs; it's the people who knew you when your identity was forming and can bring out the parts of you that most of the rest of the world never sees. Family is complicated and necessary and all of the best and hardest parts of love.
Angela Wilcox
Family resemblance is a rare glimpse into your past, present, and future. When I see me, I see them:
my dad’s eyes, my mom’s smile, my grandma’s ears (and feisty temper), my grandpa’s hands, my sister’s chin, my niece’s mannerisms.
Tera Busker
Family is everything to me. Everything. I would do anything for mine, we are of the same blood, we are all connected through genetics, sharing something with only each other. Our bloodlines run thick.
Colleen Wuollet
As a part of the LGBTQ+ community, family has a dual meaning for most of us - your biological family and the family you choose (if you're lucky, sometimes they are the same). I love it that my daughter looks enough like me that others comment on it, and that she looks so much like her biological grandmother and great-grandmother. But I also think of her as her own person, not as an extension of me or her biological family. Her whole family—my whole family—is one that includes both biological and chosen family. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Jane Miller
When I was young, I didn't want to look like my grandmother or my mother. Now I love being able to see the connections. I feel like I am part of something bigger than myself.
Lindsay Wessling
Family resemblance bonds you together. It's something that terrifies the kids because they don't want to imagine that we were just like them.
Glenn Gray
I love seeing my freckles in my children, it makes me feel like we’re passing on our Scottish family heritage.
Jennifer Brink-Edwards
I remember looking at photos of my grandmother as a little girl and being able to see how much I looked like her, and thinking it was amazing. It felt mysterious, but it also made me feel like I had a secret connection to her and to her story - somehow, it made it feel more real that she was once a little girl just like me.
Angela Wilcox
My identical twin sister and I were adopted from South Korea by an American family, and although we don’t look like the rest of our family, we look a lot like each other. Many adoptees of color, who grow up in non-diverse communities, often express a sense of loss because they don’t resemble those around them. Even though Sarah and I see the many ways that we are different from each other, we often take comfort in our likeness.
Megan Koh Eun Tulius
People say I look like my mother and grandmother. I find having a physical resemblance to be deeply comforting, especially because of the racial differences in my family. We know we’re very lucky to have the family that we do. Being together, sharing history and stories while still having distinct lives makes for a special bond.
Arleta Little
Every time I look at my kids and
catch a glimpse of my husband or
myself, I smile inwardly because I know
a little piece of us lives on in them,
whether they like it or not. Maybe
it’s hubris, but I think we all want to
imprint on our kids and have a little of
us live on into future generations.
