Question: Why is a child born grows to be brown yet his or her parents are black

Grace Kago answered on 30 May 2019:

Hello!!
hmm… people’s skin tones, especially black people like us is super variable! In my family we have all sorts of skin-tones, and all of them are equally beautiful! 🙂

Skin color is often determined by the amount of melanin, that is made from cells called melanocytes that are in the skin. As for what controls the # and size of the melanocytes/melanin production, that is based entirely on genetic inheritance. In your question, both parents might have incomplete dominance of the genes responsible for their color, the more dominant of which makes lots of melanin so they look black. However, when they have a child, the child may get both of the genes that lead to less melanin production. It could also be that the child’s genes themselves might recombine etc. leading to a new shade of black! It’s a really fascinating concept, and if you’re interested in reading more, check out the topic of genetic dominance, and the factors that affect specific phenotypes from certain genotypes 🙂