On Inbreeding

We’re don’t do much kid-dialog here at DadWagon (we prefer to leave that sort of thing to Sweet Juniper, who has a fine eye for the detail of juvenile repartee).

But here it is anyhow: Yesterday evening, when Nico, who’s almost 2, was being put to bed, Dalia got serious, in the way that 4-year-olds do. She announced she had something to tell me:

• “I’m going to get married.”
• “Who are you gonna marry?”
• “Nico.”
• “That’s your brother”
• “I love him. We’re going to own babies.”
• “How many babies?”
• “My belly will be all full of them.”
• “How many babies?”
• “Two babies. A boy and a girl.”
• “What are their names going to be?”
• “Zoë and Doodah. They are gonna get married to each other too. And they will own babies.”

Who needs private school? My daughter has already apparently learned the ways of the great European royal houses. What I didn’t really feel like explaining last night, though, is just what happens when that inbreeding party comes crashing to a diseased little halt, as it surely will. From the UK’s Independent, in a discussion of “Hapsburg lip” and the last, sickly scion of the inbred House of Hapsburg:

Charles II not only suffered an extreme version of the Hapsburg lip, his tongue was said to be so big for his mouth that he had difficulty speaking and drooled. He also suffered from an oversized head, intestinal upsets, convulsions and, according to his first wife, premature ejaculation.

“He was unable to speak until the age of four, and could not walk until the age of eight. He was short, weak and quite lean and thin. He was described as a person showing very little interest in his surroundings,” Professor Alvarez said. “He looked like an old person when he was 30 years old, suffering edemas [swellings] on his feet, legs, abdomen and face. During the last years of his life he could barely stand up and suffered from hallucinations and convulsive episodes,” he said.

A message, then, to the future: Zoë and Doodah, I know your parents are brother and sister. But you must break the cycle. If you have to, marry Christopher’s grandchildren. They will be Greek or something, so that should be different enough.