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This week, on two different online forums I frequent, there have been discussions about biological relationships. The two situations vary greatly, but both women posed essentially the same question: How can I ask my child’s biological relatives to stop calling their children my child’s “sisters”?
One woman added, “Technically, I know they are, but he is ours now.”
No, they’re not “technically” siblings. They are siblings.
Jack’s birth mother, S, has a son whom she parents. Iggy is just about 18 months older than Jack. We have a picture of her with him when he was about 15 months old; it lives on our refrigerator. For a long time, Jack thought Iggy was him.
Sometime last spring, Jack started to sort of connect S with himself. He once asked, out of the blue, “I grew is S’s belly?” and I said yes. He started to realize that Iggy wasn’t him, but his brother. One day, when I picked him up from preschool, he came running up and asked “What my brudder’s name?”. I said, “Iggy.” He ran back to a friend of his and said, “Iggy” then came back.
Jack has always known that he has a brother who lives with his birthmother.
Last May, when my mother-in-law was visiting, I woke up to see the following note on our white board:
S called. She’s pregnant.
I freaked out. Did she want us to adopt the baby? How on earth was she going to provide for the baby? How were we going to explain that to Jack? What was she thinking?!?!?
I called S, and she proudly announced that Jack was going to have a baby brother or sister.
I really didn’t know how to tell Jack. He was two, and just starting to grasp the concept of having a Birth Mommy and brother. Baby A was born this past fall. S sent me some cell phone pictures. That’s when I nonchalantly told Jack that he now had a baby sister, Baby A.
At three, Jack will randomly bring up the fact that he has a brother and a sister. He will sometimes say that they can “come to my house and play wif my toys”. Were only it that simple. I know that someday he’ll ask why Iggy and Baby A live with S, and he doesn’t. I’m going to have to come up with a good answer that doesn’t offend anyone.
Iggy, Jack, and Baby A all have different fathers, so they’re half-siblings. I don’t even bother with the “half” part. Jack does want a baby sister who will live with him, and he’ll let her “play wif my trains, but not Skarloey”. (Long story.)
My son actually has at least one other sibling, whom I believe is a girl, on his birth father’s side. Because I don’t know for certain, and we don’t have any contact with him (his choice), I haven’t mentioned that part to Jack. I think it’s sad that Jack might have siblings out there that he’ll never know. However, he has two now, and he will know them. He’ll have one more who does live with him, God-willing, by the time he turns five. To some people, technically, they will be siblings. To others, technically, they won’t. To us, they will all be sisters and brothers.
I think this is a very good point. Anytime we qualify people’s relationships to us to imply that they are or are not “technically” related, feelings are bound to get hurt. The important thing is recognizing those people who are involved in a child’s life with correct and non-demeaning titles.
How do we as adoptive parents feel when someone says of our children, “Well, they’re not technically siblings….”
We get a bit protective don’t we? They are siblings, PERIOD! Legally and in our hearts, they are siblings. So, why would we as adoptive parents ever hold back and say that our child’s biological half or whole siblings are “technically” siblings, but don’t deserve acknowledgment? Does the finalization of an adoption completely take away our child’s biology? Of course not. To deny a child an opportunity to know about their birth parents and siblings if there is an opportunity for connection is not in the best interest of that child. Even with a closed adoption, we should not feel that we have to hide the fact of known siblings. There is no shame in knowing you have relatives, whether you see them much, or not all.
I don’t think we do any service to our children if we try to seperate or conceal their identities from them. I believe at the end of the day they will respect and love us as parents more for it. Just becasue I adopted my daughter doesn’t remove her from being someone else’s biological daughter. I must also say, my adopting her “absolutely” makes her my daughter, definitely not my “technical” daughter.
[...] They’re Not “Technically” Siblings: a post I wrote in response to those who simply deny biological relationships. [...]