Birth sister? Is that even a thing? What should we call her?

[paulwellersjam]

DD will be seeing her birth sister soon, we're hoping to have a good relationship with the family (she's adopted) and see a lot of them in the future.

My issue is that I'm wondering in the longer term what to call this little girl person and her family. Obviously we'll call her Ermintrude/Amanda/Persephone/whatever. But it occurs to me that DD will need something to grow up calling her so that it doesn't immediately 'out' her as adopted when someone at school asks what she did at the weekend - as in 'I saw my birth sister'.

DD also has a sister (our BC) so we don't want to use 'sister' as I think that confuses the nature of DD's relationship with DD1.

DD is only 15 months old so she doesn't have a word to reference this relationship. But DD1 is at school and I would prefer she wasn't using the phrase 'DD2's birth sister' to people there.

So do we go with something artificial like 'cousin' which doesn't feel right? Or something else? Any ideas?

I would say that she is her sister, too, DS isn't adopted but hasn't seen his biological father since he was two and doesn't remember him. The only Dad he has ever known is DH. I didn't want it to be a big secret so we have always talked about how he has DH who is his Daddy but he also had another Daddy when he was a baby. He actually has a half brother on his father's side but he won't be able to have contact with him as he was adopted, so we haven't talked about him really. I'll tell him when he's older, but we won't know anything about the other boy unless he chooses to contact DS directly when they are older.

I think that naturally as your DD grows up you will have this conversation ongoing about her birth mother and the sister will just be a part of that. "Alice is my sister from you, Mummy, and Persephone is my sister from . I live with Alice but Persephone lives with XXXXX"

We've always said 'brother' and 'sister', except for DS recently, since he no longer seems to consider his birth siblings as real siblings. Which actually made me a wee bit sad. I've been writing back and forth to a couple of them with DD2 for years after all. Met 2 of them as well. But anyway, I've switched to first names only with him, albeit with no more contact which simplifies things rather

It can be hard to navigate 'telling' other people, whether outright or by implication. I think your BC is perhaps old enough to talk to about being private and not talking to classmates about her little sisters sister etc. She can say friend, or family friends, etc, and it's 100% true

I think this privacy vs. sharing applies to any subject which could bring up adoption, so IMVHO the best way forward is to talk to DD about her having the right to be as open or private as she wishes. Have you heard of WISE up? It's a little acronym for kids to show them ways of dealing with difficult questions from classmates. Stands for 'Walk away, It's private, Share, Educate'. Not sure if you can ship the kids workbook (called the WISE Up Powerbook I think) to the UK or not. But there are other ways of approaching it. Basically I think giving her the tools to help her develop her confidence dealing with adoption related subjects or questions, and to know that it's okay to be private, will help her navigate the subject of her sister and other adoption related things as well, as and if they come up.

So I think the goal would be to help your AD have the confidence to say what she feels comfortable with. Sister or friend or anything that feels right to her. You can always talk to her and ask her 'what do you want to say to people in school if they ask x?' Or maybe 'do you want anyone in school to know that y is your birth sister?' Then you could guide how you help her around what she wants?

That's kind of been my approach with DS. Actually, he's quite private and has only become more so as the years have passed, so he hasn't told everyone and the subject of his siblings has never come up as far as I know

Cariadsdarling that's easily the classiest retraction I've ever seen on MN. Hats off :)

And Lilka wise words as always :) I like WISE a lot - that will be manageable for DD and actually would probably work for lots of other things that might come up. Thanks I will look out for that resource for you too :)

Can I just say what an education threads on this topic are from time to time?
Kudos to all of you.

She is her sister so you should refer to her as her sister. most of the time you will use her name anyway.
Also, why wouldn't you want people at school to know she was adopted, is this sort of the norm today?
it is good to know you are adopted from a very early age well ime anyway.
I would have hated somebody else to have told me or parents have told me at a later age.

poster
This isn't about telling her DD that she is adopted. I am sure OP's DD will always know that she is adopted.

It's about a) other people finding out and b) the terms used at home, which is difficult for us parents to work out what to use at times. It's kind of like, do you say "birth mum", "birth mother", "tummy mummy", "first mum", just "Jane" or something else entirely. So do you say "your sister", "your birth sister" or just "Persephone", and avoid the word sister at a very young age by maybe saying "who also grew in your birth mum's tummy but the social worker found her a different forever family"...and leave it up to DD to find a word for it. What language do you model to your kids and what do you let them find words for? and, God it's complicated sometimes!

etc etc etc

But telling other people isn't simple

If BD tells people at school, then she's taken away AD's right to privacy, without meaning to or perhaps understanding the implications

My DS does not like that some people know about his adoption, he didn't tell them. But he can't do anything about it obviously

AD's thoughts and feelings might change over the years. You can't take back what you've told, so developing confidence to handle questions is important. But she may not want to tell people, then she may want support from her mum to work out what to say instead of 'I went to see my sister yesterday'.

that was a lovely well considered response there lilka ( when RTFT would have done :) )

Poster I can't rival Lilka's wisdom, nor would I want to! And I can't speak for the OP or anyone else. But I will say as a relativity new adopter, (6 months in) that when we were thinking about adoption I was thinking I would be very open with everyone. It was all about me and my family and our experience. Then ds arrived and I read on mumsnet's wonderful adoption boards and realised that my little lad is the one who will be known about if I tell people. I wanted to let him tell people, if he wants to, in his own time. Because I already know a lot of people locally and my friends, with kids, know ds is adopted. But their kids will forget and it seems right if ds wants to talk about it when he is older he can choose who he discuss it with.

I agree Italian greyhound. Dd has a half birth brother, half sibling, their birth mum was our straight surrogate. I was similar to you when she wanted a brother when 3 friends suddenly had baby brothers.
I even used that phrase, you can't Un tell people.
now at 15 she has no interest in him and hasn't since she was 5 even though we see her birth mum about 3 times a year.

Actually Italian, your very wise post says something much much more important than mine did

It IS about that transition from it being purely your journey, into your childs as well/predominantly. When you're going through the approval process, it can feel very natural to tell lots of people, or your BC to tell their class...because at that moment in time, the future adoptive child is an abstract idea really...sometimes it feels more real than others, but nevertheless, the future child is a hope, a dream, ideas...not a solid little being you feel enormous responsibility for.

So it is, as you said, basically purely your journey until you get matched. Then suddenly this child is real. You truly start to comprehend what would be right and what would be wrong to tell people, you start to think "what will x think about this when he/she is older"

And then they move in, and suddenly it's all about them, as it should be. Their story, their privacy, and for the first time having to reconsider the openness that might have been very natural when you perhaps told people lots of details about the approvals process. Suddenly the fact that your BC told all their classmates feels uncomfortable. Because it's not all about their excitement any more, it's about the fact that if any of the tell others, your AC has lost the right to decide for themselves if their classmates know

It's a bit more complicated for older children who might start school mid year etc and have less choice about privacy, but similar principles

Anyway, I'm just repeating you, so to sum up the entire post in 3 words....what Italian said

You are both brilliant and wise

Am honoured Lilka!

We have a slight variation on the original issue in that DD refuses to engage in any conversation with us about the half siblings she has on both the paternal and maternal side. As far as she's concerned DS is her one and only brother and that's that.

Do we push this or leave it? She's only four so plenty of time to address it but things also get harder the longer they are left...

Leave it. Just say technically they are birth siblings and she. Might want to know them one day.
Make sure she doesn't forget, one of my DNs totally forgot about Dd and was shocked to re find out again

Thanks QOD - that was our instinct too