Half/step siblings

[Pickledeverything]

If your children have half or step siblings do you correct them when they say “brother/sister” so they use the proper term?

YABU - yes I do
YANBU - no I do not

Sadly you are projecting your bitterness onto your child. Never a good thing. Just let it go.

Just brothers and sisters in our house. I’ve got 3 step brothers who I refer to as brothers too. I don’t understand your need to be specific. What does it achieve?

DDs ex best friend was an 'only child' according to her mother. She actually had two older half siblings. Put me right off that mother (the kids fell out for another reason though)

You’re being a bit weird.

My child refers to her step siblings as her siblings. She knows they are her step siblings, it’s her preference.

We don’t “correct” my step children when they refer to their new younger sibling as being a sibling rather than “half”.

Re whether dad’s girlfriend is step mum or not, that depends surely on whether they’ve been together 6 months or a few years. Marital status doesn’t magically create the step parent relationship.

I have several steps and halfs - they are all just 'brother' or 'sister' to me, and I introduce them as such.

Except for one step-brother who is a bit of a dick 😀

Why would you want your child to feel alone and different?

My husband has 2 daughters from a previous relationship and we have a daughter together. I have always referred to my stepdaughters as her sisters with her. One of my stepdaughters now has a baby and our daughter is now an aunty - they’ve grown up with each other in their lives (we had my stepdaughters 3 times a week) and although there is an age gap between them they are close. There is no right or wrong answer whatever works for your family and everyone is comfortable with. I think the children will decide anyway what they refer to each other as in the future

The thing is, your kids know their family dynamic, but are choosing the term that they feel fits best for them. Are you still going to be ‘correcting’ them when they are adults?

Sometimes my kids tell people their cousins are their siblings as they are very close and they like doing it. I just smile and if it’s clearly confusing someone I just explain to the person.

I correct other people when they refer to my step sister as my sister. I feel it's disrespectful to my actual sister who I love and was raised with to suggest that someone I barely know can be the same status in my life. However our parents got together when I was an adult and we don't really get on.

Well I clicked on YABU because I thought your attitude was so appallingly unreasonable that I clicked before finishing reading your first post.

I know you can change a vote and have done but a lot of people don’t realise that so I wouldn’t count on that 11% actually agreeing with you.

Maybe don’t set up the poll so the choices are directly opposite the question you were actually asking if you want the response to be accurate?

She is 12 years old and you are stopping her from being honest about her relationships with other people. You are basically ordering her to hide her feelings as they make you uncomfortable. That's a risky strategy for a kid who's on the cusp of teenage hood.

How do you see your relationship with her as she grows older? Do you want her to feel she can be open and honest with you? By policing her language when she refers to her siblings (step, half or otherwise) you are encouraging her to hide things from you, to be on guard in case something she says upsets you or makes you angry....

Yes you are.

Put your child first and put your bitterness aside.

No. My son technically has two half sisters, one he lives with and one we see regularly, both his sisters are also close to each other
I love the fact he just calls them “his sisters”, I would never correct this or waste my life or breath doing so. If you have to keep correcting a 12yr old maybe you need to rethink your views a little.

I never knew two aunties on my father's side were half sisters to my father until I was in my 20s. My paternal grandparents died before I was born and I thought aunty "Mary", "Elizabeth", my father and my uncle "Fred" were full siblings. They always referred to each other and brothers and sisters, and there was no reason to suspect something else. During a Christmas Eve dinner, they were chatting with each other and I heard that my paternal grandmother had been married twice. Being nosy, I asked and got and told that my aunties were born in the first marriage, and my father and uncle in the second.

Nothing changed except getting some information about the family I had no idea about. They were always brothers and sisters.

I don't understand why you feel the need to correct.

If she thinks of them as her brothers & sisters she is expressing her sense of them as family which is how they presumably feel to her.

As she is 12 she will have an understanding of the facts about everyone's different biological parents so she's not going to get confused, is she?

My children are technically 'half' siblings but none of us have ever thought of them in that way and I remember the eldest being quite upset when someone at school told him they were half siblings.

Their dad remarried and they didn't have children but, if they had, I wouldn't have referred to them as half siblings either. They would also have been their brothers/sisters in my eyes (despite not actually being blood related to one of my children at all!)

I do have two half siblings and that is different because they are 31 years younger than me (and we don't see them but that's another story!)

I have a partner now and all our children are adults. We've all already said that, when grandchildren come along, there'll be no 'step' there either. All children (adult and grand) are, and will be treated, equally/equitably.

I did the same. I also went back to correct it.

I think that as a mum, it can be very difficult to view a child that you didn't make with your own body (or choose to adopt) as the same importance to your child. They may have come into your family situation in a horrible way (cheating or acrimonious divorce) and all that can create very mixed up and hostile feelings or resentment.

But your children (if you are very lucky and handle the situation well), won't be aware of any of that. Children want to belong, they want to feel part of both of the families they are with. They never chose any of this. And that's true for your child and the half/step children.

So as hard as it is to be the grown up, you have up fo it for your child and let them feel bonded and not remind them of barriers. And remember that as your child grows, they'll know full well who their mum is - you won't be replaced!

I find you attitude this quite offensive. In this case the man has obviously played some father type role in this woman’s life - she is obviously not a random person to him.
I still see my exes daughter (ex step daughter), I still give her birthday and Christmas presents. I don’t refer to her as a random child at all, she’s my son’s sister. I think your views are seriously dated and harmful TBH.

My MIL tried to get my husband (as a child) to call her second husband “dad” when he already had a dad in the picture - so wrong. She then started referring to her third husband (who wasn’t on the scene until my husband was in his 30s) as “granddad”. We said no, our child has two granddads and Dave is Dave. I find her trying to push relationships like this onto her unwilling family appalling. Dave has grown-up children who we’ve never met, we don’t even know their names, any attempt to refer to them as my my husband’s brothers or our children’s uncles would be laughed at.

I think that's fair enough tbh that's probably more to do with not wanting to be thought of as having had 10 children by the age of 32 than anything else!

OP, why is it so important to you that you correct her or that she uses the 'correct' terminology?

If your children were adopted, would you still feel the same.and keep.correcting her, "No, they are your adopted siblings."

The whole step/half clarification might be important for legal or medical clarity but it has no bearing on the relationships.

If the child feels comfortable to call them their sibling then that’s their choice and you have no right to dictate otherwise. You are essentially getting them to choose a parent and putting them in the middle which is completely unacceptable. Sounds like your own insecurities about it are at play here which is a you issue to deal with, not your child’s.

Actually, a medical context is one of the few situations where I would make sure the specific genetic / legal relationships were clear. I think your job may well be misleading you as to how most parents deal with this in normal social situations.

I think you need to be careful here. I had a client who invariably corrected his two children when they referred to Mum’s new baby as their sister. He valued pedantry (tinged with bitterness) over his children’s feelings and desire for family. No doubt his bitterness played out in other ways too.

He ended up being the one cut out of the family. Don’t make the mistake of handing your child scissors - at 12, she’s fast approaching the age when she will use them.

Your poor child. And respect to the mother who doesn’t remark when her child refers to their stepmum as ‘mum’.

You risk alienating your child if you keep this up.