AIBU to think DH should stop referring to 'half brother'?

[GrownUpGrowingUp]

Our first joint DC is due very soon. My DSC are quite excited, regularly chat with us about their new sibling and seem genuinely interested and looking forward to it.

There's quite a large age gap which I think has helped, one DSC over 10 and the other about to be 10.

I just have a little niggle... Every time DH mentions it he always refers to the baby as 'half' so he'll say 'oh can you believe you'll have a half brother/sister soon' and so on...

AIBU to ask him to stop and just say 'brother or sister'.

I don't think it's necessary for us to specify the difference. The children understand they don't have exactly the same parents but I want us all to feel as included as possible. I understand the children may choose to call their sibling this, and that is up to them but so far they haven't and so I don't think DH should be?

What do you think?

I have half siblings. I usually just refer them as my siblings/brothers/sisters. I would only refer to them as "half" if it was actually relevant to the conversation in some way. Which is pretty rare.

[quote supersonicginandtonic]@CelestiaLudenberg I actually find that really sad. She does have more than one sister though doesn't she? I think you need to discuss with her how not calling her a sister could upset her and harm her feelings. At 9 she is of enough to understand.[/quote]
I agree it is kind of sad. I'm past caring though. I've spent years giving her dad advice on how to make things better between my DD's their dad and his wife, they're not willing to listen so now we're at a point my kids don't want to go there, they hate his wife and their baby.

My DD's are very close and that's all that matters to me, if they don't want another sister it's not my job to change that and it's obviously a job their dad doesn't want.

@Mumsn0t

Speaks volumes about how he views your older children . I'd be worried about how this plays out over the years.

What do you mean sorry? The DSC are his children. I don't have any older children.

Thanks for everyone's replies.

I appreciate he's being 'factually correct' but it's unnecessary. As per PP, would you introduce your second wife/husband as that every time to someone you met?

Your dh is wrong
My dm had a brother who she adored. I didn’t even know that they were ‘half’ siblings until I was much older. They always referred to each other as brother and sister.

Totally agree with you.
My awful ghastly ex has had a new baby and it wouldn't cross my mind to refer to him as my children's half brother. They know he has a different mum but he is their brother to them.

Same as they just call their step brother and sister their "brother and sister" .

Adding the technical name all the time implied a "distance" to the relationship that doesn't exist in reality

Children who are brought up together should just be brother and sister. Unless someone is drawing a family tree then highlighting the difference is unnecessary and confusing for children. Its unusual it's your DH and not his ex who is using that terminology, I've only heard it from the other party before.

My husband has a very blended family. I was at his step-mother's wedding last year - she was widowed and was getting remarried in her 60s to a widower. My husband's sister was a guest too and she had said that somebody had wondered whether we'd attend. She'd apparently told them that we were family - full siblings, half siblings and step siblings. She is my husband's half sister but he would always refer to her as his sister and he got on very well with his stepmother. Anyway the wedding was huge and very inclusive and actually one of the happiest I had ever been to. My husband's step mother unblushingly introduced me as a daughter-in-law. In fact, one of our children when they were very little thought that having a stepmother was great and asked us if we could get him one too.

Seriously. I would tell him to cut that out. Its extremely unnecessary!
My friend married a man and went on to have 6 children with him and she already had a daughter prior to meeting him.
They all class each other as full brothers and sisters. No one is seen less or distant. My friends dh includes his stepdaughter in everything the family do. And actually am pretty sure she took on his name some years ago, and she even calls him dad as her biological father was abusive and they have nc. When I used to round to visit before covid, you wouldn't think the eldest girl was a half sister. They were all treated equally and lovingly the same . Its nice to see.

Tell your husband you would prefer brothers and sisters term. Not half. I have a half brother but I are him as my full blood even though I have nothing to do with him.

@GrownUpGrowingUp is there any chance that this is coming from the kids themselves?
My dd was 10 when her dad had a baby with her sm & it was VERY important to dd that she (dd) refer to the baby as a half sibling & wanted me to refer to as same (she would 'correct' me if I said sibling). I think she was just trying to make sense of her emotions around the whole thing as she was extremely upset the new baby would get to live with her dad ft while she didn't & SHE needed that distinction in her head & wanted me on board as support.
Saying half sibling used to drive exh & sm nuts & I eventually had to tell them (politely) to back off and give her space; that the more they didn't make a fuss out of her saying half sibling the less of an issue it would become & I was right. 5 years on her two younger siblings on her dad's side are just her siblings (no halves ) and she's mad about them both & she dropped the 'half' bit organically & in her own time.
There's a chance that your dh is just trying to accommodate his dcs feelings rather than deliberately trying to cause a wedge.
Talk to him, & if the dc are having a few wobbles just let it play out & don't get too hung up on terminology.
Once the baby is here (& their dm is not causing any issues around "your fathers new family") all will be well especially as the baby grows and becomes a real little person.

@NailsNeedDoing

He’s just being factual, he probably doesn’t realise why you’d feel sensitive to it.

I realise a lot of families prefer not to use the ‘half’ as it can feel divisive, but personally I’d rather lose the negativity associated with it instead so that people can be factual without it needing to offend anyone. My children have a half sibling who they have a great relationship with but I don’t think there’s a huge benefit from refusing to acknowledge the differences between half and full siblings. They can know that they are half siblings and it’s still special and important.

I would also feel like this.

Could he be doing it to be sensitive to you? Personally, on a selfish level, I find it more annoying when people talk as if my DD is just my SSs little sister (though I bottle that up to an extent).

I don't find this as appalling as everyone else on here tbh. It depends entirely on the kids and how they react, kids can have some very weird reactions to a new baby. My SS convinced himself she was going to live with my MIL when she was born. Since then he's often described the situation as if he iss my DP's son, and DD is my daughter, rather than them both being DPs children. He's always called her sister and yet still gets it muddled in unpredictable ways in his head. My point being that calling them "half" might make less sense to them or it might make more, I don't think it is automatically a problem. Just have a chat with him about it and also keep an eye on how the kids react.

YANBU

My daughter is 6 and has a different dad to my 1 year old. They are brother and sister, no half about it. I think calling them ' half ' siblings is setting them up for a potentially difficult relationship. Your DH is effectively saying that they aren't real siblings.

Your DH is effectively saying that they aren't real siblings

Why is it effectively saying that, though? Surely it's just saying they are half siblings, which isn't an insult or fake.

On the flipside, I think it would do some of the kids on here a lot of good to be more aware their siblings are half siblings, as there seem to be an awful lot of kids devastated that their half siblings family don't treat them the same etc. I think in a lot of cases it's doing more harm than good protecting kids from any acknowledgement that they have some different family as if "half" is a dirty word.

I don't think most kids of over 10 will be unaware as to who their (half) siblings parents are surely? I mean that's an age where you should be pretty capable of understanding that your half brother or sister has a different mum/dad to you without it needing to be explained to you or constantly referred to in conversation.

And this isn't about the children calling the baby half. It's about the DH. It's unnecessary, unless it's come from the kids which it doesn't appear to have, as has been said several times by OP.

So where does it stop? 'DSC, can you please help your HALF brother do X', 'DSC, your HALF brother was asking about you today' and so on... Do you really need to add the half into every single conversation? It just begins to sound like you're trying to make the distinction when it's unnecessary.

Since then he's often described the situation as if he iss my DP's son, and DD is my daughter, rather than them both being DPs children

Surely pushing a clear distinction with the 'half' thing makes this sort of reaction worse?? If you just encouraged them to see each other as normal siblings rather than half this or that would he not be less likely to see DD as yours and himself as his dads?

@AbsolutelySpiffing As I said, he calls DD sister and the half has never been pushed. My point was that based on my experiences with him and what I have read on various threads on here before, kids often respond in unusual ways to siblings and that could be highly volatile in either direction, wanting to be as connected to the baby as possible or wanting to have nothing to do with them, or anything random in between. They are often confused about where babies even come from and think odd things. Certain words may trigger one kid and have the opposite effect on another. It's not as simple as just "all kids hate having the half pointed out"

And the other thing that does concern me about being overly cautious about acknowledging they are half siblings is the resulting expectations of wider family etc. All too often you see posters on here saying their child is heartbroken their half siblings family don't treat them in the same way/buy the same amount of gifts for them etc, which they would be less likely to feel if they understood what being half siblings meant. Every situation is different, but honestly I think it would be the lesser of two evils for the above kids to hear it mentioned that they are half siblings, but not have it treated like a dirty word.

@aSofaNearYou I agree with you that kids should be aware of the different relationships within the extended blended family. I’m just not sure the ‘half’ helps with that necessarily.

My DSes know they have different fathers, and different sets of grandparents etc (well, not the baby - he’s only just aware that he has feet, never mind anything else). They also know that their stepsiblings have different parents and family members entirely. It’s not a secret. And I certainly don’t expect anything from DH’s family in relation to my sons. Nor do I care that my family see my sons as family in ways they’ll never see the DSC as. It’s all fine and no one is horrible to anyone.

As I said before, the irony is that the only people who would even think to use the half terminology are DH and MIL. And in DH’s case, he’s the one who gets annoyed that my mum gave the DSC £20 for Christmas, but gave my DS £50. Weirdly, he totally accepts that MIL never gets my older sons anything but buys loads for the DSC. So his stance on blood and biology is totally contradictory in loads of ways.

MIL is just weird. Tbh, I’m not sure she even accepts that I am her DIL. She’s fixated on ‘first families’ as ‘real families’ as much as she is in ‘blood is thicker than water’. She definitely acts like my DS3 (DH’s child) is less of a grandchild than the DSC. In fact, DH’s siblings do that too. Second is second best to them. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s their loss really.

@StopSquirtingBleachOnCaneToads

I have half siblings. I usually just refer them as my siblings/brothers/sisters. I would only refer to them as "half" if it was actually relevant to the conversation in some way. Which is pretty rare.

^This.

I checked with a couple of children whether I was being weird as some adults were making a big deal of it, and nope they refer to their half-siblings as siblings.

In fact, all adults I know who find out they have a half-sibling as an adult, refer to them as their "brother" or "sister" if they have a good/ok relationship with them. If they hate them so have little or no relationship with them they use the term "half".

@KumquatSalad I really feel for you, your DH and MIL sound like nightmares.

I don't think the "half" title will necessarily help, either. I just also don't think it is inherently an awful thing to point out, as has been implied many times on this thread. I think the fervent desire to never allow the kids to be confronted with the fact that they are "only" half siblings, as though that "isn't real" or is somehow an insulting title, is a natural precursor to things like lambasting step parents for not viewing the SC like their own, not to mention the wider family. There's a lot of toxicity there when on the flip side, there's no reason being someone's "half sibling" has to be in any way a bad thing.

That's not to say I think OPs partner should keep on saying it that way every time, especially if his kids respond poorly to it, but I don't think going too hard the other way and reacting angrily to the term is a great thing either.

I think we are generally in agreement there @aSofaNearYou. It’s not some dirty secret that they are half siblings, but it’s not really something that’s relevant in most situations.

My DH does have his good points. He is bloody Hard Work though! My MIL is a total piece of work though (and DH would benefit from a lot of therapy to overcome her influence). She has few redeeming features (I’m struggling to think of any).