and it was a pretty mean thing for X to point out. What was he thinking?! Okay this upsets me mostly because I grew up in a divorced family and I have a younger sister who is a "1/2" sister. My mom and SD raised me for the most part. I was only three when my sister was born and let me tell you we were and still are very close. I never knew there was such a thing as a "1/2" sister and when my SM explained this too me I was extremely hurt and upset. Why she did it. I think there was a bit of jealousy over the fact that I was closer to my MOm and SD's daughter then her and my BD's daughters.

Half indicates only a portion of something, not the whole thing, and while I will admit my younger sister only shares half the genetic make up as me--she is my sister in every other aspect. I, couldn't have been less concerned with any of the 1/2 business until my SM told me this as a young girl.

Now you might think my BM would have explained this all to me before SM had the chance, but as my BM later explained she didn't want me or my older siblings to think of our younger sister as anything other then--our sister! She didn't want halfs-- just one whole family. Makes sense sense to me. However I do believe mom should have said something to me sooner simply because I was so hurt and confused by it later.

Either way you handled in well in my opinion. But you are right it was not your X's place and I would guess he did it just to be an ass. In my opinon anyway.

Alisha

You could just say, she's a half because you left his ass out of it... LOL ;~)

I didn't think of that but it's the truth and it's funny...LMAO!

that we will NOT be using the word 1/2 brother & sister with the baby when it's born. That the baby I am carrying is the boys brother or sister end of story. She was good with that and has actually sent me an email telling me she was happy for me. It's her Nazi parents I worry about....

The boys are actually very excited about the baby & were asking me questions yesterday when I picked them up at school. I went online & found pictures that showed what our baby ( that is how we refer to the baby is our baby, not mine or dad's) looks like & then I read to them information about the developement up to birth. They loved it!

I told DH in a way I feel bad for their mother as they are sharing something with me that they will never be able to share with her. ( she didn't want more children & her BF has three so she is done)The boys are three years apart so the oldest one doesn't remember this stuff from when his brother was born. I think that showing them pics on the internet helps make it more real for them and helps promote that we are family.

They are also excited that the last few weeks of summer vacation they don't have to do ycare but will stay home with me & the baby. Youngest said he wishes the baby would arrive the day school let out. Oldest SS quickly told him that would be bad because the baby would not be ready yet. Too funny

My SD11 has been brainwashed and trained by BM to call her baby sister her stepsister. She won't even be so "kind" as to call her her half sister! I've always hated that term - it's so marginalizing, like our baby is half a person or something?

Why can't parents just be adults and put there own feelings of jealousy and insecurity aside and let their kids be kids? Oh it infuriates me how parents can hurt their kids because they can't see past their own anger!

It seems I have a slightly different opinion from most posts on this subject...I was reading a really good book that kind of covers the spectrum when it comes to these issues by Alyesha Gallion. According to her, it all depends on the circumstances, and how you really feel about it in your heart. And you should have a heart to heart conversation with your husband so you can figure out together what you are going to do. And I thought a lot about this myself, for when I become a mom. I'm sort of on the fence. On one hand, I like the term "half", because I feel like any full sibling would have to come from me & him. But I don't see anything demeaning about the term in the first place. My mother has a half sister. Sometimes she calls her her "sister", sometimes her "half-sister". Also, the BM does everything she can to completely avoid me, act like I don't exist, ignore me, speak badly about me in front of her daughter, etc. So we do seperate birthday celebrations, etc. Mind you, that seperation is fine with me now, altho it used to make me feel angry. But now I think I prefer it that way anyway. What I don't like is how rude she is. Basically, BM tries to pretend I don't even exist. If we drop the kids off and she happens to be outside, she'll run down the sidewalk and run into her house just so she doesn't have to even see me. She'll leave the kids behind and everything just so BF can bring them to her door and she can avoid my "hello".

So for me to have a child, the entire dynamic just creates the feeling of "half-sibling" when it comes to his kids. Also, I believe that a lot depends on the living situation. I feel like kids who grow up in the same home kind of naturally fall into the "full-sibling" thing, because they are all in the same house, and it's just my opinion, but ESPECIALLY if they come from the same womb, regardless of who the father is. Just coming from the same womb to me makes a huge difference. So when I think of my situation, 2 future sk's who live with their mother, & me having a child, I can see me using "half-sister/brother" naturally. It just fits our personal situation.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I can sort of see myself just using the term "sister" or "brother" as well. I guess the best way to describe how I feel about it is, if I saw ss sitting on the couch with my daughter, I would probably say, "No feet on the couch kids. (SS name), please scoot over for your sister." I wouldn't say the term "half" while directly referring to them. But in my heart, and if anyone asked, I would probably say, yes, they are half-sisters/brothers. And I would explain it to the kids why they are half-sisters and why the sk's live with their mom, etc. I believe that the relationship you have with your sibling that you live with is unlike any other, whether or not you share the same set of parents. Just living together creates that sibling bond (with some exceptions of course) But siblings who live in separate households, from what I've seen with my friends' experiences, those relationships seem to be more like that of cousins, if that in some cases. Just my personal observation. Living together really solidifies that bond.

But I even hate the idea of having to explain to my future child why the sk's have a different mother in the first place. Like, yuck! I don't even want my child to even have in his consciousness the fact that Daddy was with someone else before Mommy, and that's why sk's live with their mom, etc...Did any of you feel a way about this too? & how did you deal with it? How was this/when was this explained to your child? What did you say???

about 3 years ago, bm had another baby off a one night stand, and ss was over at our house talking about his baby brother. A friend of his was at our house and asked if this was a 1/2 brother...and ss immediately defended his baby brother as "NO"...well, it confused the friend b/c she knew the difference, so she looked at me and I just said..."Actually your baby brother is a 1/2 sibling, the only way he could be a full sibling is if your parents had another baby together...but it doesn't mean that you only love them 1/2 as much! You still love him no matter what..."

Since then, we have had zero argument over where 1/2 or whole, or whether it even matters. We all know that they are siblings, and that you love them no matter what.

Perhaps your ex wasn't trying to upset you over this, there could be a very valid reason as to why it explained it to his daughter. Maybe you should ask him why he decided to explain it to her at all. I don't think he was trying to be vindictive towards you by explaining, and perhaps he just had another view on whether to tell her or not...

We have never used the 1/2 sibling term. Not because we feel it is a negative term or anything like that. My ss knows that the kids have different moms and the same dad. At some point I'm sure it will be explained by someone. I even remember classes in school explaining the nuclear and blended family concept.

Okay, here's our tribe: (1) oldest SD was conceived by husband's ex-wife through an affair, so she's not biologically his, not really a step, was never adopted by him, her BF pays child support and has visitation rights, but my husband's name is on her birth certificate and we "claim" her as one of our kids; (2) I have a son from my previous marriage that my husband adopted, so he's my bioson, used to be my husband's stepson and is now my husband's adopted son; (3) he conceived two biological children with his ex-wife and (4) we conceived one child together during our marriage. Do you have any idea how honking confusing this is to explain to our own children, let alone outsiders?! It's a nightmare of logistics!

We have explained all the various relationships to all the kids, except the youngest who isn't quite four. They all understand the difference between step, half, adopted, whatever, but it doesn't really matter to any of us. For daily usage, it's brother and sister, period, no matter which kid it is. My husband is Daddy to all five, I am Mama to my two and I am Anne to my three skids. Now, they have slipped and called me Mama before (not Mom or Mommy, which they call their mother) and I never really encouraged or discouraged it, but I would sometimes make a game of it, grab the kid, tickle them and say in my best monster voice, "I'm not your Mama, little boy! I'm your evil stepmother... mwa ha ha ha ha!"

I am closer to my stepbrother than I am my stepsister, whom I've never gotten along with and don't even really like, so I refer to him as my brother, but her as my stepsister. I think a lot just depends on the kind of relationship that develops between the kids. Some may feel better having that extra word - half or step - in there, but for us, we stand by the "no steps in our house" rule.

~ Anne ~

In our house, we have no children among ourselves, but my DH has another child, and SS's BM has two other children, plus a third one on the way.

When SS asked us once about why DH doesn't see his brother and sister (we almost hit the floor, um, because they aren't HIS, of course he didn't understand all of that, he was like 5). We just explained that they were half siblings, they had a different father, (who apparently has never been in their lives) and he was pretty confused by that. We don't see any difference but explained why they were called "halves", other than that, they are brother and sister and that's what we call them. Same with his 'half' sister on DH's side. It's his sister.

And even with that, I think that his mom is also pushing that his new stepbrother is being referred to him as his brother, however, SS is very quick to correct the sentence when he's talking about him... for example, he'll say to someone, "Yeah, my brother, well, he's not my brother, he's my stepbrother, J, he does this or that..." Sorta strange, but we don't make any waves about it. Infact, when we did find out that she remarried, we told SS how exciting that was that J was now his brother! Cool, huh?!. So, I'm not sure why it's important for him to make that distinguishing factor that J is his stepbrother.

We don't make a big deal out of it, otherwise the kids stress about it. It's not important to us, so we just deal with it as matter of fact, and move on. The kids will pick up on that.

is simply just move on. If it comes up again, just say, yes, you're right. How about that? But if you make light of it, chances are she'll recognize that it's not a big deal. Instead, she'll be a little confused as to why her dad is making a big deal out of it. I'd just leave it simple and keep referring him as her brother, since he is.

Think about it this way. As a kid, I used to get scared of thunderstorms, but my mother got excited about them. Why? Because she knew that they scared me. Those black clouds, the lightening, the big bangs and cracklings. That's a lot for a kid to take in, it's the unknown factor. So, she did the exact opposite. She got excited about it. Said how pretty the lightening is, look at that! Wow. Oh, cool it's going to storm... maybe the lights will go out! We get to use the candles. She made a big production out of it. Because she was 'hyped up' every time about it, I began to think.. okay, maybe this isn't such a big deal after all, then it went to, hey, this IS fun, to... OH YEAH, It's going to rain!