When I was fresh out of college and on my own for the first time, I was befriended by a group of women at my job who were all in the neighborhood of twenty years older than me.
I’m not sure why they put up with me. I was as naively over-enthusiastic as a puppy. Perhaps I was their mascot?
One of my friends was raising a teenage child, a daughter from her first marriage. She and her first husband had been apart for many years; they’d both married new partners long ago. As far as I could tell, all the former and present partners got along as well as could be expected.
Her first husband’s new spouse (a much younger new spouse) gave birth to a baby girl during the time I knew my friend. Everyone was on good enough terms that my friend spent a not inconsiderable amount of time with mother and baby in the course of taking her daughter to and from visits with her father.
She took pictures, many many pictures, which she brought back to us, along with pictures of her daughter as an infant. “Look at her!” she’d tell us over coffee in the morning or wine in the evening. “This baby is the spitting image of my daughter!”
And as often as not, she’d cry.
I looked at the pictures. Yes, the new baby did look very similar to her infant daughter. But I had no clue why this fact would disturb my friend.
I was twenty-two, a notoriously naive twenty-two. I’m now nearly forty, and I finally know–or at least I think I know–why my friend was so upset.
Not long ago, my babies’ mother gave birth to a new little one. She’s attempting to raise this child herself. We’ll not discuss her relative degree of success or failure at that venture. We’ll skip right over that topic, if you don’t mind.
Due to one thing and another, I’d not been able to see the new child until just recently. But I had seen pictures, pictures which made my heart contract with a strange mixture of sadness and jealousy.
The new child looks exactly like one of my babies. Exactly. Like. The same hair. The same head shape. The same eyes. And the cheeks–I thought my baby’s cheeks were unique out of all babies ever.
Apparently not so much. This new child has the exact same cheeks.
The resemblance is even more evident in person. He seems like a sweet-tempered infant, much as my baby was (and still is). His hair swirls on his head the same way my child’s did. His eyes are the same shade and shape. And the cheeks–in person this baby’s cheeks appear to have been cloned (or transplanted, perhaps?) directly from my child’s cheeks.
It’s eerie.
I held him and rocked him as we visited, attempting to marshal my own small herd at the same time. I rubbed my nose against his fuzzy little head. I nuzzled his fat cheeks. I gave him a bottle.
At one point I said something that his mother misheard. “You want to take him?” she questioned me, with an almost obscene amount of hope in her voice.
No, honey, I told her. No, I can’t take any more of your children.
As much as I sometimes wish I could, I think to myself. My brain still hiccups with disbelief when I remember that this young woman has borne yet another child so quickly. And not just another child–she has borne my child’s almost-identical twin!
My eldest child struggles to understand the relationships. She knows that she grew in my tummy and that these babies grew in another’s tummy. She knows that technically, the little ones are all half-siblings. But what does that make her to the new baby? Is he her brother? Are our babies more related to this new baby than they are to her?
I don’t know. I discourage the use of “half” in descriptions of sibling-hood. They are all siblings of a sort, I tell her, even though they have different parents and live in different places.
That’s hardly a satisfying explanation.
I have no answers. But I think I should probably look up my old friend and send her an email. I’ll tell her that finally–a decade and a half later–finally I understand.
If they are under the same roof, raised by two loving parents then I dont see why you should use the term half in any of the relationships.
Plus, nobody is going to dare challenge you for a DNA test to prove the kids are actually half and not full siblings.
wow…
my wife and i are in the process of adopting a child and your post kinda flattened me to the floor.
huge luck. good karma. god bless.
b
The one thing I know about you is that you are, without fail, a good mother.
There is a real, logical reason why
You know it.
And yes, the emotion does not see the logic, but the logic is irrefutable. Be strong (as I know you will, because that’s what you do)
*big giant tight life-reaffirming hug*
Some things we don’t understand until we are a mother ourselves.
My husband and I are licensed foster parents – we recently had a 2 year old that was not a good match for us, nor us for him (he required a LOT of attention and had needs that we couldn’t fill – he needed a home with either NO kids, or OLDER kids, which DCF found and he’s doing WONDERFULLY at).
His biomom is the same way – she’d feel as though no one cared about her, so she’d find a man and have a baby. This continued and she now has had (technically) 8 children. She has custody of the two girls. All the boys are gone.
Nothing annoys or frustrates me more than parents who have children and don’t take care of them.
Hm. You are using the term “half-siblings” in a way I had never heard before. I had always thought that to be a half-sibling, the siblings had to have one biological parent in common. Am I missing something?
And yes, I do agree with you, that the kids should learn to not use that particular term. They’re just brothers and sisters.
When my cousin fell pregnant at 18, she had and kept the baby because she said she “needed someone to love her”. She then spent the next sixteen years foisting him upon anyone who would take him whilst loudly insisting that her teens had been “stolen” by him. He ended up with our elderly and infirm grandparents (we offered to have both of them live with us, and she accepted, moved into our house and then spent two years coming up with various mendacious excuses for not bringing him to live with us) whilst she ricocheted from disastrous relationship to disastrous relationship.
She has just had another baby. At least she’s only had two, I suppose.
Despite what many people think, getting older has many positives. When that over-enthusiastic puppyhood fades away you can appreciate events as a richly sewn tapestry.
But as you’re finding out, just because something is rich, doesn’t necessarily make it pleasant. These events soften with time, eventually becoming so soft you may rarely remember them. Then out of the blue, a thread snags on something and the whole thing unravels again.
That’s how you get understanding and that’s not such a bad thing.
All of the babies in question have the same mother. Hence they are biologically half-siblings, even though two of them were adopted by me and are full siblings in the eyes of the law (and me, of course).
My eldest child doesn’t understand how the youngest baby fits into all of this.
:)
sometimes things can’t be understood until you have walked in another’s shoes.
God AAG, you are wonderful.
In the space of 5 minutes I’m laughing at reading your hints on outdoor sex, then sitting with tears in my eyes at this gem.
mwah. X
Good Saturday morning to you, AAG.
I don’t have children, so while I envy you having them, I have to shamefully admit I have no clue what you are talking about…
Unless it’s just that you see your own sweet baby all over again in another child, and your heart remebrs that ache and sweetness…
Hope that you have a good weekend !
Sincerely,
Loving Annie
Ah. The little ones are all half-siblings of each other, but not a half sibling of your eldest. I just read that a little too quickly. Sorry about the digression. Carry on!
I have to tell you, being adopted myself, there is nothing that hurts more than having one of your siblings throw that out there when they’re angry. There is nothing that you can say back to them, no way to defend yourself. And once they realize the power those simple words have over you, they will use it whenever they can get away with it.
My family never wanted it mentioned. At all.
People would always tell my father that I have his eyes or that I look like him and he would just smile and say ‘thank you’.
However… yeah… here comes the however ;)
My brother took great delight in not only using it as his weapon of choice during fights, but also as a way to spread his torture around school. He told our friends of course. It went all around school.
And then it got back to my father…
It’s tricky territory AAG. I never told on him because it made me feel ashamed. And it was a forbidden subject. Now that we’re grown up and he has adopted his wife’s children you’d think he would have some understanding, but no. He still goes through the family genealogy whenever he introduces me to anyone.
My sister came to live with me a few months ago and we went out for a beer. I mentioned being adopted and she almost blew beer out of her nose. At 24 she had no idea.
And the funny thing is, she was in shock because she looks more like me than anyone else in the family. Ha!
Just make sure that the words ‘real brother’ or ‘real sister’ are understood no-nos. We’re all very real.
And NO MORE BABIES!
You have those fisty-peggy things to play with remember?
“half” does not need to be used…they are all siblings and should love each other as such…no one is more related than anyone else.
you are an awesome mom!
Family is family, and we can all tell that your darling babies are being brought up in a loving and caring way.. and I’m sure you will find the right way to explain to the wee one that is having troubles understanding the relationships now, how it all fits- without any “half”, “real”, etc, etc.
Hugs for you, for your strength and your great mommy-ness
This post triggered something very emotional in me. My son (who is my step-son) was once told by my in-laws that ‘THEY’ were his ‘REAL’ family. Insinuating that, I, the woman who has raised him since he was 2, was not a ‘REAL’ family member to him. They have since been corrected. My daughter and son don’t ever speak about ‘half’ anything. They’re just brother and sister.
The bio-mom had two more kids, and only kept the middle one, which makes my son twitch with insecurities, and I hate her for that. He never sees or speaks (his choice) to her but when he asks questions we answer as best we can. I’ll never replace the woman who abandon him, and couldn’t deal with motherhood, the woman who should have been doing everything I did.
- Sorry, I totally wrote a novel. My point was going to be, that my son questions if her other children are still his family, and my daughter questions why HE gets to talk on the phone to another sister and she doesn’t.. The questions will keep coming, and you just have to answer the best you can and love them all..
I’m my own grandpa.
Sorry, but that’s what all the half or not half stuff brought to mind.
You are right that all your kids and the new baby are related. Whether they are legally or biologically, they just are. And they will either have or not have relationships over the course of their lifetimes.
The openness of your relationships is difficult but better, I think, in the long run for all.
My wife has sought out half-sisters from her father’s other marriages — some of whom didn’t know they were their father’s daughters until they were grown — and has developed rewarding relationships with several of them.
Two things I remember from dealing with stepfamily experience:
-Woman walking into my father’s office and callously saying “I didn’t know you had an older daughter” and “you don’t look like your dad,” as if to doubt my paternity
-Other woman saying, “IT was from a previous marriage” by way of explaining me, in front of my stepmother
People should really think before they talk. And I agree about the half-step sibling b.s., also.
(Although I don’t know how you refrain from bashing baby momma’s head – or reproductive organs – into a wall. You are a stronger woman than I.)
I enjoy not being incarcerated.
:)
All of the babies in question have the same mother. Hence they are biologically half-siblings, even though two of them were adopted by me and are full siblings in the eyes of the law (and me, of course).
This sounds like the solution to one of those word problems in college entrance exams: Mother A visits the home of Mother B to see B’s new baby. Mother A is accompanied by her three children. Of the four children in the room, three are biological half-siblings, and one of the three half-siblings is B’s new baby. Select the answer that best explains the relationship of the four children in the room.
Jest aside, I think the fact that you are approaching the age of 40 has a lot to do with this longing, aag. When a friend of mine, a divorced mother who struggled for years to raise her only daughter without any child support, celebrated her fortieth birthday, she confided how much she longed for a new baby. Despite the worry and the fact she ended up on welfare for a period of time, she said those days when she cared for this little human being who was completely dependent upon her for food, warmth and survival, were among the happiest of her life.