My son has a very mixed family. Mixed? No, that's not really the right word. Blended? That doesn't really sound right either. Complicated... perhaps. Let me explain...
I had my son at the very young and naive age of 18 and his father was not far ahead at 19. Although we were "together" when Nathan was born, we parted ways when he was 9 months old. His father went on to have two more children with another woman, and thus, Nathan has two sisters. Even though his father and I didn't separate on good terms (that may be the understatement of the century), as soon as the first of his other two children was born I was sure of one thing: Nathan had a sister. There were certain people who made comments to Nathan that really upset me. He would say something about his sister and these people would "correct" him and say "she's not your sister, she's your half sister." It made my blood boil, and I never skipped an opportunity to correct THEM.
If you want to get technical about it, yes, they share a father but have different mothers, but I have spent the last 9+ years standing firm on the fact that his fathers children are his sisters. There is no "half" about it. Why was it so important for these people to point out that they didn't share the same two parents. He was only 4 when his first sister was born, but it wasn't as if Nathan was confused about who her mother was. He doesn't love her 50% as much as he would if they shared both parents. She isn't 50% less important. He doesn't spend 50% of his time pretending they aren't related.
Fast forward 9+ years. Just under two months ago, I gave birth to Nathans 3rd sister. (Poor thing... he prayed really hard for a brother LOL) They obviously have the same mother, but they have different fathers. One of those same people recently asked Nathan what he thought of his sister. SISTER... not half sister. I couldn't help but say (sarcastically) "don't you mean HALF sister." This person looked at me and said "no... Grace is his sister, I guess you were right about the "half" thing." My response: I know.
So like I was saying before... My son has a very confusing family. But I happen to think he's pretty lucky.
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