Kathryn likes to shock new friends by telling them she has 7 siblings. It’s pretty unheard of around here to have a family that big. Then she confuses them further by saying none of them are full siblings, she has 3 step-siblings and 4 half-siblings, but only one is biological related to her.
The 5-year-old hasn’t even tried to wrap his little brain around all that. For a while I had to keep reminding him that Brandon and Lindsey are his brother and sister even though they don’t live here. That you don’t have to live under the same roof to be siblings.
Although she’s only been in the family for two years, the 7-year-old is starting to get it. Two recent conversations I had with her:
Conversation one:
– Mama, is Kathryn’s other dad her step-dad?
– No, that’s her dad; Daddy is her step-dad. So K– and G– are her step brother and sister.
– {thinking} So are they my step brother and sister, too?
– Nope, just Kathryn’s.
Conversation two:
– Mama, you have five kids, right?
– Yep, that’s right.
– And two were adopted, because me and [brother].
– Actually, three.
– Oh, because Lindsey!
– Yep.
– So just Brandon and Kathryn came out of your tummy.
– Well, actually only Kathryn came out of my tummy. Daddy is Brandon’s dad, but I’m his step-mom. That’ll make more sense when you understand more about babies and pregnancy and all that.
– Like how the baby gets out of the mama’s tummy?
– More like how it gets in the mama’s tummy.
{Suppressed snickers from teenage Kathryn in the background.}
* * * * *
Life in our confusingly, lovingly blended-adoptive family. Never a dull moment, y’all.
I’m a big fan of authentic conversation and always appreciate hearing what you have to say. Thanks for reading.
18 responses to “Conversations in a confusing family”
Our family is confusing to the outsider as well. My husband was married before and has 2 girls H, 24 and B, 23 from that marriage. Plus he also has a son R, 29 from a previous relationship before his first marriage. R and H are married and R has a daughter. I was also married before and share custody with my husband of our daughter S, 15. I also adopted a daughter T,14 while I was a single mom(in 2010). My husband and I married in 2012(3 yrs next Saturday!) and have a (biological) son A, 2 and just finalized the adoption of our little girls J and K 4 year old twins. So total there are 8 kids, 2 in-laws, and a granddaughter(3 months old). Yes I am a step-grandmother at 37. To further complicate things, unlike your family, our family has multiple races. R is 1/2 Puerto Rican, T is black and J and K are biracial. But complexity and all, I love our (big)family.
I think you’ve got us beat for confusing! 😉
I love it…it’s nothing but God and His love….all over that conversation!
Hehe I know how that feels! I like to surprise people by telling them that til I was 16, I was the oldest of 2, and now I’m the middle of eight. Or seven. Or six, or five, or four, depending how you count. Fosters, steps, halfs and would-be-steps-if-the-parents-were-married. My family is kind of weird.
I have 4 steps and two halfs (the correct spelling, “halves” just doesn’t sound right there), but only one half is biologically related to me. There is also another step that I don’t claim (long story) and two more that I always forget about because that marriage happened after we were all adults.
One time in high school Spanish, I was asked to draw and label a family tree for the purpose of practicing family relationship words in Spanish. After questioning my teacher extensively, she finally instructed me just to include the people who actually lived in the same house with me. 🙂
Ha ha! I’m sure my kids (especially the oldest three) can relate to your dilemma with the family tree!
We have a blended family as well that gets confusing for my oldest boy. He and my middle son are with me and my fiance (Daddy Chris) 5 days a week and visit their biological dad (Daddy Brad) two days a week. The baby stays home with me and Chris all the time though because Chris is his biological dad. So we have 3 last names in our house, and people get confused all the time! I wouldn’t change our blended family for the world though. 🙂 Thank you for sharing!
Our conversations usually come from people trying to figure out how we are related because of our various skin tones. Little kids have the funniest comments… So glad I found your blog!
We have two last names in our house, but at one point, before adoptions were finalized, we had four. That was confusing for sure!
Thank you, I’m glad you found me, too!
Our household is nowhere near as well-mixed as yours, but we do have 3 surnames between 5 people, which tends to get tricky when signing up for activities, library cards, and the like…my oldest son got so tired of the wait while we tried to clear it up that he just answers to whichever surname someone uses.
Now Kathryn is the only one in the house with a different surname but she answers to ours too!
Hahaha, that last conversation was hilarious!! You can tell Kathryn I was snickering too. 😀
I do not have a blended family, lol. Mine is pretty, well, boring. I have two biological siblings and four in-laws (my husband’s brothers) although I’ve never met the oldest one because he’s estranged from the family. Then I have a sister-in-law (she’s married to my husband’s other older brother). And by the time this summer is over I’ll have two more sisters-in-law (my brother is getting married and so is my husband’s next youngest brother).
…I guess if you count in-laws that does get a little more tricky! 🙂
Yeah, I did pretty good not snickering as I said it. 😉
What a beautiful illustration of adoption into God’s family, though. 🙂
Thank you, yes, I think so. But funny, too. 😉
Absolutely. 🙂 Adoption of an older child in foster care has been on my mind for several years now. (Which is how I came across this blog.) We’re in NW Georgia and my husband actually works at a group foster home for 13-18 year olds. I’ve had 4 of the 14 kids in that home in my classroom. (I teach middle school.) What can you tell me about how foster to adopt works. If we go through the training, will we constantly be propositioned to keep foster kids? Or can we just go at it with a targeted approach that we only foster someone who is up for/hoping to be adopted?
You can foster, and let your caseworker know you’d be willing to consider adoption if the opportunity arises. OR you can specifically be designated as a foster-to-adopt family, which means you are only presented with kids who are definitely or most likely going to be available for adoption. With our 1st adoption, parental rights had been terminated years before; with our 2nd adoption, the kids had moved in before rights were terminated. We had no absolute guarantee it would happen but everything pointed to that. And also, either way (whether you foster or foster-to-adopt) you can designate what age range, or if you’ll take a sibling group, etc. Hope that helps!