![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Dear Abby: Much younger siblings
DEAR ABBY: I am a 22-year-old male and my brother, "Brian," is 14. When I was 9, our parents split up. After a year, Mom realized she was a lesbian. She is married now to a younger woman, and they are starting a family through in vitro fertilization. Mom's wife is carrying twins -- a boy and a girl.
When I first heard about their plans to conceive, I was devastated. After a few months, Mom and I were able to reconnect and talk about it. I'm happy they're happy, but I'm still uncomfortable with the situation. When the children are born, I am unsure how I will be known. Mom says Brian and I will have "a sister and a brother."
Brian is excited that he will no longer be the youngest. But at my age, as a business owner and in a serious relationship, I prefer to consider Brian my sibling, not the twins. I will love the babies because they are connected to me, but I'm leaning toward being called their uncle or cousin because the twins will not be my blood relations.
I guess I'm "old school," and with all the changes I've experienced in my life I'm not sure I want all of a sudden to say I have new siblings. Is this OK? -- FINDING MY WAY IN CONNECTICUT
DEAR FINDING: I don't think you have to announce anything when your mother's children are born. As long as your relationship with them is a loving one, I don't think the "label" matters.
When I first heard about their plans to conceive, I was devastated. After a few months, Mom and I were able to reconnect and talk about it. I'm happy they're happy, but I'm still uncomfortable with the situation. When the children are born, I am unsure how I will be known. Mom says Brian and I will have "a sister and a brother."
Brian is excited that he will no longer be the youngest. But at my age, as a business owner and in a serious relationship, I prefer to consider Brian my sibling, not the twins. I will love the babies because they are connected to me, but I'm leaning toward being called their uncle or cousin because the twins will not be my blood relations.
I guess I'm "old school," and with all the changes I've experienced in my life I'm not sure I want all of a sudden to say I have new siblings. Is this OK? -- FINDING MY WAY IN CONNECTICUT
DEAR FINDING: I don't think you have to announce anything when your mother's children are born. As long as your relationship with them is a loving one, I don't think the "label" matters.
no subject
I mean I think Abby's response is the only one that can be given that isn't, um, rather sharp, but good grief, LW.
ETA: Basically, the only reasons to be "devastated" that his mother was going to conceive with this woman are based either in pathology (ie he still feels somehow betrayed by his parents' divorce, his mother's change in life arrangements, and her choice to move on, as well as possibly jealous and threatened by these new kids she's having), or bigotry (lesbians can't "really" have their own children, biology is destiny, biological or chromosomal ties are the only ones that matter, etc), or both.
So in the first case, it's time for therapy, LW; and in the second case, go jump in a lake, LW. And in the third case, well, hopefully the therapy will help you not be a person who needs to go jump in a lake.
Abby, for her part, I think is basically trying not to get into Definitions of Family, which are in flux in general culture and thus would get her a lot of blow-back responses no matter where she came down, whereas this one at least means she won't be hearing from the wishy-washy people in the middle.