Technically I have a half-sister and half-brother, but they are brother and sister to me and would introduce them as such.
I refer to mine as my brothers, but I was 14 before I found out they were half-brothers. Not too much communication going on in my family…
I was eleven years old when my mother married my step father. He had four children, all older than me. They are my step brothers/step sisters, since they grew up in a different house than I did. Also because they make no effort at contacting me or my other siblings except when their father is involved.
not that it makes any difference - I got my numbers wrong above -
7 sisters - 4 brothers - but I am an only child of my Mom and Dad.
of them - all but 2 are ‘half’ siblings.
Since dad and the step-mom that made the 2 step-sisters are now divorced - that makes them - well - strangers at this point.
The riddle used to go like this -
I have 7 sisters, 4 brothers - yet I am an only child. I was simultaneously the oldest, youngest and middle child.
What Am I?
lonely
I have two half-sibs, but unless Im explaining their origin (like now), they are my bro and sis.
My grandpa widowed and remarried. Although my dad doesnt usually call her mom, because he was already in college, for all purposes she is mom, and taught his kids (sibs and I), that she is granny.
I also spent a lot of time with my sibs’ maternal granny, and she was also “mine”.
MY family does divorce like its a family business and we are good at it. I learned from an early age to just regard any ‘step’ anythings as someone to hang around with for a few years before they are gone again. That taught me to make a hard distinction between real (biological) family and others. It tends to piss other family members off when I make those distinctions but I am not the one dragging in fake family members only to kick them out every few years so I make my own rules.
That isn’t to say I actually like my biological family members more than the others. I only have two real brothers and I cannot stand one of them. I also have two remaining stepbrothers and I like one of them more than almost anyone in my biological family but he is my step-brother and not my brother.
I take it farther than just the ‘step’ label. I have five ‘ex-step-siblings’, three ‘ex-step-grandparents’, two ‘ex-step-parents’ and a whole slew of ‘ex-step-cousins’, ‘ex-step-uncles’ and ‘ex-step-aunts’ as well as two adopted first cousins that are a full generation younger than I am.
I am still on good terms with most of them in a Facebook and occasional phone call kind of way but they aren’t my real family and never were. They were just friends that I gained because one of my real relatives decided they wanted to screw someone else for a while.
My dad remarried when I was 27 and living out of the country. His new wife had a daughter who was a couple of years younger than me, but she had long since moved out of home so they never lived together as a family. I have met her only twice.
I do not have any step sisters and it seems bizarre to claim that she is in any way a step sister to me.
My older son and my younger son have different mothers but just call each other “brother”. But I raised my older as a single parent until I married and my younger has, of course, only known the family he has. Maybe the fact that I have always been the dominant parent figure in my old son’s life (and his mother largely absent) makes it easier to just consider my other son a full-fledged brother.
My parents had three kids, of whom I’m the oldest. My father died when I was 9. My mother remarried, and had one more kid.
I still refer to her husband as my stepfather, but my brother has never been “half” anything. I loved him from Day One and have never called him anything except my little brother.
I have no half or step siblings, but my wife has a boatload (her family operates a franchise of Shagnasty’s family business!). She only lived in the same house as one of them but refers to each as just “sister” or “brother”. She calls her step dad by his given name, though, probably because she remains in close contact with her biological dad.
Two step-brothers and I’m not particularly consistent about it. Any given day I’d label them as either siblings or step-siblings. We’ve known each other since I was in third grade and lived in the same household from when I was in 8th grade through High School and very intermittently beyond ( one or the other ) through the first few years of college. These days for the most part we don’t hang out much outside of specific family gatherings, but we all get along pretty well when we do.
It’s all about context.
I’ve got two half-brothers, one five years younger and one eight years younger. Neither grew up with me, but the older one saw me occasionally until he was 10. We all regrouped in adulthood, but I only really maintain a close relationship with the younger one now.
So if I’m referring to our current relationships, I call them brothers, especially the younger one. If, OTOH, I’m talking about my relationship to them growing up, I call them half-brothers, since we really had no relationship except through blood–calling them “brothers” in that context doesn’t really paint an accurate picture, IMHO.
I have a half-brother who was born the month after I graduated college and moved away from NYC. So we didn’t grow up in the same time zone.
He Is 6’3" (takes after both of his tall parents) and I am 5’1" (I take after my sort mother), so between that and the nearly 21-year age difference, if I refer to him as “my little brother” I get funny looks. The funny looks are usually followed by a brief explanation.
He’s a good guy, I just don’t know him very well for a variety of reasons, which are Pit material (because of his mother, mostly, not because of him).
Some of my siblings had children before I came into this world, so was an uncle the moment I was BORN.
^^While not that common, it’s also not that unusual. I had a relative who became a great-aunt at only four months old. A 28-year span between the oldest and youngest from the same mother is very uncommon.
I usually just say siblings/sisters/brothers but I do have 2 half sisters and had 2 adopted step brothers (they both have passed away and I usually don’t count them since they were grown by the time our families came together).
There is a 20 year age gap between my oldest sister (half) and my youngest sister (half). The other 6 of us share the same father. My mother started at age 15. Throw in a step-niece and step-nephew and I was an aunt before I was born. My oldest blood nephew (his mom being the oldest half sister) was born 9 months after my youngest (half) sister. I have nieces and nephews who have kids older than my kids because they started early and I waited (until I was 23).
Bro or Sis.
I have two half-sisters via my biological father and his second wife. I refer to them as my sisters, except for the occasions when I have to explain why we didn’t grow up in the same house.
My dad’s daughter from his first marriage I rather grudgingly refer to as my step-sister; I’d rather not claim her, to be honest.
My ex husband’s grandparents on his mum’s side had three children, the second was born 10 years after his mother and the third 25 years later. Ex husband’s younger uncle was born the same year as him.
This is a good question. I say it depends on who you were raised with. I raised with one whole brother and one half brother but because I was raised with him I never thought to call him a half brother. I called him my brother because I grew up with him.
On my dad’s side I have a half brother and a half sister. For one I was raised by my mom so that almost automatically throws a half in front. But they are also different from my whole brother and I in how they were raised by their own mother and their behavior. When you feel different you just kinda throw the half in front. When talking to others I use half for clarification. Now, I didn’t always do that for the first half brother I mentioned because it actually felt like a whole relationship BUT we had several falling outs and he threw it in my face that I wasn’t even his whole sister, that I’m a half sister. That hurt because I always felt otherwise. It’s been years and I’ve called him a half brother ever since.
It depends on closeness and how strong the bond is.