This is, of course, assuming that you feel any sort of positive emotional bond with your full siblings. But if you do: is your relationship with your half-siblings of the same caliber? If not, why not?
Answering my own question: no. I have a half-sister who was not raised with the rest of us. I love my other brothers & sisters dearly*, the same is not true of my half-sister. I like her well-enough, but I wasn’t raised with her and just don’t have that connection. Which is odd in a way: I love her daughter as much as I love my other nieces.
Poll in a moment. This is a personal enough issue about actual real-life crap that I’ll keep the answers private.
Which is not to say I actually like all of them. I don’t. I’d be friends with my two younger sisters and one of my older brothers if we weren’t blood, but not the rest. But nonetheless I feel a connection and obligation to all of them that is irrespective of affection. If any of them died I’d weep; if any of them needed money or a kidney I’d want to help if I could.
I’ve got two younger full-brothers and an older half-sister. She was raised by her mother (we share a father) at the other side of the country so I never saw her. The first time I even met her was when she was in her 20s and I was in my late teens. Just like the OP, I like her well enough but she just doesn’t feel like a sister to me. More like a relative who I spend a bit more time with because we share the same dad. But unlike the OP, I don’t feel the same for her kids as for my brothers’ kids. With my brothers, I go to all their kids’ birthday parties, buy them gifts for Christmas and just like being around them. Hers, however, I barely know. I don’t know what they like, when their birthdays are and I can’t remember the last time I got them a gift. I think a lot of this has to do with distance again. She lives about two hours away and I only really see them a couple of times over a year.
No. I wasn’t raised with my half siblings and don’t really think of them as my siblings. This came up pretty recently when I was telling someone a story about “my dad’s daughter” and the person I was talking to said “You mean your sister?” If I were to list my siblings, the half ones wouldn’t get mentioned unless I thought about my response first.
I’m interested in the outcome of this poll because my kids are half siblings. A couple of years ago a poster asserted here that half siblings are never as close as full siblings and it’s a completely different (and lesser) relationship. There is a three year gap between my kids, they are being raised in the same home, they call the same two people “mum” and “dad”, the extra bio parent exists only as a concept, not a physical reality in their lives… Why would their relationship be any different from that of full blood siblings being raised in similar circumstances? So roll on, anecdotes! Inform me.
I think it depends more on being raised together than the degree of relatedness.
My aunt and my mother were the closest of the siblings in their family and my cousin and I were just 1 yr and a few days apart in age. We lived next door to each other and my mother looked after us while her mother was working and vice versa.
In all ways other than parentage we were siblings for the first 7 years of our lives. Our mothers even dressed us like twins for family occasions. My aunt remarried and they moved to the next town but we still stayed close until the day she died.
In fact I still feel a little guilt over her death because I didn’t come home that weekend and if I had the circumstance may have been different enough that she wasn’t in that place at that time and might be alive today.
I have an older half brother that feels more like a random cousin, because I didn’t even know he existed until I was 16 and seldom see even now. However, I also have a full sister and two half sisters. They are all younger than me, and we were all raised together (my full sis and I did spend 2 nights a week at our dad’s), and I feel exactly the same emotional connection to all three. They are amazing people, and I am just really happy to have them as my sisters.
As an adult, looking back, I am thankful that effort was always made by our parents, grandparents, and step-parents to make sure we all felt together and loved. It may have helped that my bio mom and bio dad stayed friends and both remarried great people (that they are still with) when I was still in grade school, so there was no us vs. them feeling.
I agree. I have three half-siblings and one full sibling, but I was only raised with one of my half-sisters. I feel much closer to her than I do my full sister or my half-brothers. They’re all nice people, but like several people have mentioned, they feel more like distant relatives than siblings, even my full sister.
TheKid has two half sisters. One she has spent a fair amount of time with, texts every week, I remain friendly with her mom. TheKid considers her her sister. The youngest daughter - just her existance caused many issues. TheKid has met her once, has no desire to ever meet her again, just refers to her as her father’s child. That mother has no contact or relationship with TheKid or the middle child, no contact or relationship with me or the other mom.
So, two halfs, one considered full, the other not considered at all.
I have a full sister a year older than me, and a half-sister (who I would normally never call a half-sister) 10 years younger. I love both of them so much. In some ways I can relate to my older sister more because we’re so much closer in age, but in some ways I can relate to my younger sister more. I think I’m equally close to both of them.
I have one full sibling and two half siblings. I am very close to the half sibling I grew up with, and my feelings are identical between him and my full sibling.
The half brother I saw one or two times a year feels more like a cousin to me.
I’m the youngest of 4 girls, the oldest is a half-sister who grew up mostly with her mother and not us. The middle sisters have memories of us all living together, but the last time we were being raised all in the same house I was only three. By that time, stuff was going on with the adults that kept us from seeing each other for years. My earliest memories of her are meeting her as a teen and she was nearly adult.
However, I like her a whole lot as a person, and feel a sisterly connection. I think the age difference, 8 years, would have meant we weren’t peers even if we’d have grown up together. We’ve made the effort to spend time together and phone calls and such and I feel closer to her than one of the middle sisters I grew up with but don’t like very much. Had half-sis and I not made that effort as adults, then no I probably wouldn’t feel the same connection.
Just the one full sibling for me, but my dad grew up with a sister of every variety–full, half, and step–and added another step-sister as an adult. He freely informs anyone to whom the issue seems at all relevant that they’re all just his sisters. And we certainly weren’t raised to make any sort of distinction among the aunts and cousins based on who was actual blood kin. Same with my grandfather’s third wife and the man she married after he died; they were just my grandparents, and the whole lot of us–biological, step, and step-step–were just their grandkids.
Interesting poll. For the most part, I’m pretty sure that my two siblings (full siblings between them, I’m the younger half-sib) had a closer relationship between them than to me. But that is also because of age and raising in different houses, although I got to see them almost everyday until they left for collage and then every other break. And now that we’re scattered around, we keep in touch pretty regularly. But unlike some here, they’ve never denied me (AFAIK), and I’m included in everything family-related. To the point that their cousins are my cousins, and their granny is my granny.
I have a friend who has a much younger full-sibling, and although he loves and dotes on his young sib, it is obvious he is closest to his full-sibs that are closer to him in age.
But that all may change with time. Age diminishes gaps.
PS. By having a closer relationship, I also meant that those two have argued and fought with each other as much as they’ve healed and defended each other from others. Me, I’m the baby, so they don’t argue or fight with me.
One full sister.
Two half-sisters from my mom, one dead.
Three half-brothers from my dad, twins and a youngest.
The four half sibs average about 18 years younger than me. Yet I’m closest to the half-sister. And even though I never lived with the half-brothers we’re close in a ‘we take care of each other’ sort of way. It’s surprising, really, in that it’s the older full sister I’m most distant from.
Still, they need help I’ll rally around, no questions asked.
As Moonlitherial wrote, being raised together makes a difference. I’m the oldest of 10. We are 5 in Mom’s first family. She was widowed, remarried, and had 5 more children. We were raised together, and are very close, all of us. I love each and every one of them. Nobody even uses the term “half-sister” or “half-brother”, unless someone questions us about our family names.
I have a brother who is 7 years younger then me and a half sister that is 16 years younger then me. I don’t really know my half sister at all since I was gone after she was 2. She doesn’t live very close to me and I haven’t even talked to her in 6 months. I get along well enough with my brother, but even then it’s a bit distant, mostly because of the age I think.
My four older siblings are biologically “half”, legally “full”: my dad adopted them. I am much closer to my “full” sister, but I think that’s largely because we are 20 months and one grade apart and were treated as a unit (“The little girls” was our name) until we were in our teens. Now, we live in the same city and continue a close relationship. On the other hand, my older siblings were 6-10 years older than me while we were growing up, and were not that interested in their younger siblings. As adults, we have rarely lived close together.
That said, it’s really hard to tease apart nature and nurture. My sister and I are very similar. Is that because we shared so many formative experiences, or is that similar genetic predispositions, or is it some combination of both?
When I was undergoing fertility treatments, I learned that most people that use donor sperm try to use the same anonymous donor for later kids so that the children will be full siblings. I’ve heard of people spending thousands stockpiling a particular number just in case. I find this really interesting, since the very act of using a donor (which we did) is one of deciding that genetics don’t determine family. But couples still want their kids to be genetically “full”. Of course, I’d want a full sibling for my baby because he’s obviously the best baby in the world, and so must come from truly extraordinary stock. But I don’t know what’s up with those other parents.
Being raised together makes a difference with full siblings as well. There are a couple of groups in my family with such large age difference between the oldest and youngest siblings that the youngest had nieces and nephews older than they were. They are often closer to their same-aged cousins than they are to their much older or younger siblings.
We were all in College or graduated when we became half sibs. I see 'em occaisionally and there is a connection. But it’s not a deep one. It might outlast my father’s death.
The half-sibs on my mother’s side - I’ve met two of the three once decades ago. There is no relationship and frankly I wouldn’t even know how to contact them if my mother and her husband were to die together in a car accident or something.
