We just learned that an older bio-brother (T) of our two adopted boys had a baby. T was adopted by a different family, and we all lost touch with him for a few years but just regained contact. The relationship with him “feels” like a nephew to us parents but of course they are brothers and call themselves that. So now our sons figure they are suddenly uncles at ages 15 and 14. Us parents can’t quite figure out whether to call ourselves grandparents or step-grandparents or great-uncle/aunt. Any advice from others in a similar situation appreciated. And in the meantime we’ll try actually asking T himself, we’re going to meet him and his new proto-family tomorrow!
Our child’s bio sibling had a baby. How do we figure this out?
– December 22, 2011Posted in: Community Wisdom
My family has a strange situation like that, and we handled it by asking our son’s birth mom if she wanted our daughter to call her “Auntie”. Since our girls are so much younger than our son (11 years), they aren’t really old enough to grasp his “two moms”. But I think asking the bio-brother if it he has a suggestion is more than appropriate. He might love to have a third set of gramma/ grampas’, or might be more comfortable with “aunt and uncle”.
And isn’t it great that when children are raised with so many different types of families, most don’t think to ask “Whose brother/ sister are you?”
I know my daughter hasn’t tried yet to figure that out. When she does, we’ll be as honest and as age appropriate as we can be.