What makes a family? Is it the same blood that runs through people’s veins? Or is it the life experiences that make us so close to someone that we can’t imagine our life without those individuals by our side?
A woman named Rochaun feels the urge to speak up of the society’s norms that put labels on some of the family ties, such as those of “half-brother” and “half-sister”. She starts her story saying how she and her brother share the same mother but different fathers. Despite that, she and her sibling has always called one another a brother and a sister. They grew up together and did all the things siblings with same parents do.
However, once she grew older she heard many referring to them as “half-siblings” and she got really offended whenever she would hear that word.
One would say that is a term used for many years to describe what she and her brother really are, but Rochaun feels that being called “half-sister” somehow lessens the role she plays in her brother’s life.
She has always loved her brother unconditionally and consider him just that, her brother. Not a half-sibling as many say.
So, she felt like she had to ask people not to call her her brother’s half-sister ever again. She simply knew she had the right to do so, but people wouldn’t understand why that bothered her so much.
“I’m not putting up with anyone who tries to downplay the bond I have with my brother just because we only share one parent,” she says.
If two kids from different families are adopted by the same parents they will always be referred to as siblings, not “unrelated siblings” or even “adopted siblings” so why the need to label siblings who only share one parent?
We have to agree that Rochaun has a good point and she has all the right to refuse to be called half-sister. So next time you are around someone who has a sibling they share one parent with, make sure you don’t say they are just half related.
