[LucyAnn]

My son will be 4 in September. His birthmother is having a new baby in December. We call her "Special Kelly". Although we talk about the fact Josh is adopted we have not addressed what this means. She does not live here right now but is planning to visit after the baby is born. We do not want her to call this new baby a brother or sister at this point - it would just confuse Josh. Any ideas as to how to bridge this with the birthmom or what to call the baby?

[dadfor2]

does he know who 'special kelly' is? i do think honesty is the best policy

our situation is very different then yours, but when my childrens birthmom had another child, we felt that we shouldnt tell them due to issues the kids were having at the time...

well, then she had another one....

i couldnt keep the 'secret' anymore, and told them about their two new brothers, they were both very excited...(when i told them, it was more of "I have great news for you")

so the secrets are none, i feel good about it, and my children are just fine....

but again, my experience is different, but IMO honesty is the way to go...the secrets will eat at you.....

IMO josh needs to know he has a birthbrother.

[Volfe]

Communicate with her openly.
Perhaps just write her a letter with what you wrote here.

However, as the baby is a sibling and 4 is a good age to recognize these relationships I'm confused on wanting to hide this... In my kids' open adoptions siblinghood is openly recognized... and even b/t my 8 yr old and her brother... she finally met him and said she had a brother she hadn't met yet (which was true). But she'd seen the pics and was brought up knowing... but at least they hadn't met due to the distance between our homes.

I am confused as to the harm of telling the truth.

Maia

[LucyAnn]

We want Josh to know about his siblings, but I'm not sure he would understand how this baby could be his brother or sister. We talk about him being adopted and have a good relationship with his birthmom but have not explained what adopted means in any more detail than the questions he asks or what we talk about after we read books on adoption. We have not explained the significance of this person we call "Special Kelly". Josh was adopted at 15 months becuse Kelly realized she was too young to care for him. I'm glad to hear how others have dealt with this. I'm open to any and all suggestions!!!

Thanks!

[BrandyHagz]

Lucy,

Here is my personal opinion on this…and please understand I am talking about this from the other side, oki?

My son was 13 months old when I gave birth to and placed M for adoption. From the moment I placed M until right this very second, I have been totally honest with him about who M is to us and why she lives with different parents.

Speaking for S, M’s mom, because she is not a member, I can tell you that she has also been open and honest with M regarding who I am and who Jerrett (my son) is, in relation to her.

Its just always been her story…part of who she is…she’s asked questions, sure…but its far better to face those questions now, than to face the ones he might ask in the future about why you didn’t tell him sooner.

Kids are amazingly resilient…being four, he may ask a question or two…but I doubt he’d be confused…neither Jerrett or M have ever been confused about their sibling roles or why they both have different parents…its just part of who they are…there is nothing to be confused about.

Kids react to our reactions…your resistance to telling him might be seen by him (in the future) as something to be ashamed of or embarrassed of. Adoption is something to be celebrated…I hope you’ll reconsider hiding who Kelley and her new child are in relation to your son…in the end, I think it could do far more damage to your relationship (and his ability to trust you) if you keep waiting for “the right time”.

Again, these are just my feelings on it…we’ve always been very open about adoption in our house as has M’s parents…I want both of the kids to know that adoption is nothing to be ashamed of…and secrecy doesn’t promote that.

[dadfor2]

i totally agree with brandy...explain who 'kelly' is, he is so young, it will just be part of his life. kids are resilient.

i think since josh now has a birthbrother, he needs to know.

its all how you say it like brandy said. they read more into how we are dealing with it, then the words that are said.

at least that has worked for us when telling our kids things.

[LucyAnn]

Thanks for all the great advice! Birthmom is coming to visit next month for a few days and we are going to see how it goes. Since she is visably pregnant now it will be a good time to start the discussion!

[aspenhall]

The book, Twitchy has been very helpful to me in illustrating what makes a family.

I brought dd home at age 3.5, so she KNEW that there was a first family. BTW her 1st mom just had a new baby in July and I did the same "good news" bit. She was only concerned that the baby was girl (fear of being replaced?)....it wasn't a girl......and dd's only response was "ANOTHER BOY??!!??" (she has 2 other brothers.) I consider bio families to be like in-laws. not related by blood, but family just the same. you can explain it as he has 2 families...both love him, but he lives with only one.. you can also say, "Special Kelly is special because you grew in her tummy. that's called a birthmom, and good news, she's gonna have a baby!" You can call it Kelly's baby and he's old enough at 4 to really determine for himself what that means. let him put the words to it, you can just explain why it is relevant to him.

I agree that secrecy is not a good thing in this matter, and 4 is the perfect age to start explaining things better. It's young enough that they won't really remmeber being told, but old enough to understand the basics.

[surfmama]

You have gotten some great replies. We have a 4 y.o. that is part of a sib group of 5 that we adopted. We have always talked openly about their adoption and their birth mother.

So, when we found out birth mom had another baby now and they let her keep it ( , she has lost 8 children invol. tprs), I waited for the right time to tell them about new baby sis. I had to explain to them that they were giving birth mom "another" chance at parenting (she just had gotten out of prison for the neglect and abuse to my kids 7 months prior to the birth).

Now, the 4 y.o. may not totally understand about baby sis. But, since the older kids bring up the subject from time to time, it is best to be honest. Their main concern is they want baby sis to come live here! Time will tell.

[nelwywed1311]

I am a mother who has a 17 year old daughter who was raised in another family (adopted). I have since had two more daughters, now aged 4 and almost 2. From birth, my daughters have known about their older sister. It has helped because we have had bi-annual contact in that time, so they have a face to a name. My four year old does ask questions about Erin, but we have always answered in an age appropriate way. She knows Erin is her sister. She knows Erin has another Mum and Dad. She knows I am also Erin's mum. You can see her mind ticking over, trying to understand why Erin lives with another mum and dad and we have explained it very simplistically to her. We never use the term 'birth' sister or 'birth' mother or even adopted. I just want their relationship to develop into what ever it will be (bearing in mind there's about 14 years between them) without the stereotyping in society about those terms. In time the questions will get harder, but I have no doubt that our openness about the whole situation will assist my 4 & 2 year olds accept the situation for what it is. I strongly encourage a relationship between my girls and fortunately, it appears to be working. Even though they don't see each other very often due to distance and there is a great age gap between them, there is clearly a close bond. I lost my daughter to adoption and I do everything I can to reduce the grief that all my daughters may also suffer due to being separate from each other.
If the parents treat the situation 'normally', then the children will adapt much better to the experience they have been born into.

[irvy]

My daughter has an older sister who is in the process of being adopted by a friend of mine - We are both in open adoption situations. My daughter knows her sister as her sister - they call each other sissy and love it when they can get together. My daughter(S) is 21 months old and occationally asks to see sissy(M) and her sister is 3 y/o and is a little mama to my daugther.

My opinion is that it will just be a natural part of who they are. M & S will always be sisters and their birth mom will always be a part of their lives as long as she wants to be. It is kinda funny when we introduce people to our families and say "This is my daughter's sister's mother." We refer to their bmom (C) as "your C" and M calls her Mommy C (Because she's been with her for 3 years) and we encourage S to call her My C.

I think that as long as we express this as a fun way to build a family they will understand that the relationships are different but not wrong.

C is expecting again and is intending to parent this child. It will definitely be another difference but this child will still be S's brother or sister.

To confuse things a bit more - my friend who is adopting M is also adopting the bmom because she deserves a family who will be good to her. So we joke that that would make her my daughter's grandmother. I feel like I'm part of that old Ray Steven's song - "I'm my own grandpa."

Confusing? Maybe. Funny? Definitely! Worth it? Absolutely!

[MNelson]

I would just like to add that Kelly's pregnancy is a great opportunity to address what adoption means with your son. He can see Kelly pregnant with a baby growing inside of her, and you can say to him "see, this is where you grew, too!" That will help him understand why Kelly is so "special". He already clearly knows that you are his parent, but this will allow him to actualize for his age what it means to be adopted. You can even use the flowery "you grew under Kelly's heart" language since that's a visual that he could see with her sitting in front of him with a swolen belly. I do strongly urge you to be honest right now ... I've seen both ways (the honesty and the secrecy), and it only gets harder to broach as your son gets older.

[sugarbabysmommy]

Originally Posted by nelwywed1311

We never use the term 'birth' sister or 'birth' mother or even adopted. I just want their relationship to develop into what ever it will be (bearing in mind there's about 14 years between them) without the stereotyping in society about those terms.

I understand why you choose not to use "birth" mother or "birth" sister, but why not adopted? This leaves a lot of unanswered questions in my mind- how did my sister get where she is, was she taken, did she get lost and they found her, did she just decide to choose different parents? Saying adopted is excatly what happened, leaves no room for fantasy or denial. Your daughters may wonder if they too will be adopted, they may also wonder why they weren't- that's all normal. But I'd rather handle those questions than have to guess at what "ideas" they have about how their sister "just happens to have another mom and dad."


To Lucy Ann, do you have pictures of your child's birth, including pictures of Kelly? During your visit it would be wonderful to all sit together and go look at them, and share your child's birthstory.

[nelwywed1311]

Sugarbabysmommy, just to answer your question, my daughters would never understand what the term 'adoption' meant any more than they understand that Erin lives in another family. I mean, adoption is just the legal formality for a child being raised in another family. My 4 year understands Erin has been with her other family since she was a baby, that she belongs to that family (but also fits into ours) and that she has another mum, dad and brother. In very simple terms, she knows why Erin wasn't kept. Trying to explain 'adoption' would be just utilising the 'legal' term for what occurred. I like to explain it in a more narrative form.
Saying 'adopted' as far as I can see doesn't explain any more of the mysteries than explaining what has happened without using that term IYKWIM??
In time, my children will know the word 'adopted' but at this stage of their relationship with their sister, I honestly see no need for it. Their relationship is what it is, regardless of 'adoption' being involved.
I hope this explains.

[sugarbabysmommy]

Newlywed, I agree, the narrative is very imporant. I guess that's what my curiousity was really about.