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Hey everyone!
I am 19 and adopted and extremely proud of it = ) I have a little sister who was adopted as well and two brothers, both biologically related to my parents. The other day, I caught my youngest brother make a comment to my sister. He said something along the lines of her birthday not being her "real" birthday and there wasn't anyway she would ever find out. I really think that his comment to her was completely inappropriate. She will be 12 very soon and so she might not have thought much of it but I did. I am just not sure as to whether I tell my parents or not, neither of them would really know what to do in this situation but it was an out of line comment.
Thank you for any suggestions!
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Get your parents alone and flat out ask them if what your brother said is true and if it is then your sister deserves to know the truth...all of her truth if there is other info being kept hidden from her. Twelve is such a funny age - if it is not addressed it has the potential to cause harm to her identity processing at this age. I am assuming her adoption was an international adoption as I am only aware of one US state (although there may be others) that allow the adopting parents to apply a change of birthdate at the time of adoption. As to your parents not knowing how to deal with it - there are so many resources out there including therapists who work with adoptees - message boards like this to get a variety of opinons - the adoption agency - the adoption experts - and most importantly the adult adoptees who have been there and done that. Kind regards,Dickons
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I am a mom to sons by both adoption and birth and I agree with Dickons that getting your parents alone to discuss this is a great idea. In addition to dealing with the issue of whether this is true and how to tell your sister about it, I think your parents might want to introduce some "adoption sensitivity training" to your younger brothers. Of course, children will often poke at anything they can find to annoy their siblings, but if your little brother understood better why this kind of teasing has the potential to be truly hurtful then hopefully he would think of something else to use to be annoying. ;)