How Exactly Do You Know My Dad?

My little sister, who is six years old, asked me today, “Are you my daddy’s sister?” My dad and I assured her no, but she didn’t stick around for the explanation. No doubt, after a flurry of family functions this holiday, in which aunts, grandparents, and half-siblings were visiting my dad, she can now recognize when an adult has a familiar and familial relationship with my dad. She’s just trying to figure out which kind. Later, she also asked if I was a teenager, and then still later, she asked my dad if brothers and sisters could marry. These are all excellent questions! I mean, even I have trouble sorting out my relationship with her because, in many important ways, we are not very sisterly. Yes, we share the same father, which means genetically we are half siblings. Also, as adults with the same father having raised us, albeit during very different eras in his life, we will likely have some things in common in our backgrounds. But, other than that, she really is more like a niece to me.

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