Anonymous wrote:What about kids that don't live in the same house, and are different ethnicities? They are raised differently and it is clear they are not full siblings.

Here's the rule. Not everyone needs to know everything about your life all the time. So, just because it may be obvious that two individuals don't share two parents, you don't need to offer a back story when it just doesn't matter..

Thus. If I am talking to a waiter, a hotel clerk, a person who is not an actual friend, I use sister and brother. The clerk doesn't need to know anything about our origins.

My kids use brother to refer to their half brother and stepbrother to refer to their stepbrothers. It works for us, and it's no big deal.

I have four sisters -- all of whom only share one parent with me. I would never call them half-sisters. They are awesome 110% sisters and I treat them as such.

Depends on context. We don't share more than we need to when it doesn't matter. We don't feel like siblings, though.

My siblings and I refer to our half sister (my father's DD who's 3 years older than me) as sister - and she refers to us as brothers and sisters. She has another half sister (her mother's DD) that isn't related to me and she refers to her also as sister. I call her by her first name and she does likewise. After my father died, my mother re-married. I refer to him as my mother's DH. We like him a lot but my siblings and I were in our 20s when they married and his oldest is 15 years older than me. Calling him step-father just doesn't seem right. I refer to his 6 kids as "Joe's kids" or my mother's husband's kids. I know their names but only met some of them at the wedding (we all were living in different states/countries). Joe and my mom were married for almost 25 years (he died) and she'll refer to his kids as hers as well as their grandkids. It doesn't bother me. I don't know how his kids feel about it. I know they like her.