Jealousy may be the reason biological child resents adopted sister

Q: We have two married daughters, one of whom is adopted. The biological daughter has two children who, we recently discovered, have been told that it is wrong to call our adopted daughter “aunt so-and-so” because she is not really family. Nor, according to our biological daughter and son-in-law, is her husband an “uncle.” We’re planning an upcoming visit with our biological daughter’s family. How should we deal with this?

A: Forty-three years of writing this weekly column and I thought I’d heard it all … until now.

First — and I really don’t need to tell you this, obviously

— your adopted daughter is legally your daughter. She is not, say, 20% your daughter; rather, she is 100% your daughter. Her legal status is not reduced relative to her sister’s because she is adopted.

It may be that your biological daughter and son-inlaw are simply and innocently mistaken, but I strongly suspect there’s more going on here than meets the eye. I would wager that this “mistake” is the upshot of longstanding jealousy on the part of your biological daughter.

Let’s face it, a disproportionate amount of attention goes to a new sibling when he or she enters a family — whether by adoption or birth. If, as I suspect from the wording of your question, your biological daughter is your first child, she may not have exactly welcomed her adopted sister with open arms. Instead, she may have felt displaced, deprived of attention that she felt “belonged” to her, and harbored a good amount of resentment as a result.

Assuming I am correct, there is a volcano smoldering beneath this issue. I doubt there is a way of correcting what your grandchildren have been told without uncapping the volcano.

In that regard, there are two aspects to the overall issue: legal and emotional. The legal aspect can and should be addressed by a legal expert. The emotional aspect is the tar pit. In my estimation, a reasonably sane discussion and resolution of the pertinent issues is going to require mediation by a very experienced family therapist.