Growing up in an adoptive or foster family: 'That's not your 'real' sister, is it?'
You don't have to be brother and sister, you can also become one - as the book As brothers and sisters shows. It also allows a forgotten group to speak: the biological children in adoptive or foster families, who have their own problems.
Language can sometimes be revealing. For example, for Jadrickson (16) Koen (17) is just his big brother. And for Koen, Jadrickson is just as naturally his brother. But Koen's older sister, who has already left home, he calls his foster sister again. While Jadrickson is actually a foster brother too, but calling him that feels too distant. Koen: “We grew up together. Jadrickson came here every other weekend since I was five. I have a different kind of connection with him than with friends or with my foster sister; more familiar, more natural. I don't think it would feel any different if he were a biological brother. No, that would really be the same.”
Jelmar (17) and his adoptive sister Yulotte (15) also sometimes run into language issues. That's how people ask Jelmar: isn't that your 'real' sister? And when it comes to the other two Chinese adoptive girls in their family: are they all 'real' sisters? Jelmar: “That word 'real' feels judgmental and not so respectful – if I'm honest. Like having real and fake sisters. To me they feel like real sisters, but people don't mean it that way. We are not biologically related, no.” Yulotte adds: “That 'real thing' gives a certain distrustful feeling. Like it's not quite right. While: I've spent almost my entire life with this brother, what would be fake about that?"
When we think of a brother-sister relationship, we naturally think of two people who share the same parents and the same gene package. But you can also feel like brother and sister if you don't have that biological relationship, as the book Like brothers and sisters – growing up together in an adoptive or foster family shows.
Jelmar and Yulotte. Image Photo: Lilian van Rooij
Jelmar and Yulotte. Image Photo: Lilian van Rooij
Hundred percent brothers
In the book, twelve non-classical brother and sister duos between the ages of 14 and 21 speak in an extensive double interview. They are also in the photo together, which sometimes produces surprising images. For example, Koen and Jadrickson look quite opposite: Koen has dark blond hair and a white complexion, Jadrickson has Antillean roots and a brown complexion. Yet they feel one hundred percent brothers.
The book is special because it also gives the floor to biological children: the child whose parents choose to take in a foster brother or adoptive sister. Femmie Juffer knows that this is a forgotten group in scientific research and in healthcare practice. She is emeritus professor of adoption and foster care at Leiden University. For the book she interviewed a number of duos and wrote a substantive chapter.
“In practice you see that the field is mainly concerned with the foster or adopted child. Will it find its place? Is he or she developing well? That is always the starting point. While it would be good to hear all parties involved in the family: not only the foster or adopted children and their new parents, but also their biological children. After all, they are also present in the family day and night and are a factor in a stable family climate. And stability is very important in foster and adoptive families.”
From an idealistic motive
In practice, the combination of biological and adopted children is most common in foster care. In adoptive families, only ten percent of the parents have biological children, because nowadays adoption is almost always used in the event of unwanted childlessness rather than for an idealistic motive, as was often the case in the 1980s and 1990s.
From what little research there is on biologically own children in adoptive or foster homes, it is known that they often have a greater capacity to show empathy for the difficult life circumstances of others. They are often proud of being part of an adoptive or foster family, because it stands for wanting to help people.
There are also negative consequences. For example, children can take on too much responsibility in terms of responsibility: they feel that they have to take good care of their new brother or sister and therefore sometimes hide their own problems, thinking that their parents have enough to worry about with the adoption already. or foster child. Furthermore, young children find it difficult to share toys and the attention of their parents from one moment to the next.
A game of football in the garden
As for that responsibility: Jelmar recognizes that. He has just passed his VWO exam, lives in Zuidwolde in Drenthe and is the oldest of a total of five children. He has three adopted sisters from China aged 15, 11 and 8 and a biological brother aged 12. “I am always concerned with whether everything is distributed fairly, or whether everyone can participate. Like recently during a game of football in the garden. Two teams were created naturally: me with my brother against the three girls. But I soon noticed that that was quite polarizing; that it was the Dutch against 'the Chinese'. That is not nice. Then I will take a leading role by quickly creating two new teams.” Jelmar does not see that responsibility as a burden, however. “I like being the oldest. I feel right at home in that role.”
Koen, who is now in VWO-5, also felt responsible when Jadrickson came to live with them in Rotterdam about twelve years ago. Even if they are only six months apart, the division of roles is such that Koen is 'the big brother'. “When we used to play outside together, I always made sure it was safe, that nothing happened to him.” Jadrickson noticed that Koen was watching him closely and actually liked that. “I used to be quite busy. If the ball rolled into the street, I would run after it without looking.” That responsibility was not too much for Koen. Nah, he says – then suddenly a somewhat surly 17-year-old teenager. “I thought it was all beautiful. I was an only child before and especially liked that I had a little brother to play with.”
Still, it was difficult at times. For example, when a foster child came into their family next to Jadrickson – Annabel, she is now 14. Because Annabel got her own bedroom, Jadrickson had to sleep in Koen's room in a bunk bed. Koen: “Sometimes, when you're angry with everyone, you just want to be alone in your room. But then Jadrickson was there too. That was sometimes difficult.” In the meantime, everyone has their own bedroom again. At the beginning there was a bit of competition at Jelmar and Yulotte. For example, Jelmar knows from the stories that little Yulotte once bit him hard in the arm when she also wanted to play with his trains. But that sentiment soon turned around. “We lived with our parents in Norway for a while and were seemingly inseparable at the playgroup there.
Easy to customize
With all this, Jelmar never had the idea that as a biological child he would have received too little attention from health care institutions or science, as the book Als brothers and sisters in a general sense states. And Koen didn't experience it that way either. “I was able to adapt easily because I was small when Jadrickson came to live with us and I wasn't used to it any differently later on. But I can imagine that it is good to talk more about that when you are older when a foster child comes, ten or so. Then you have already developed your character traits more and you are more aware of the consequences if a foster child is added.”
Koen and Jelmar therefore do not feel shortchanged. But even though children sometimes dismiss the problem themselves, according to professor Femmie Juffer, it is good to remain alert as a parent. “For example, it's easy to say that everyone in the family is equal, but it's important to emphasize that it can still feel different. For example, for the book I interviewed Lotte, the youngest biological daughter in a family home. She said that in high school she spent a while working on what made her special in the family; how she could be seen by her parents. That is why it is good for parents to have regular one-on-one moments with their biological children, for example one weekend a month, and to make room there for a conversation about how children really feel in the family.
In addition to a plea for attention to the biological child, the book offers a broadening of the concept of brother and sister. Something Yulotte and Jelmar find important. Yulotte: “At my secondary school we work with iPads and I have a photo of our family as a background photo. Then classmates sometimes ask: what exactly is that? Jelmar and I have also been mistaken for a couple while on vacation. By reading the interview in the book, people can learn all about a family like ours without having to feel uncomfortable asking those questions themselves.”
With such a whole photo shoot and stuff
Jelmar honestly admits that he was not eager to participate in the book in the beginning. “With a whole photo shoot and such. Is that necessary? I thought."
Later he decided that it was good if people would learn something about adoption through their story. But he did it mainly because Yulotte was so enthusiastic. Yulotte: “Ahh, that's really sweet.” A real big brother.
The book Als brothers and sisters - Growing up together in an adoptive or foster family, by Femmie Juffer, Lindy Popma and Monique Steenstra, with photography by Lilian van Rooij, was published at the beginning of June by DATO-Lecturis publishers.
Also read: Adoption seemed like a win-win situation for a long time. Why did the Netherlands not pay attention to the abuses?
Now that intercountry adoption has been temporarily halted, the question arises: how did it actually start? 'Our European identity was: we are going to help the rest of the world.'
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