Can People Who Share No DNA Be Siblings?

Are siblings thicker than blood?

Yesterday, while listening to a podcast of an interview with a celebrity who's just published a memoir, I got a strange impulse: to look up the origin of the word "sibling."

Why did this odd urge strike me? Because the celebrity was talking about childhood abuse and the interviewer asked how their parents reacted to this painful revelation. I thought, "I'm actually more interested in how the siblings reacted."

Can a group of people who share no
DNA be considered siblings?

Why did this thought cross my mind? Because people who grow up in the same family, let alone the same household, often see things from very different perspectives. It's not uncommon when someone claims they were a victim of child abuse, their siblings totally deny the abuse ever took place.

It's not that either sibling is lying, it's that if you don't personally experience or witness something so shocking, it's hard to believe it actually happened.

Fortunately, severe child abuse didn't occur in my household growing up (at least not that I'm aware of), but there are definitely instances when I discuss childhood episodes with my brother and three sisters and they recall things a lot differently than I do. 

So, back to this celebrity interview. Maybe it's because I'm a writer and I deal in words on a daily basis, but I decided to look up the origin of "sibling," since it's an odd-sounding word.

Turns out it stems from the Old English word "sib," which was a group of people who were thought to share kinship through a common ancestor (according to Dictionary.com).

Given its original meaning, I think we should use the term "sibling" more often to refer not only to our blood relations who share a parent, but to anyone with whom we share a close connection.

The Jacksons are perhaps the most famous siblings in

the world, but maybe we should broaden the term "sibling"

 to include others we feel connected to.

A thoughtful neighbor who brings us chicken soup when we're feeling under the weather could be a sibling. A coworker to whom we can vent when we're feeling overwhelmed and stressed out could be a sibling. A diverse group of friends with common interests who often meet up to play softball and go out for drinks afterward could be siblings.

It's not unusual to say "Bill is like a brother to me" or "Suzy is like my sister" to describe someone to whom we're not actually related but we feel particularly close to, but we give the word "sibling" short shrift. In fact, we treat "sibling" like a redheaded stepchild - pun intended!