We have two kids -- one is adopted and the other is not. He's our blood child.
Is it correct to say so? For real parents we say birth parents. For real children of your own, we say what?
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Sign up to join this communityWe have two kids -- one is adopted and the other is not. He's our blood child.
Is it correct to say so? For real parents we say birth parents. For real children of your own, we say what?
Yuri, I would say my biological child and my adopted or chosen child, but only if it was important to make that distinction. Normally, none of us should care. They are both/all your children and I would assumed equally wanted and loved.
Natural works but might lead to your other child to beg the question, "Am I unnatural?" Blood child might possibly be used in another place, but not in North America by English-speakers.
Sometimes people want information. That's fine, but we are under no obligation to assuage their curiosity. If the doctor needs to know, or a child is having a problem that makes telling the school the situation, then 'step-child' or adopted child is still the way to discuss or label them.
A stepchild is a child from your spouse's former union whom you have not adopted. If you adopt them, they are your child and all the adoptive words would apply
"Child by blood" might be correct ("blood child" sounds much more sinister, like something out of a horror movie). However it's not a common expression, and in some contexts it might be weird, or at least impolite.
"Natural" child is a better expression. See for example this article Do parents favor natural children over adopted ones?
In families that might be made of children from different parents (like the Brady Bunch, you can distinguish your "children by blood" from your "children by marriage", although again this might seem weird to some people. "Stepchildren" is the proper term; however due to negative associations (like Cinderella's evil stepmother) some people don't like the whole "step-" prefix and prefer to say something like, "She's my wife's daughter," which automatically implies that she is not your own natural daughter.
Using blood child may confuse the other person, but I believe your intended meaning would be understandable. Blood relatives is commonly used to refer broadly to a family of biologically related individuals. Blood brothers can refer, confusingly enough, to unrelated men who have sworn a blood oath, signified by literally cutting themselves and pressing the wounds together.
When the distinction matters for children, widely accepted as the sensitive way to express it is biological child. Contrariwise, someone who was adopted as an infant or newborn may as an adult seek out his birth mother or biological mother, with the latter sometimes shortened to biomom. I have never heard “biochild” used.
Simultaneously less sensitive or more dated ways to state it are
The last refers to procreation, which makes it crude. Emphasizing the adoption or labeling biological children as “natural” or “real” others1 an adopted child. As parents must remind our children — step-, adopted, and biological — even though something is true, saying it may not be polite.
Less common ways to express it are flesh and blood, by blood, flesh and bone, or according to the flesh2, as in “he is my flesh and bone” or “she is my flesh-and-blood child” to emphasize the biological connection.
1 I find that usage as a verb grating, but Merriam-Webster defines it as “to treat or consider (a person or a group of people) as alien to oneself or one's group (as because of different racial, sexual, or cultural characteristics).”
2 Reflects similar usage in English translations of the Christian Bible (Genesis 2:23, Romans 9:8, Galatians 4:29).