Family Vocabulary

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Adoption: When adults bring children into their families and legally become the parents of those children.

Birth Parent: A biological parent.

Blended Family: Two families who come together to form a new family. This may include step-parents and step-siblings.

Chosen Family: People who you care about and consider family, such as friends or neighbors.

Divorce: When people legally separate and end a marriage.

Donor or Surrogate: People who help other people have children.

Extended Family: All of your relatives, including your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. This also includes neighbors, friends and chosen family.

Foster Parent: A person—other than a child's first family—who takes a child into their home and takes care of them for as long as their family needs help.

Guardian: A person who has responsibility by law to care for a child.

Half-Sibling: Siblings who have one biological parent in common.

Interfaith Family: When people of different religious backgrounds are part of the same family.

LGBTQ+ Family: A family in which some people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary or queer. This could include parents, guardians, foster parents, children, chosen family, siblings or grandparents who are LGBTQ+.]

Lesbian: People who love people of the same gender—two women.        

Gay: People who love people of the same gender.

Bisexual: People who love people of more than one gender.

Pansexual: People who love people of any gender.

Transgender: When your gender identity
(how you feel) is different than what doctors/ midwives assigned to you when you were born (girl/boy or sex assigned at birth).

Non-Binary: People who do not feel like the words “girl” or “boy” fit. They may feel like both or neither. They sometimes use pronouns such as they/them/theirs.

Queer: People use this word as a way to identify with and celebrate people of all gender identities and all the ways people love each other. When used in a mean way, it is a word that hurts.      

Plus (+):  Inclusive of community members who use different language        to describe identity

Mixed Family: When people of different racial, ethnic, national, religious or cultural backgrounds are part of the same family.

Multigenerational Family: When more than one generation of a family lives together.

Multilingual Family: When people within a family speak more than one language.

Multiracial Family: When people of different racial backgrounds are part of the same family.

Single-Parent Family or Solo-Parent Family: A family in which one parent cares for the child or children.

Step-Parent: When a divorced or solo-parent forms a family with a new person, the new partner might become a step-parent to the children.

Step-Siblings: When a divorced or solo-parent forms a family with a new person and that person already has children, those children can become step-siblings.