"I didn't want any secretary knowing that much about my choices as a mother"

When I was a little girl, I had a seasame street book that focused on diversity. There were children with all different skin pigmentation, eye shapes and hair colors.I felt confident that (even though I didn't look much like my Scandinavian siblings) this meant I belonged. There were kids pictured in wheelchairs, with braces, glasses.. I felt confident that (as a temporarily abled child) this meant we all belonged. There was a section for families, that showed inter-racial couples, and same-sex couples with children... I felt confident that (even though my family didn't quite fit the norm of nuclear family) this meant I belonged. At a very young age, seasame street showed me that there was no normal, and that we all belonged (which was reinforced by my mother). One day in the school yard a fellow student told me that my brother and sister were not my "real" sister and brother, and I fell silent. I thought to myself - is it true? am I fake?... after all, I have another family... so who was the imposter? I can recall all of my comfortable ideas about belonging that I had learned in my book being suddenly questioned. I can recall feeling like perhaps I didn't belong after all. If they weren't MY real siblings, then I certainly couldn't be real to them either. What do we gain from mentalities surrounding family that work solely to perpetuate misconceptions about right and wrong? Do we really still value the nuclear family, when study after study has shown that there is no ideal parental unit? The persistent reality is that although we benefit greatly from support, that support is not actually going to help families if it's premise is founded in an unstable mentality. We do all belong, albeit to different cultures and groups, to different family structures. But there is a place for everyone, and once we knock down the norms that uphold negative stereotypes, I will no longer need to speak of it. We will just be.