Being the only one not biologically related to the rest of your family must be an extremely difficult thing to come to terms with, regardless of how old you are. No matter how you are being treated in that family unit, you will always feel at least slightly like an outsider, like someone who does not fully fit into the family puzzle.

It’s one thing to imagine what it’s like as a fully grown adult, so I can’t even fathom what it must be like for a kid who is actually living through that. Every interaction they have with a family member must be affected by those feelings, even if those family members do not intend for that to happen. Even if they wholeheartedly try to treat those kids the same way, these questions will always be hanging over the kids’ heads.

That is why I felt genuinely sorry for the kid in the story below, who felt somewhat left out during a family gathering, when everyone but her got a «goodie bag» from their fully adult cousin.