Hi all! I’m 23 and my sister is 24, and last year my dad got remarried. We’re getting some weird answers on what to call her and her 4 kids. Her youngest is 8 and her oldest is 25 and they all live in another state with my dad and 16yo brother. All her kids call my dad “dad” and my brother calls her “mom”.

Our question is how do we refer to them? A lot of the adults in my life are saying she’s not really a step mom because she’s not really a mom figure since my sister and I are too old. So I should refer to her as “my dads wife” but then what would I call the kids? Would they be “my dads step children”? Or since he fully accepts them as his own would we call them “my dads kids”?

Or is it okay to just ignore the “adults” and call them all step mom and step siblings? Even that feels a little weird since my sister and I are really not close to any of them at all. Is there another term that might fit better! I’m a little lost haha