Split Up: Life Without Siblings (Pt. I)
When I was born, I already had an older sister who had been in foster care for a couple of months. Once I was put into foster care as a four month old baby we were placed together and lived in the same foster home for around three years before my sister and I were moved to our adoptive home at the end of 1999. Unfortunately, my sister and I were unable to stay together and after one year my sister left and went back into the system due to safety concerns. No matter what though, my sister is not to be blamed for her actions as a young child of six years old due to the severe abuse she suffered from my birth parents and from foster care.
I went from living with a sibling for the first four years of my life to one day being split up to then seeing that sibling for one year for contact to then never seeing her again as a child. At the time, I found this very confusing realising that my sister was not coming back.
Whilst growing up with my parents they had no information about my birth family except for two or three sentences which was in a form after I had arrived to them which touched on the fact of my birth mother’s intellectual disability and my birth father's conviction. It was not until years later roughly around the time of my adoption that just by chance a social worker dealing with my birth family came to visit my parents and told them about the situation with my then four siblings at the birth family home and the plan for my eldest brother was adoption (my youngest brother wasn’t born yet). This social worker was not happy with the situation with my siblings living with my birth family in that dangerous predicament that she left her job. It takes a lot to do this so the situation had to have been really bad beyond what we know presently. With all the social workers and professionals coming in and out of our home having meetings with my parents in the years leading up to my adoption no one thought to inform my parents of my siblings as soon as each new child was born and that court proceedings were happening and that the plan for my sisters was long term foster care and for my brothers it was adoption.
Supposedly, around the time of 2007 social workers sent a letter to my parents asking if they would consider either direct or indirect contact with my brothers who were in the process of getting adopted. Personally, I don’t believe this because me knowing my parents they would have looked into this before saying yes or no knowing that they were my siblings. My parents have always supported sibling relationships from the beginning. Present day my parents do not have any recollections of this and I trust them 100% with this. Just because a letter was written does not mean anything. If contact was something that professionals thought was important between me and my brothers there is no proof that they actually tried and why was contact deemed important just between my brothers and not with my sisters. All of this doesn’t make sense at all from the part of professionals.
It's very sad but also maddening to think that social workers at the time didn’t think it was necessary or important to inform my parents that I even had biological siblings right from the very beginning and that was very bad.
When I received my file in 2019 I learnt that social workers had made up their minds that it wasn’t the right time for me to have contact with my brothers and this really made me mad. What made them come to this conclusion without having met me or discussing this with my parents?
As a family we know of a family who adopted a sibling group of three actually from the same borough as us and when the youngest sibling was born the adoptive family was approached by social workers asking first if they would consider adopting the youngest child to keep all three siblings together to not separate them. If you compare this family and my family and how social workers did their job in all senses it’s the complete opposite. If only as a family we received the proper care, attention, information and support life events and matters could have been different.
As I am the sister of my two brothers and the plan for them was adoption social workers should have asked my parents if they could have adopted my brothers as well to keep the sibling connection there. When I think of this it saddens me to a great degree because the story could have been so different and of happiness whereas now it is full of loss, sadness and pain on my part. I’ve discussed this with my parents present day and they express their feelings in regards to this topic and openly tell me if at the time they had been approached they would have certainly considered my brothers which is comforting to hear.
I remember since the age of roughly ten when I found out I had younger siblings I was always thinking about them and wondering if I would ever meet them. My wish in life was to meet them. Who knows if as a family had we been informed earlier contact at the time most probably could have occurred and organised as soon as they entered foster care before moving to their adoptive family. I would have been able to have seen them sooner and not have to wait until they are adults to see them for the very first time. There might have been some sort of link instead of now where there is no link at all. Would it have changed the situation or had results I don’t know, no one will ever know as we are not a time machine. Above all, what hurts me the most is I don’t even know if my brothers know about my existence and that they have a sister out there who has been trying to make contact with them for over eight years now with no success at all which drains a person. I will never give up on my two brothers regardless of how difficult, how many obstacles are in the way or how many years past. I will keep fighting until the very end and the day that we are connected will be a success story for me. Just time will tell. I used to say in previous years I just have to wait until they reach eighteen to see if contact can be established but as the eldest of my two brothers having turned eighteen last year I have to admit that there are moments when I feel discouraged about this whole situation with my brothers. This situation with my brothers does carry weight on my shoulders and drains me at times when it’s on my mind. It didn’t have to be like this if as a family we were informed about my siblings instead of at the last minute when it was too late.
I truly believe it is very important first of all for social workers and then adoptive families to keep the link of the birth family where it is appropriate especially with siblings until the adoptee is old enough to make decisions for themselves and then can decide the next steps going forward. However strongly I believe siblings should remain together or have contact I am adamant that in some cases it creates more harm than good especially if the older sibling/s have been more of a parent figure and been through serious abuse then the relationship between siblings is damaging and dangerous. Also, in my case when social services deny a relationship between siblings it's very damaging for the child and the message that social workers are giving us when this happens is that our background and siblings don’t matter. When this happens the child just feels that they don’t matter either. I certainly felt this whilst growing up and that my siblings were not of any significance.