I didn’t know what the word meant when I first heard it: abuse.
I didn’t want to tell anyone. But my best friend in fourth grade insisted. She said we had to tell the teacher. I said no. She said yes. So we told her together. I told my favorite teacher what I’d just learned to call it. Then I begged her not to tell anyone. That was the last time I saw either of them — my best friend or my teacher.
They placed me in a group home. My siblings stayed behind. They were 4 and 5. I was the only one taken away. I remember the group home in fragments. The ceilings felt high. The kids seemed older. I was asked to help set the table, which no one had ever asked me to do before. A girl showed me how to line up forks and plates and whispered the rules — who had to do what, what happened if you talked back. She said the “mom” of the house might duct tape your mouth if you did.
There were a lot of kids, and most of them had been separated from their siblings. They spoke about it like it was normal, like they’d learned not to expect better. There was a quiet ache around it, the kind you don’t say out loud because everyone already knows.
Back home, I had already taken on the job of raising my siblings. I made their meals, gave them baths, read them stories, and did their laundry. Our mother wasn’t well. She could be unpredictable. She could be cruel. I learned how to read her moods and step in — not to stop her, just to redirect her attention.
When I was separated from my siblings, I worried for their safety. I didn’t cry for my parents when I was gone. I cried for them because I did not know if they were okay and because I was not there to absorb the impact.
Two months later, they sent me back. The stepfather was gone, but nothing else had changed. My mother was overwhelmed and violent. She’d fly into a rage, grab me, hit me, and tell me she wished I was never born. Then she’d go watch TV on the couch and expect everything to reset.
My siblings didn’t run to me. That wasn’t how we worked. Affection didn’t come easy then — and still doesn’t, honestly. But when I saw them, alive and still there, something settled in me. I knew if I ever reported what our mother did — any of the abuse that came after — they’d be taken too. And once we were in the system, we’d be separated and left to fend for ourselves. I couldn’t let that happen, not again. I built my life around not reporting and not asking for help. So I started lying. I said I fell off bikes I didn’t have. I said I hit my head on things that weren’t there. I made jokes about being clumsy. I learned how to talk to teachers, counselors, social workers — how to sound normal. By 9, I knew what to do when they came to the door: stay quiet, keep it locked, and don’t let them find out we were alone.
And that’s how I protected my siblings so we can stay together. For a long time, that felt like success. I worked harder than any kid should have to, just to keep our little trio intact. We stayed together, yes. But we paid for it.
People talk about abuse in terms of bruises and broken bones. But for me, it’s the choices that linger — the ones I made when there was no good option. I didn’t choose safety. I chose being close to my siblings. I chose not to be the reason we got separated again.
I think about the kids I met in that group home, the ones who had been separated from their siblings and didn’t know if they’d ever see them again. I wonder how many are still looking or trying to stitch together a story of their lives with whole chapters missing.
I want to say something meaningful here, something about how kids shouldn’t have to choose between being safe and being together. But when I think about it, I don’t feel clarity. I just feel the weight of the choice I made at 9, and everything that came after. If I’d answered the door — if I’d told the truth — could I have spared us years of abuse? Or did I keep us from being torn apart? I’ll never know.
We should’ve gotten help. Someone should’ve wanted better for us and made sure that if we were taken in, we wouldn’t be separated. Instead, I did what I had to do to keep us together. I’m one of way too many kids who asked for help and lost the only people they trusted in the process. That’s still happening. Kids shouldn’t have to do that math of “what’s worse: the abuse, or losing your siblings?” If you’re someone who can do something about it, do it. Support the organizations fighting to keep siblings together. And if you’re in the child welfare system, make that the priority it should’ve always been.
