The Outcome of Sibling Seperation

Not all children get to continue to grow up with their bothers or sisters. Many times the Family Court System takes children and seperate siblings, giving not a thought to the innocent lives they are destroying. Seperating siblings happens often in the custody realm, and no body cares.

                                                            SEPARATING SIBLINGS

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The Powerful Sibling Bond

Loss has become all too familiar to 35-year-old Amy. First, it was the loss of her childhood. At nine, because her parents were not capable of caring for her and her younger sister, she became the care giver to six-year-old Anne. Two years later, she lost her parents and her home. She and Anne were moved by the authorities into foster care after it became clear that their parents could not provide a safe and nurturing environment for them. It was an especially difficult move for Amy, who had to relinquish her "parental" role to her new foster mother.

But the most wrenching loss of all came when Amy was 12. Her social worker believed it would be in her best interest to live in a home with girls her own age. For the first time in her life, she and her sister were separated.

It was devastating for both of them. Amy's self-esteem plummeted because so much of it revolved around her ability to take care of her younger sibling. Anne, too, was destroyed by the move for she no longer had the only constant in her life. Her sister, in addition to being her best friend, had also been her consistent source of advice and approval.
Anne was later adopted by her foster parents and moved with them to another State. The sisters lost touch with each other. They also lost their ability to trust and to form lasting relationships when they became adults.
At 35, Amy says, "I will never forget the day I had to leave my sister. We were both crying, and I felt like the world was a terrible and hostile place. As the months went by, I could feel myself close up. The more I thought about what had happened to me, the more angry and bitter I became. If the social worker who was supposed to be concerned for me had the power to take away my sister, I could never trust anyone again."
Today, Amy and Anne are in contact with each other. They see each other from time to time, but they do not have the close relationship that they might have had they not been separated. Amy lives alone, insists she will never marry, and prefers living a solitary existence where no one can hurt her. Anne has been divorced twice and says that intimate relationships are impossible for her to manage. When someone gets too close, she unconsciously sabotages the relationship.

Battered Women Are Being Abused By Family Court

In no other area of family law are battered women and their children inadvertently subjected to greater physical and emotional harm than in the child custody and visitation context. Battered women are often forced to participate in custody arrangements that require mediation, unsupervised custody and visitation, and other types of exchanges that leave them and theirchildren vulnerable to continued abuse and control at the hands of their batterers. Women who try to protect themselves and their children by seeking sole custody or modifications in custody arrangements such as cessation of visitation, supervised visits, or who flee with their children are penalized by having custody taken away and given to their batterers. Despite the perception that mothers always win custody, when fathers contest custody, they win sole or joint custody in 40% to 70% of the cases. Indeed, even in cases where abuse is reported, a batterer is twice as likely to win custody over a non-abusive parent than in cases where no abuse is reported.