Guardianship of sibling?
Asked by
nmp (
23
)
September 18th, 2013
Hey everyone.
I’m 21. I live at home in Chicago with my 15 year old sister. We have another sister, 26, who left our parents’ home when she was 18. Long story short, our parents were very physically abusive when we were younger. My older sister took the brunt of it. Child Protective Services were called once and were incredibly useless (the social worker? interviewed my younger sister and I…directly in front of our parents).
After my older sister left, the physical abuse stopped, but the emotional abuse kept up. My little sister admitted to being depressed and entertaining suicidal thoughts.
I thought about asking my older sister to attempt to petition for guardianship of her, but I’m worried about what the chances of that are. There’s the previous CPS visit, but beyond that government forces were never involved (for the very obvious reasons that they failed terrifically that one incident).
Thank you for any help you can provide!
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7 Answers
No one should ever go through this. Do you have legal aid in your area or an attorney who does pro bono work? Are alcohol and drugs involved? Obviously the social worker was clueless.
@adirondackwannabe I’ve been told that the social worker was clueless. My therapist was very confused and I honestly thought that was how it was supposed to go (while my younger self wondered at what kind of kid could admit abuse with their abusers sitting a foot away from them).
I know of an attorney I used to work with. The idea of guardianship is a fairly new one, so I’m still researching it.
There are no alcohol or drugs involved.
@nmp What drives the abuse? Is it something else like money or other stressors? Go slow, this is quite scary
It…isn’t really any of them. To be quite honest, a hostile household was pretty much how it always was. There’s no stereotypical reasons there: my parents aren’t alcoholics, they aren’t poor (in fact, for refugees with only an Associate’s at best, they’ve done incredibly well for themselves). Admittedly, it was for these reasons I left myself in denial of the abuse. I thought an abused child should look like something off of SVU or some other crime show.
There is the matter of my mother’s background—her father was extremely abusive. His children no longer speak to him. His ex-wife, my grandmother, also pretends as if he doesn’t exist.
It wasn’t uncommon at all to be hit for not listening or talking back. Bad grades were also a pretty easy way for the yelling/hitting to start, especially if you tried to defend yourself. Actually, yeah, defending yourself is a pretty quick way to escalate it.
For my older sister, the abuse escalated when she announced her interest in converting to Judaism (to say my parents are anti-Semitic is an understatement). They absolutely refused to allow her and they would show so physically and verbally.
@nmp I don’t know what to do. Give me some time to think on it. I’m surprised your sister got away with the conversion.
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I feel it should be an option that should be explored, no child should be deprived of their childhood and that’s exactly what’s happening to your younger sister. Your older sister like mentioned is years passed the age of majority, I feel her chances are high to take over guardianship, stay positive in situations like this, what you think about, comes about and the focus should be on ensuring that your sister can be safe. I understand completely your situation, it’s not easy however it’s not impossible, have your sister do her due diligence with the third-parties that are involved in this matter, as long as she is deemed fit to be a guardian, the process should flow and changes will be made. Stay strong, nothing happens before it’s time.
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