My daughter grew up in the sound of siblings — laughter, arguments, footsteps thundering across the floor. Chaos was her comfort. Noise meant she wasn’t alone.
Then she was taken.
Placed in foster care.
Even there, she had company. Another child in the home. More chaos. More noise.
When she came back to us, it was different. The house was quiet. Too quiet. Her brothers and sisters weren’t here. The silence pressed in. What should have felt safe felt empty.
She missed them.
She missed the noise.
She even missed foster care — not for the love she lacked there, but for the company she found.
And the system? It tells us that four contacts a year with siblings is enough. Four hurried gatherings, all children together in a room, with no structure, no space, no time for trust to be rebuilt. Open chaos, they call it “family time.” But to my daughter, it isn’t healing. It’s too much, all at once. So now she doesn’t want to go.
What she needs is simple:
One by one.
Slowly.
To sit with her brothers and sisters in ways that feel human, a meal, a walk, a moment of belonging.
But that is not allowed. The box is ticked: “Contact offered.” And so the system pats itself on the back, while children ache in the silence it leaves behind.
And my daughter is not the only one. Some children get lucky, placed with siblings, bonds protected. But many are torn apart. Bonds fractured. Attachments broken, sometimes so deeply they can never be repaired.
I know this, because I’ve lived it.
My sister grew up in foster care. I grew up in a home full of abuse. From the outside, people saw me as the “lucky one” because at least I had a mother. But they didn’t see the reality. They didn’t see what it did to us.
The bond we should have had as sisters , it never grew. What we were left with was resentment, mistrust, damage. Our relationship has cut deeper than any professional will ever understand. It is only now, through therapy, that I unravelled the roles we fell into , and the harm they have done.
And I fear this for my children.
Because while my daughter isn’t in an abusive home, the split from her siblings may still leave scars. Damage that can’t be undone. Bonds that may never fully return.
This is what the system refuses to face: that children need more than a roof and a review date. They need each other. They need bonds intact, or gently, carefully, patiently repaired.
If we keep pretending four chaotic contacts a year are enough, we are creating a future of broken siblings, fractured families, and adults carrying wounds that could have been prevented.
The system must do more. Because silence may keep the paperwork neat, but for children, silence is what hurts the most.
thegirlspeaks.uk 