At what point does ignoring a child’s need for sleep become a problem dire enough for CPS to investigate? That’s the situation this teen was sadly living in.
He was removed from his parents for being chronically sleep-deprived and stuck in a house where screaming through the night was treated as unavoidable rather than harmful. Now he’s thriving, while his parents are angry that he told the truth to CPS.
He’s left wrestling with a question that doesn’t have an easy answer: if protecting your ability to sleep and function makes your life better, does refusing to return home make you selfish?
This 16-year-old guy was removed from his parents a year ago by CPS, and he is currently living with his maternal grandparents. He honestly was happy about it, and he was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
He loves living with his grandparents instead of with his mom and dad, and he wasn’t taken away because his parents endangered him.
“It was because my two younger siblings (9 and 7) are autistic, and they were keeping me awake all night with their screaming, and they were the reason I was late for school some days,” he explained.
“At school, I was struggling, and even getting homework done was rough because my parents wanted me home straight away after school. But my siblings would be screaming and grabbing my stuff, and it made it impossible to finish homework and do it well.”
“It was our neighbor calling CPS on us that got everything investigated. She was tired of being woken up at 12 or 1 in the morning to my siblings screaming. My sister is worse than my brother, in that her screaming can/will last for HOURS, and she’s got a more high-pitched and grating scream that I was having really bad reactions to.”
Ever since his siblings were toddlers, they began shrieking, and it has only gotten worse as they aged. His siblings are adopted, so he struggled with speaking to his parents about his hardships.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
The biological mom of his siblings was his mom’s best friend, but after she passed away, her mom made good on the promise to take the kids in and raise them. Back then, his siblings were not diagnosed, and it took almost a year for the signs of their autism to show up.
He was convinced that if he aired his complaints to his mom and dad, they would accuse him of not being sympathetic to his siblings simply because they’re not related to him.
He doesn’t care if his siblings were biologically related to him; he would still find it impossible to live with them or deal with their behaviors.
When a woman from CPS came to talk to him, he confessed to her that he was bothered by his siblings and could hardly sleep. He then showed her his grades in school as evidence and told her that he couldn’t complete his homework.
“I looked like a zombie at that time, and I felt even worse than one. Some people at school would make fun of me for looking old because you could tell I hadn’t slept much, and it made my eyes look really weird,” he said.
“My parents didn’t want me removed, but CPS said it was in my best interest because I could not thrive while my siblings had ongoing sleep issues and disruption issues.”
“My siblings still have those problems and have not improved at all. My parents ignored that and asked me when I would ask CPS to let me move back in, and I said I won’t. Then my parents were like, you should come over more and help us if you’re not going to move back home.”
He never steps foot in his family home because his parents are still furious with him for telling the woman from CPs the truth. Also, he’s not interested in having to sit amid all of the screaming his siblings do now that he’s not forced to be around them.
His grandparents had to get him a therapist because when he first came to live with them, he would wake up in the middle of the night, hearing the screaming ringing in his head nonstop.
Additionally, he kept his feelings bottled up for years because he was concerned people would think he was a bad person for having complaints against his siblings.
He knows he made his parents mad, but he’s thriving and far happier not living with them. He’s left wondering if that makes him a jerk.
I am surprised his parents aren’t suffering from sleep deprivation if his siblings are that difficult to be around. It’s not fair for his mom and dad to expect him to come home and help care for his siblings, and good for him for not allowing himself to be forced into parentification.
He should remain with his grandparents since his home life evidently won’t improve, and his parents are bitter about his leaving. Being able to sleep without screaming and interruptions at night is a basic need for a child.
It’s sad they’re prioritizing his adopted siblings over him, and it sounds like his siblings need far more help than his parents are equipped to provide.
What do you think?
You can read the original post below.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
