It Happened To Me: I've Had More Temporary Siblings Than I Can Shake A Stick At!
As the biological child of foster parents, my perspective is complicated.
By Nia Steen
When I was 10 years old, my mother came home from work one day with a teenage girl
and told us she would be living with us. Soon after, we called her our sister. Eleven months later, she left as mysteriously as she arrived and that was the beginning.
“Wow, your parents are amazing!” said anyone who ever heard we were a foster family. But being a bio-kid in a foster family wasn’t always awesome.
The truth is my parents are amazing. However, it’s not just them accepting new kids into our home. It’s us kids too–and it’s hard. My brother and I are the only bio-kids in the house. According to my mom, people ask how the bio-kids handle foster children all the time—but they never ask us! Our parents did not expect us to blindly accept having foster kids around, which may have something to do with us all being
put into therapy immediately.
Still, I felt most people on the outside (at least the people I aired my complaints to) expected us not to complain—especially about the foster kids. Who were we to be upset or confused? We hadn’t been uprooted from our homes and taken away from our families. So what were we supposed to feel? Well, it’s complicated.
I’ve met some amazing kids through foster care and some not so much. Even with the occasional cruel ones, we felt the expectation was for us to accept them. After all, our trauma couldn’t compare to theirs, right? But we were still children. It’s not fair to expect us to accept cruel or even rude behavior from foster kids. (My parents were always clear that we should go to them when things like this happened to us, though.) Regardless, we had to share our home, our parents, our things, and most often for me, my room. Try having three girls sharing one bedroom. As anyone in a college triple can agree, it’s not all that pleasant. (I’m currently in a triple at college—send help!)
It’s weird having temporary siblings, though; you get close to someone and then they just disappear. As heartbreaking as it is, I don't regret knowing them. Most of the time they do not want to remember their foster care experience so they don’t stay in contact. Sometimes they get adopted by a good family that doesn’t want us to be a part of their lives. While that’s fair, it’s hard for us because we miss them.
The hardest part of fostering is when a foster kid acts out AT you. This one girl who was an only child and essentially ran her household before coming to us was incredibly manipulative.
She resented us for different reasons and wanted to make sure she was the only one in charge. Her way of making that happen was to be directly cruel. She made fun of my sister for her disabilities and I called her out for it. She did not like that. She did not like that I saw right through her. I remember one time she said I was making fun of her OCD. I had said, as a joke, “That’s just my OCD!” The girl went sobbing to my mother saying I was making fun of something I didn’t understand. My mother looked at her in confusion and said, “ I don’t think she’s making fun of you. You know Virginia has OCD right?” When she realized she couldn’t twist the situation to suit her own narrative, she dropped it and started on something else. She somehow managed to turn my siblings against me, and by the time my siblings realized what was going on, she was leaving. In the end, it was my mother who returned her to child services.
Still, there were more positive experiences than negative ones. If it wasn’t for foster care, I wouldn’t have my three adopted sisters, who I love and adore with all my heart. My older sister and I are avid book readers who love to write, and we bonded through reading each other's writing. My two younger sisters, though they annoy me to death and steal all my clothes, are pretty great too. Sometimes they’ll sneak into the room I share with only my older sister now and we’ll all stay up chatting for hours.
We weren’t all that close in the beginning though. The first time I met two of my sisters (they are half sisters to each other and came to us together) I knew it felt different than the fostering we had done before. When my parents asked if I would be
okay with sharing my room, I felt I couldn’t say no. I convinced myself it would be fun like a never-ending sleepover. I was told the girls would be split up or moved to a different town if we didn’t take them. Was I really going to let that happen because I didn’t want to share my room? So I said yes, under the condition that my bed stay in the same place. Everyone agreed and all was well—until the day they moved in.
My dad woke me the morning of move-in day saying, “Get up we have to move
your bed before the girls’ bunk bed arrives.” This was just the first violation of my space. I had three bookshelves in my room that held all my books and belongings and my parents had me clear out two of them to make room for the girls. Consolidating all my things into one bookcase and clearing out space in my room felt strange and like another violation of my space. This was the first time I started feeling displaced (they were only our second and third foster kids, so it was all still strange for me). Honestly, at that moment, I wished we had never fostered at all. What’s worse is at the time
I believed that thought made me a horrible person.
The girls were supposed to be a temporary placement so when my parents started talking about adopting them, I wanted to shut that down. Was it really all that bad to think that? I’m certainly not the first kid to try and return a sibling. Heck, I tried to return my brother long before I ever met my sisters. However, on that same day, I changed my mind again and again while playing with my sisters at the beach. That’s when I knew we were already sisters and I couldn’t change that. No matter how much we annoyed each other, we would always bounce back.
My third sister was only supposed to stay with us for a week. At that point, all of
us were older and more mature. We had been fostering for approximately eight years by then and with so many kids coming in and out of our house I had learned a lot more about sibling and foster sibling relationships. The feeling of sisterhood with her was almost instantaneous for all of us.
In the end, I have learned valuable lessons about relationships, belonging, and the
resilience of the human heart. Family isn’t just about blood—it’s about the bonds you choose to nurture, the sacrifices you’re willing to make, and the love that grows in even the most unexpected circumstances. Fostering isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t always easy, but it is part of who we are. Our house may be wild, messy, and unpredictable, but it’s also filled with love—and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
I’m Nia Steen, but if my mother sees this, my first name is Virginia and I said that. I just turned 22 and I’m an aspiring writer currently studying at Sarah Lawrence.
Your perspective is fascinating and I'm so grateful you shared it here. Thank you! Looking at these pictures, I feel like each of you could have an It Happened To Me of your own, probably all very different. I also want to know: How did your siblings and parents feel about this piece??
This is a beautiful piece, V! I have known you your whole life and yes, I have asked your parents how all the kids handled the transition, but never asked the bio kids! From my perspective, you handle everything life throws at you with grace and compassion, and a healthy dose of humor. Though sometimes chaotic, your family exudes love, and that has always been inspiring to me. Thank you for sharing your perspective and helping me see a different side of your family.