Families: Siblings Raising Siblings

• Share

At some point along the way, almost every child fantasizes about what life would be like without parents. It would be oodles of fun, with unlimited television, ice cream every night for dinner and none of those pesky rules imposed by the adult world. And, of course, there would be no homeowner's insurance, car payments or utility bills either. Except that's not the way it works.

Dave Eggers, in his best-selling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Vintage, 2001) recounts with candor and humor how he raised Toph, a brother 13 years his junior, following the death of their parents within 32 days of each other. "I have to get a resume together," Eggers wrote, "and we have to find a new place to live when the sublet ends, and how will Toph get to school if I get an early job...Should I lighten my hair? Does that whitening toothpaste really work? Toph needs health insurance. I need health insurance."

There are in America today about 2 million Tophs--children currently in kinship care--according to a recent study by the Urban Institute titled "Children Cared for by Relatives: Who Are They and How Are They Faring?" The number has been rising significantly over the past 20 years, and in 1996 the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking domestic situations that differ from the traditional two-parent household. Siblings raising siblings account for approximately 140,000 of those cases. Sondra Jackson, the Interim Receiver of the Child and Family Services Agency in Washington, explains, "In the 1980s, we lost about 50,000 foster-care homes nationwide. So we began to look at relatives as potential caretakers." The idealized version of a sibling-run household was promoted by the 1990s television drama Party of Five, which chronicled the Salinger family after their parents died in a car accident. But real-life siblings who have weathered tragic loss and then learned to improvise their way through parent-teacher conferences and dentist appointments will tell you it is not the romanticized stuff of television.

Janice Pang of Belmont, Calif., was a 23-year-old journalism graduate student on the verge of starting an internship when her parents' bitter divorce resulted in her taking sole guardianship of her sister Lisa, 11. Unprepared, Janice had to reorganize her life quickly. She pursued a job rather than an internship and moved into Stanford University family housing with her boyfriend Scott, who was willing to share parenting responsibilities. Dr. Laurie Kramer, a University of Illinois siblings expert, says that for the older sibling, such an upheaval can be restricting. "The ages from 18 to 25 are really a time of life when you're exploring," says Kramer. "If the older siblings are taking care of the younger ones, they've lost that opportunity to be free." But, Janice insists, "I didn't want my sister in foster care. I was grateful that I was old enough to take care of her."

Today Lisa, 19, a college sophomore, talks frequently with her sister and returns to Janice's home during vacations. Though both are now adults, they communicate more like mother and daughter than sisters. "Because we're so far apart in age, we don't have the kind of sister relationship most people have," says Lisa. "She'll probably always be a caretaker figure. I'm just starting to get into the friend thing."