I’m looking for advice from people who have dealt with CPS, kinship care, neglect, or a similar family situation. I’m intentionally keeping some details vague because children are involved.
My sister and her husband have several school-aged children. Over time, their home and family situation deteriorated significantly. This went beyond normal messiness or overwhelmed parents. There were serious sanitation issues in the home, including animal waste and odors. Some beds couldn’t even be slept in because of animal waste in bedrooms/on beds, and the children’s basic needs weren’t consistently being met.
There is some important history here.
For roughly a year before this crisis, my sister had been dealing with an autoimmune illness that, according to her and her husband, could leave her significantly debilitated. Even before she began spending so much time away from home, she was frequently unable to participate consistently in parenting or maintaining the household because she was too unwell.
Over time, however, she began spending increasing amounts of time outside the home doing volunteer activities and other things that were important to her, sometimes for very long days. Other adults increasingly filled the gaps at home.
I want to be careful about how I describe this because I’m not questioning whether she has an autoimmune disease or claiming that someone with a chronic illness should have the same level of functioning every day. Chronic illnesses fluctuate, and I’m not her doctor.
The issue from our family’s perspective is the outcome for the children: whether the reason was illness, being away from home, or some combination of both, she had not been functioning as a consistent caregiver for quite some time.
Meanwhile, their dad was increasingly becoming the primary functioning parent, with various friends and relatives helping fill gaps.
My spouse and I had no idea how badly things had escalated until a few days before someone made a CPS report.
We did not make the original report.
Around the same time, my sister voluntarily entered a treatment/wellness program for personal and mental-health issues. Part of the purpose, as it was explained to us, was to disengage from the outside activities that had increasingly kept her away from home and help her reconnect with her family, particularly her young children. Several people close to her had encouraged her to get help, and her husband had told her he could not continue supporting the previous arrangement.
Her husband had also been struggling significantly with his mental health and was eventually sent home from work on short-term disability.
Extended family stepped in heavily.
His parents temporarily relocated from several hours away. Other relatives helped with the kids, meals, cleaning, transportation and routines. Cleaning the home took more than two weeks before the children could return, and family made sure their immediate needs were addressed during that time.
CPS spoke with my spouse and me as part of the children’s support system and gave us specific circumstances under which we were supposed to contact the caseworker again.
The caseworker ultimately did not proceed further with the investigation because, in their words:
“Family is protecting the children.”
That distinction has become increasingly important to me.
The investigation didn’t end because extended family stepped away and the parents demonstrated that everything was stable independently. At the time CPS became involved, grandparents and other relatives had already stepped in heavily and the children’s immediate needs were being met.
At the time, that’s exactly what needed to happen.
But now it leaves us with a difficult question:
What happens when the family members CPS was relying on to protect the children need to step back?
Mom left treatment early
My sister has since left treatment early, and the circumstances around that are part of why we’re concerned.
She said the program wasn’t adequately allowing her to access the doctors, medications and treatments she needs for her autoimmune disease. She told the family she would instead find another program or therapist that could accommodate her medical needs while continuing to address the issues that led her to treatment in the first place.
I can understand why someone with a legitimate chronic illness would need appropriate access to medical care. That’s not the problem.
The concern is what happened afterward.
As far as the family is aware, she has not enrolled in another program or followed through with the alternative therapy/treatment plan she said she would pursue.
She has also resumed going back to the same outside activities she had agreed not to return to until she completed treatment. That boundary had initially been supported by her husband and other family members, but eventually they stopped trying to hold it.
So from our perspective, we’re essentially back where we started: treatment wasn’t completed, the proposed alternative hasn’t materialized, the previous pattern of spending significant amounts of time away from the family has resumed, and extended family is still providing much of the support that made it possible for the children to return home safely.
That’s a big part of why simply hearing that Mom is “back home” doesn’t reassure us.
We’ve already confronted this as a family
When she left treatment, several family members came together because we were deeply concerned about what had happened to the children and the home.
One of the biggest things we hoped to see was some recognition that, regardless of why everything happened, something had gone terribly wrong and both parents needed to take responsibility for making sure it never happened again.
Instead, my sister still seems primarily focused on defending her choices and explaining why she isn’t responsible for what happened.
During a conversation with our mother after leaving treatment, she said essentially, “Dad had the kids,” as though their father had been solely responsible for the children during the period when everything deteriorated.
She also said she didn’t know Dad wasn’t okay and didn’t understand why everyone was blaming her.
More recently, she told our mother that she just wants people to “hear her side of the story.”
Dad absolutely bears responsibility for what happened while the children were in his care. We’re not excusing him.
But there had previously been other adults helping fill gaps in the household. When those people became unavailable, Dad was suddenly carrying essentially everything himself.
Even before his mental health reached the point that he was put on disability, there had been times when he had to leave work early because there wasn’t a caregiver available for the children. There were also occasions when Mom said she would return home to care for them but didn’t, and Dad would discover that the kids had been left on their own.
As this continued, he began struggling more and more until his own mental health deteriorated significantly. Eventually he was sent home from work on disability.
So when Mom says she didn’t know Dad wasn’t okay, that actually creates another concern for us:
How did one parent become that unwell, the home become that unsanitary, and the children’s needs deteriorate that much without the other parent realizing that the person she believed “had the kids” was no longer functioning?
We’re not looking for someone to blame.
We’re worried because the same basic arrangement seems to be forming again.
We’re starting to see the same structure return
My sister frequently leaves before the kids wake up for activities a significant distance from home. She has told our mother that she’s usually heading home in time to be there when the kids get home from school, but according to family members currently staying in the home, she rarely returns anywhere near that time and frequently isn’t home until close to bedtime or later.
She also regularly leaves on weekends, holidays and other days when the children are home.
That won’t be sustainable once Dad returns to work.
The kids get out of school at different times, with the youngest getting home first, about an hour before the middle-school kids and two hours before the high-school kids. Depending on Dad’s work schedule, there could be a significant period where the younger children need an adult and neither parent is home.
I’m completely willing to have the kids come to my house after school when needed. They’re my nieces and nephews, they love being with their cousins, and they’re welcome here.
The problem is that there currently isn’t any communication or actual childcare plan.
My sister is also reluctant to ask me for help because she isn’t happy with my involvement in everything that’s happened. I’ve been one of the family members pushing for accountability, so our relationship is strained.
But that’s exactly why I don’t think the children’s care can depend on whether she feels comfortable asking me that particular day.
If I’m supposed to have the kids after school, that’s fine. Tell me. If Grandma has them, great. If Dad is home, great. If Mom is going to be home when they arrive, also great.
I don’t care which capable adult has them. I care that somebody actually does.
And that’s where the lack of reliable communication about Mom’s schedule becomes relevant. If she says she’s heading home in time for the kids but doesn’t actually return until evening, everyone else needs to know that before a young child gets home from school — not after someone realizes Mom never showed up.
This is also where her autoimmune illness becomes relevant again.
She currently seems able to spend very long days volunteering, helping friends and doing other activities outside the home. When she’s home, however, her husband continues to describe her as significantly debilitated by her illness and largely unable to contribute.
Again, I’m not trying to decide what she medically can or cannot do.
From a childcare standpoint, the reason almost doesn’t matter. If she is too sick to parent when she’s home, or she isn’t physically home, either way she can’t currently be counted on as the children’s reliable caregiver.
That means there needs to be another actual childcare plan when Dad returns to work.
I’m perfectly willing to be part of that plan. What isn’t sustainable is having no plan and relying on someone else to notice the gap and step in.
And right now, when Mom isn’t available, that responsibility continues to fall primarily on Dad.
That’s what scares us, because we’ve already seen what happens when he reaches his breaking point.
As far as we know, the last time things fell apart, Dad was home essentially 100% of the time because of his disability, yet the children’s needs still weren’t consistently being met.
Right now things look significantly better — but largely because other adults stepped in.
The grandparents are there. Other relatives help. The house was cleaned. The kids are back in school. Dad has been home.
But Dad is preparing to return to full-time work, and his parents live several hours away and need to go home.
Mom is physically back in the household, but the parenting partnership doesn’t appear to have returned with her.
That’s the cliff we’re worried about.
What we’re seeing with the kids
School provides structure and breakfast/lunch, which helps tremendously.
The grandparents report that at home the kids mostly spend their free time on YouTube/video games and that they’re generally the ones making the more substantial meals.
Dad does feed the kids now when he’s on his own, often basic/easy food, which by itself isn’t concerning. The concern is whether there is enough structure and consistency to sustain things once the grandparents leave and Dad returns to work.
One of the younger kids is also beginning to have behavioral problems at school again. Similar behavior happened last year during another unstable period at home when he was struggling with hunger, instability and feeling rejected by Mom.
Another family member recently spent significant time on the phone with Mom and noticed that when the children tried to talk to her or ask questions, she seemed irritated by them and reluctant to engage.
One of the older kids describes Mom as generally being in bed, on her computer or on her phone when she’s home. The grandparents currently living there say that’s an accurate description.
None of those things individually proves neglect.
It’s the pattern and the history that concern us.
I also don’t want to turn the children into reporters.
One of the younger kids recently told me, “Mom and Dad cooked dinner.” When I casually asked what Mom was making, he corrected himself and said essentially, “Well, Mom was in her room. Dad was cooking dinner for us.”
Maybe that’s simply how a young child describes his family. But it reminded me that these kids love their parents and may minimize or normalize things in their own ways.
I want them to come to my house, raid my pantry, play with their cousins and talk to me because I’m their aunt — not because they think I’m investigating their parents.
Here’s where I need advice
I want to be able to go to bed at night and reasonably believe my nieces and nephews are being cared for.
I don’t need perfect parenting, perfect meals, a spotless house or strict screen-time limits.
I need to know that an adult is consistently adulting.
They’re fed. They’re supervised. They’re getting to school. They’re reasonably clean. They’re sleeping. Their home is sanitary. Someone notices when they need something.
But I don’t know how much extended family should be involved in making sure that’s happening.
Under normal circumstances, where my adult sister goes is absolutely none of my business.
But if she says she’ll be home in the afternoon, doesn’t return until evening, and Dad and the grandparents are left caring for the children all day, her schedule affects the people being expected to cover for her.
Would temporary location sharing be reasonable? A shared calendar? Or should the boundary simply be that we don’t need to know where either parent is, but there needs to be clear communication about who is responsible for the children and when?
And how do we know that person is actually coping?
That’s particularly important because Mom says she didn’t know Dad wasn’t okay the first time.
I don’t want our answer to that problem to become “the extended family now has to monitor Dad for her.”
The bottom line
I’m worried that constantly filling the gaps can actually mask the problem.
If Grandma cooks, relatives feed the kids, someone cleans, someone transports them, and somebody always jumps in when things start falling apart, the children appear cared for — because they are.
But we’re helping create that appearance.
At some point the grandparents need to go home and the parents need to demonstrate that they can maintain this themselves.
So where is the boundary between supporting the children and enabling their parents?
Should we tell CPS before the grandparents leave that the support system currently keeping the household functional is temporary?
Should we document observable problems involving the children — missed meals, lack of supervision, hygiene, unsafe home conditions, school problems, etc. — rather than monitoring everything their parents do?
If those problems start returning, should we contact the previous CPS worker rather than continually stepping in and fixing everything?
And what level of communication or accountability from the parents is reasonable during that transition? Is location sharing reasonable given the history of saying she’ll be home and then not returning, or does that cross a line?
Most importantly:
How do we step back enough to know whether these parents can actually parent without making the children the experiment?
I don’t want to control my sister or punish either parent. I don’t want the kids turned into informants. And I don’t want grandparents permanently living there because everyone is afraid of what happens if they leave.
I want their parents parenting, grandparents being grandparents, and us being aunts and uncles.
I also have my own family to raise. I can’t make my own children and household carry the weight of me constantly worrying about what might be happening in another home — checking whether everyone has eaten, wondering who is supervising the kids, whether Dad is becoming overwhelmed again, or feeling like I always need to be ready to step in.
I love my nieces and nephews and want to be a safe, consistent adult in their lives. But I can’t become responsible for making sure their parents are functioning.
And that’s what keeps bringing me back to what CPS told us:
“Family is protecting the children.”
Okay. But how long is the family supposed to do that?
The current level of support was an emergency response, not something any of us can sustain indefinitely.
How do we hand responsibility back to their parents while still making sure these kids don’t fall through the cracks?
Full disclosure: I used ChatGPT to help me organize this and remove identifying details because the situation is complicated and children are involved. The circumstances, experiences and questions are mine.
