broken by the system

Fighting for my children's voices

In the middle of all the legal battles and constant court hearings, one thing became abundantly clear: my children’s voices were not being heard. I could see it every time I saw them during visits. They were being treated like they didn’t have their own feelings, their own needs. They were being shuffled around like pieces on a chessboard, moved from one place to another with no say in what was happening to them.Tyler, who was still with me, was struggling too. He felt the weight of his siblings’ absence, and he had to witness me fighting a system that didn’t care about us. He wanted to speak up, to tell the courts what this was doing to him, but even he felt silenced. The system didn’t want to hear from him; they just wanted to move forward with their agenda.I knew that my children needed to be heard. They needed someone to advocate for them, to make sure their voices were considered in all of this. I fought to have a guardian ad litem appointed for them, someone who could speak on their behalf in court. But even then, I worried. Would they truly represent my children’s needs, or would they be just another cog in the system that was tearing us apart?During visits, I asked my children what they wanted. They all said the same thing—they just wanted to come home. They didn’t understand why they couldn’t. To them, it seemed so simple. We were a family, and families belonged together. But to the system, nothing was ever that simple. I promised them that I would keep fighting for them, that I would make sure their voices were heard, no matter how hard it was.