My sister put my 3yo in serious danger, she said I needed a lesson in empathy

“If my sister cared about me, she never would have done something like this to me.” 

The relationship between sisters Elizabeth* and Anna* is far from perfect. 

As kids, the pair would constantly be at each other’s throats, and it wasn’t until they had both grown up and started their own lives that they started to get along. 

But recent family drama led to the pair reigniting their feud, and this time, it could have caused permanent damage. 

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Elizabeth opened the door to two child services officers. Picture: iStock

Woman’s cousin has baby taken by child services

After moving out and getting married, Anna had her first and only son, who is the “light of my life”. 

The three-year-old has autism, and despite some challenges along the way, he always has a smile on his face.

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“He is a very sweet and happy child; he's just nonverbal and has a lot of sensory issues and developmental delays,” his mum said on Reddit. 

Anna is a stay-at-home mum, which gives her more time to be with her child and attend “doctors appointments and various therapies”, while her husband Gerry* works full-time. While the family doesn’t bring in boatloads of money, it’s enough to get by, which is good enough for them. 

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Meanwhile, her cousin Juno*, who “struggles a lot with drugs and … isn't in the best living situation”, recently gave birth to her first son, “but he had some health issues because of the drug use at the beginning of her pregnancy”. 

But when she learned she was pregnant, Juno began to change her ways. 

“She managed to clean herself up during the pregnancy, she and her boyfriend got their own place, and she was doing really well when the baby finally came,” Elizabeth said.  

Sadly, after she welcomed her son to the world, Juno reportedly relapsed, resulting in her losing her house and job; she had to start from scratch again.  

“A few weeks ago, I was devastated when I heard that her child had been removed from her care after an anonymous tip to CPS,” Elizabeth said. “Whatever her faults, I know she loved that baby.” 

Elizabeth learned the news about her cousin after speaking to her dad, who said “that my sister was really upset because she and my cousin had always been close”. 

In response, Elizabeth said she hoped Juno's situation would be a “wake-up call” and “that maybe this is what she needed to get her life straight so she could get her son back”.

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“My sister wanted to teach me a lesson in empathy”

While she “didn’t mean anything malicious” with her comments, the news must have travelled back to the rest of the family. 

A few weeks later, there was a knock on Elizabeth’s door. “I answered the door, and there were two agents from CPS on my porch,” the horrified mum said. “I was shocked.”

The agents explained they’d received an anonymous tip that Elizabeth’s “son was in danger” and they needed to check the premises. “From what I could tell, someone called them and reported that my child was in danger because I was on drugs, my husband was an alcoholic, we were living in squalor, and my child was being neglected,” she said. 

According to Elizabeth, her house is squeaky clean, “or as clean as it can be with a toddler”, and she doesn’t touch alcohol “because of a medical issue", so the allegations were extraordinary and absurd. 

Speaking to the CPS agents, Elizabeth explained that her son was “not being neglected”. “He was clean and clothed and happily eating a snack while I was talking to them,” she said. “They deemed that this was clearly a false report and apologised for wasting my time.” Before the agents left, one gave Elizabeth a card with a number to call in a few days to reiterate it was a false report and “so she could make sure there were no repercussions”. 

Naturally, Elizabeth was horrified, nervous and furious that someone would make a false report about her, so she called up her father to vent about it. “He got really angry,” she said. “He told me that he'd had a conversation with my sister a couple [of] weeks ago, and he had mentioned what I said about my cousin's situation.”

Apparently, Elizabeth’s sister Anna was furious at her sister’s reaction to Juno losing her baby and wanted to get revenge. 

Yep, Elizabeth's sister “was the one to call CPS and file the false report because she thought I was the one who called them on my cousin”, which Elizabeth swore was untrue. On top of the apparent revenge, Anna wanted her sister “to learn a lesson in empathy".

After this horrific incident, Elizabeth decided that she would no longer be in contact with her sister; “I blocked her on everything and told my parents I was cutting her off,” she said. While her dad agreed with the consequences, Elizabeth’s mother argued the punishment didn’t fit the crime. 

“If my sister cared anything about me, she never would have done something like this to me,” Elizabeth hit back. “Any ‘family’ that would do this to me or my child was no family that I wanted to be around.”

*Names have been changed

Originally published as My sister put my 3yo in serious danger, she said I needed a lesson in empathy