In a deeply reported feature for New York magazine, Elizabeth Weil follows two families confronting what experts say is a largely invisible form of child sexual abuse: harm carried out by one sibling against another. Research suggests at least 1% of people have been abused by a brother or sister—likely enough to touch nearly every community—yet families who disclose it find almost no clear path forward. They face an immediate, wrenching question: Can they protect the child who was abused without sacrificing the child who caused the harm?
The first family, a Utah couple with five kids, discovers via nanny-cam and a 3-year-old's words that their 14-year-old son, Owen, sexually abused his toddler sister. Porn use that began during the pandemic had already triggered failed interventions; a later autism diagnosis helped explain, but not excuse, his behavior. With residential treatment financially out of reach, the parents improvise: Owen lives in the basement with his father, under surveillance and strict rules, while his mother raises the other children upstairs under an elaborate security system and a 55-point safety plan.
The second family, in the eastern US, takes a different route. After 15-year-old Piper discloses that her brother Conor, 21, has raped her for more than five years, their mother, Lynn—herself a survivor of intra-family abuse—demands he turn himself in. He does, and is ultimately sentenced to nine years in prison. For Piper, disclosure day was liberation; for Lynn, it was the death of the son she knew. Her marriage buckles under the strain.
Across both stories, the article lays out what Weil calls a "moral impossibility": the child who was harmed needs safety, validation, and the power to define the future relationship; the child who caused harm needs accountability and continued belonging. But "the family cannot meet everyone's needs at once," writes Weil. As Owen's father puts it, his daily task is brutally simple and impossibly complex: "How do I love both kids?"
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