Baylee Laine Became a Mom to Her Four Younger Siblings at 21 — After Years of Fighting to Keep Them Together

Baylee Laine was still a teenager when she faced a decision that would permanently reshape her future.

She could leave behind the unstable family environment she had grown up in, move away for college and pursue the softball opportunity she had worked hard to earn. Or she could remain close to home and try to protect the younger siblings she feared might otherwise be left on their own.

Ultimately, Laine chose her siblings.

Years later, after legal battles, financial struggles and an exhausting period in the foster care system, she officially adopted all four of them at age 21.

Now 28, Laine is raising her siblings alongside her own 3-year-old daughter, and she says the family has finally reached a place of stability and “true peace.”

A childhood shaped by instability

Laine told PEOPLE that her parents separated when she was around 5 years old and divorced not long afterward.

By the time she was 8, Child Protective Services had become involved with the family. Eventually, her father took custody of Laine and her brother.

Her mother later had four additional children with two other men.

Although Laine primarily lived with her father, she continued visiting her mother, particularly when another baby arrived and help was needed.

“If I wanted to spend time at my mom’s apartment, my dad would let me,” Laine explained, adding that many of those visits happened because her mother had recently given birth and Laine would help care for the baby.

But the environment remained unstable.

Laine said different men frequently came in and out of the home, sometimes leaving her uncomfortable enough that she would return to her father’s house.

She described a repeated pattern in which she might stay with her mother for a weekend, leave when circumstances became difficult, and later return when another relationship began.

When her mother became pregnant with Laine’s half-sister, Laine began spending even more time there because she felt responsible for helping with the child.

Then her mother became pregnant with twins.

For Laine, that became a breaking point.

The future she nearly chose

By that stage, Laine was also trying to build a future of her own.

She was a talented softball player and had earned a full scholarship to play the sport. Yet much of her teenage life had begun revolving around caring for her mother’s younger children.

Eventually, the pressure became overwhelming.

“I can’t keep spending my summers taking care of your kids,” she remembered thinking.

She began worrying about whether she would ever be able to pursue her own ambitions if she remained trapped in the role of constant caregiver.

During her senior year of high school, Laine finally decided she would leave.

She planned to play softball, move out of state and distance herself from the difficult family situation that had consumed so much of her childhood.

But as the move approached, another thought became impossible to ignore.

Her younger siblings would still be there.

“These kids are going to be all alone,” she remembered thinking.

That realization changed everything.

Laine decided she would stay.

And if she stayed, she intended to take responsibility for the children.

Fighting for custody at 18

Instead of moving away, Laine enrolled at a community college and began working while pursuing a legal path to become responsible for her siblings.

She was only 18.

She worked two jobs and spent virtually all of her own money on the effort. Friends from her teenage years also contributed financially, and eventually a GoFundMe campaign helped raise close to $10,000.

Laine worked with a paralegal for approximately two years as she attempted to become an approved foster parent despite her young age.

The legal process was difficult.

She not only had to convince the state that she was capable of caring for four children, but also had to challenge the parental rights of three biological parents connected to the children.

During parts of the custody fight, Laine said she even slept in the paralegal’s office while they worked to demonstrate that she could provide a stable home despite being a teenager herself.

Then, on Oct. 25, 2017, the moment she had been fighting for arrived.

CPS brought the children to her home.

Laine was 19 years old when all four were officially placed with her through foster care.

From that point forward, she says, there were no real breaks.

Becoming their legal mother

Two years later, when Laine was 21, the adoption became official.

She became the legal parent of her four younger siblings.

Today, they include her 17-year-old brother, her 14-year-old sister and 12-year-old twins. Laine has also since become the biological mother of a daughter, now 3.

Although the adoption represented a major legal milestone, Laine said her daily responsibilities had already felt like full-time parenthood from the moment the children arrived.

The greatest difference was emotional.

Before the adoption, she constantly felt pressure to prove that she was doing everything correctly.

She worried that any mistake could somehow threaten the family she had fought to build.

After the adoption, that pressure began to ease.

There were no longer constant court appearances, visitation schedules and foster-care requirements dictating their lives.

For the first time, the family felt permanent.

They were, in Laine’s words, their “own unit.”

Giving up college and softball

The responsibility came with major personal sacrifices.

Laine was still attending college when she received custody, but caring for the children quickly became overwhelming.

The twins were too young to qualify for certain state-funded preschool programs, making it extremely difficult for her to continue attending classes.

She eventually left school.

She also stopped playing college softball after hiring the paralegal and devoting more of her energy to the custody process.

Her partner at the time helped financially, while the family also received state assistance for the children.

Emotionally, however, Laine says she was operating almost entirely in survival mode.

She and her therapist have since described that period as a time when she essentially “zombied out.”

She felt robotic.

There was a job that needed to be done, so she did it.

As a religious person, she says she believed this responsibility had been placed in front of her for a reason.

Helping traumatized children feel safe

The transition was far from easy.

Laine was caring for children who had experienced significant instability and trauma.

At first, they struggled to be separated from her.

They slept in her bed. They followed her constantly. At times, she said, even basic routines such as showering had to happen together because the children became anxious when she was out of sight.

It took time for them to understand that their new home was safe.

Even after entering foster care with Laine, the fear remained that someone might suddenly arrive and take them away.

That anxiety is common for children who have experienced foster care, she explained.

The questions were always there: Was this really permanent? Would CPS return? Would a biological parent come and take them?

Laine said their biological mother has been incarcerated since 2023.

Finding “true peace” during the pandemic

Strangely, one of the first periods when the family truly began feeling secure came during the COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.

With everyone confined largely to the house, the outside uncertainty temporarily disappeared.

They stayed together, developed routines and took nightly walks.

For the children, there was less fear that somebody might unexpectedly arrive and separate them.

Laine remembers that period as the calmest the family had felt.

It was then, she says, that they experienced “true peace.”

Today, she believes the children have moved completely beyond much of the fear and instability that once defined their lives.

A TikTok video brings their story to millions

For years, Laine simply wanted her family life to feel ordinary.

Recently, however, a TikTok trend inspired her to publicly share their journey.

After seeing another single mother post a video using Noah Kahan’s song “Willing and Able,” Laine realized she could create something similar using photographs documenting her own family from the beginning of their story to the present day.

She uploaded the video.

It exploded online.

The post reached approximately 6 million views, and thousands of people responded.

Many shared stories of raising siblings, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or other relatives under similarly complicated circumstances.

For Laine, those messages provided an unexpected form of validation.

She had spent years wanting a “normal” family life, only to discover that countless families were living versions of the same reality.

She no longer felt the need to search for some conventional definition of normal.

Their family was already normal.

Her message to others

The viral response also brought messages from people asking Laine for advice.

She is careful not to suggest that every situation will unfold the way hers did.

Custody laws, finances, family dynamics and personal circumstances can vary dramatically.

Her own story required years of legal work, significant sacrifices and enormous emotional strain.

Still, when someone tells her they are considering stepping in to protect younger siblings, she encourages them not to dismiss that instinct.

“Stay strong,” she tells them.

If they are already thinking seriously about creating safety for children living through chaos, she believes that thought itself means something.

For Laine, the decision she made as a teenager cost her college, competitive softball and much of the traditional young-adult experience.

But it also kept four siblings together.

Years after CPS first brought them to her door, the family that once lived with constant uncertainty now has something Laine fought for from the beginning:

a permanent home, a shared future and, finally, peace.