At 22, Tiffany Johnson is a vocational coordinator and teacher at the Independent Living Skills Program of San Francisco, an organizer with the foster youth advocacy group California Youth Connections, and a student at California State University at Hayward. From age 10 to age 15 she lived together with her three younger sisters in a group home.

We always had each other's backs -- they called us "the sisters." People who didn't have their sisters or brothers with them always had more problems than we did. They really didn't have anybody they could talk to about what was going on.

Before we went to the group home, my sisters and I didn't get along. We set each other up. I would say, like, "She peed in the bed," and get her in trouble. All we used to tell each other was, "I hate you, I hate you."

Then we moved to the group home and we were the best of friends. It really made us bond and appreciate each other and ever since we barely ever argue. Being able to have them with me was the most important thing to me at that time, because I hated the world, hated my mom, my family.

When my youngest sister was seven, they started talking about adoption for her. We said "no." It made no sense.

If she had been adopted, that would have screwed up my family, because now we are a family -- although it took eight years. We have holidays together, and we're always visiting each other. Had she been adopted out, it would have been a missing link.

One day, one of the girls I work with in my job said, "It's really strange, they moved my younger brother and I got this paper saying I can't see him, and he's not my brother anymore." He had been adopted, but that was not clear to her. She was someone who had messed up sometimes but she was really striving -- she wanted to succeed in school because she wanted to be a positive role model for her brother. She just felt like that was her job in being his sister. Getting that paper totally turned her world around.

I'd be OK with adoption if you still had some contact with your family. I totally love my mom -- regardless of what's she's doing, I want to have some ties with her.

Sometimes one of us would feel, "mom disappointed me again," and say "I'm getting Mommy nothing for Christmas." Then another sister would say, "Yeah, but we should." There were times when we said, "Forget it, we're not giving her any more chances to hurt us." It was important then to have other people say, "She's our mom."

When I think about adoption I think about my sisters more than parents for some reason. They're in my same age range, we look at things the same way, they were my support.

I guess it comes down to morals, to what you feel is important, and for me blood is very important. I always felt like somehow I deserved some kind of tie to my sisters. I think you learn a lot about yourself through your family. I think of my sisters, I think of me.

Plus, my sisters are so thoughtful and they really know me. Like my one sister would always bring me a Reese's peanut butter cup, just because. You could buy me the same thing, but it just wouldn't feel the same.

This Christmas, they bought me a microwave. I didn't want a microwave. But they had looked around and said, "You know, she's heating up the whole oven for one Pop Tart," and that got them really upset. They thought, "This is what Tiffany needs." They don't need to ask. They just know.