History Main / DontSplitUsUp

* The main character of ''LightNovel/ListenToMeGirlsIAmYourFather'' adopts the three sisters because he doesn't want to see them split up.

* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' where the junior novelization says that the three girls "aren't technically sisters but they spend all their time together."

* ''Film/NannyMcPhee'' had Christianna nearly taken by their mother's aunt, Lady Adelaide Stitch, so as to better provide for her. The threat of this happening to ''all'' the children is what drives Mr Brown to try to marry any woman, even if she's horrible. The only way he can provide for his large family is an allowance sent by Aunt Adelaide, and she sets the condition that she'll only continue to provide if he marries by the end of the month. Mr Brown is well aware of what will happen if the family is split up: the younger children will go to orphanages or foster homes, while the older ones will be sent to work in factories, with who-knows-what happening to baby Agatha.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': After Myne reforms the temple's orphanage, plans are made to export its model to other towns. In the first town that gets an expansion of the temple orphanage, local orphans are offered the choice between moving to the new orphanage or staying in the current set-up for them. The four who accept to move from the get-go are two pairs of siblings in which one half was about to be sold off by their caretaker.

* Joan Lowery Nixon's ''Orphan Train'' books are about six siblings sent to Missouri by their mother and divided between four families. They all eventually end up in happy families, with only one child going to live with their mother when she moves out west and remarries.

One can expect the KnightTemplarBigBrother to go to extremes to prevent this. Compare IWillFindYou. This trope is also commonly associated with PromotionToParent. Not to be confused with NeverSplitTheParty.

* In the ''Series/GhostWhisperer'' episode “Home But Not Alone”, Ned’s new love interest and her siblings [[spoiler: have been hiding their mother’s death at her pre-and-posthumous wishes from the public]] so they won’t be put in foster care and separated.

** Also played for laughs in “A Test Before Trying”, where Sherri and Terri are told they’ll be sent to separate schools. They bemoan how they’ve never been separated and immediately begin to wither as they step away from each other.

A group of siblings is threatened with separation by adoption, [[SolomonDivorce divorce]], death, accident, [[OneTwinMustDie popular beliefs]], or what not. Depending on the show, one can sometimes expect them to go to [[KnightTemplarBigBrother extreme lengths]] to prevent this.

Compare IWillFindYou. This trope is also commonly associated with PromotionToParent. Not to be confused with NeverSplitTheParty.

* In the backstory of ''Manga/ChronoCrusade'', [[TheHero Rosette]] constantly dragged her brother, [[IllGirl Joshua]], out to play in the forest near the orphanage where they lived because she was afraid that Father Remington would split them up by taking Joshua to the Magdalene Order and leave her behind. Joshua himself wasn't quite as bothered by the idea of having to split up with Rosette, because he wanted to learn how to control his healing powers. Additionally, his powers didn't heal himself--he was often sickly and was afraid of Rosette having to put her life on hold to take care of him.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Life}}'' has a pair of siblings living in a mall where a murder was committed because they're afraid that if they go into the foster system they'll be split up. [[spoiler: Dani finds their aunt who adopts them.]]

* ''Film/NannyMcPhee'' had Christianna nearly taken by their mother's aunt, Lady Adelaide Stitch, so as to better provide for her. The threat of this happening to ''all'' the children is what drives Mr Brown to try to marry any woman, even if she's horrible. The only way he can provide for his large family is an allowance sent by Aunt Adelaide, and she sets the condition that she'll only continue to provide if he marries by the end of the month. Mr Brown is well aware of what will happen if the family is split up: [[AdultFear the younger children will go to orphanages or foster homes, while the older ones will be sent to work in factories, with who-knows-what happening to baby Agatha]].

-->-- '''Donald and Douglas''', ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'', ''[[Recap/TheRailwaySeriesB15TheTwinEngines The Twin Engines]]'', Brake Van.

* In ''Homecoming'', the first book of the ''Literature/TheTillermanFamilySeries'' by Cynthia Voigt, four kids are abandoned by their mentally ill mother in a parking lot. The oldest girl leads them on foot to a cousin's house in the next state, where they're threatened with the prospect of one of them being put into foster care and another into institutional special ed. They go on for several more states to find their grandmother, who takes them all in.

* This comes up in the backstory of two "half-blood" siblings in ''Literature/TheSharingKnife: Horizon''. The camp of their estranged [[WitchSpecies Lakewalker]] father was willing to take the two motherless adolescents in ''if'' they demonstrated usable levels of Groundsense. Indigo could not, so his elder sister Calla [[WillfullyWeak did]] not.

** Additionally, sometimes children's other needs can be best met by adopters if they are split up. For example, if an older child has been used to stepping into the role of parent for their younger siblings sometimes the only way to ensure they have a childhood is for them to be adopted separately.

* ''Film/GraciesChoice'' features a young Creator/KristinBell as a teenager trying to raise her four younger half-siblings after their mother is sent to jail. When the authorities finally catch on, there is a heart-wrenching scene where the boys and girls are split up and sent to different homes. Fortunately, Gracie later gets custody and keeps the family together.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': [[spoiler: The reason why Marcy purposefully stranded herself and her friends in Amphibia. On Anne's birthday, Marcy learned her family were going to move away because her father had gotten a new job out of state. Out of desperation, she pointed them in the direction of the Calamity Box as a birthday present and joined Sasha in encouraging Anne to steal it. Marcy wasn't sure it would even work, but it did, taking them to a place she believed they would never be separated. She tries to excuse her actions by pointing out the good times they had in Amphibia, despite the fact that she essentially tore her two best friends from their lives, but neither Anne nor Sasha buy it. When she's stabbed by Andrias, Marcy uses the last of her strength to apologize for everything.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': [spoiler: The reason why Marcy purposefully stranded herself and her friends in Amphibia. On Anne's birthday, Marcy learned her family were going to move away because her father had gotten a new job out of state. Out of desperation, she pointed them in the direction of the Calamity Box as a birthday present and joined Sasha in encouraging Anne to steal it. Marcy wasn't sure it would even work, but it did, taking them to a place she believed they would never be separated. She tries to excuse her actions by pointing out the good times they had in Amphibia, despite the fact that she essentially tore her two best friends from their lives, but neither Anne nor Sasha buy it. When she's stabbed by Andrias, Marcy uses the last of her strength to apologize for everything.]]

--> Later quote Arthur: "We've got to avoid getting sent to an orphanage at all costs. Especially one that's set in the 1800s."

::
Later quoth Arthur: "We've got to avoid getting sent to an orphanage at all costs. Especially one that's set in the 1800s."

*** Most families really didn't want to give their kids up, though some were eager for their children to have the opportunity to run the empire. But either way, the tax was designed not to tap anyone or anywhere flat, so siblings would not tend to be together.

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* One late '80s ComicBook/{{Batman}} story featured this as part of a VignetteEpisode, with Batman finding two orphan children living out on the streets because they refused to let social services split them up into sex-segregated foster homes.

* In the silent film ''Film/{{Sparrows}}'', a baby from a rich household is kidnapped for ransom and stashed in an OrphanageOfFear. When the baby is found, his rich father invites the oldest kid from the orphanage, teenaged Molly (Creator/MaryPickford) to work for him as the boy's nanny. She insists that all ten of the kids from the orphanage live with them, and the father agrees.
* ''Film/OnOurOwn'' is about four children, Mitch, Kate, Travis, and Lori. After being abandoned by their father and with the death of their mother they are forced to move into a children's home. Feared they will have to be separated, they escape and run away.
* In both ''Film/TheParentTrap1961'' and ''Film/TheParentTrap1998'' the girls don't want to be separated once they've found each other. This is a variation since the girls had already been split up before the movie began, and now they're trying to make sure they don't get separated again.
%%* ''Film/SavingSarahCain''

* This drives much of the plot of ''Film/OurMothersHouse'', the mother herself has died and her seven children are determined to keep up the fiction otherwise, knowing they will be split up once Children's Services find out the truth. Their ruse works, at least for a time, [[spoiler: until their worthless father returns]].
* The cenobite from ''Film/HellraiserBloodline'' which turned out to be supernaturally conjoined identical twins; how much of it was their choice is arguable.
%%* This is used very effectively in ''Film/HotelForDogs''.
* ''Film/NannyMcPhee'' had Christianna nearly taken by their mother's aunt, Lady Adelaide Stitch, so as to better provide for her. The threat of this happening to ''all'' the children is what drives Mr Brown to try to marry any woman, even if she's horrible. The only way he can provide for his large family is an allowance sent by Aunt Adelaide, and she sets the condition that she'll only continue to provide if he marries by the end of the month. Mr Brown is well aware of what will happen if the family is split up: [[AdultFear the younger children will go to orphanages or foster homes, while the older ones will be sent to work in factories, with who-knows-what happening to baby Agatha]].
* ''Film/Conviction2010'' (based on a true story) had one of these events between the main characters during a flashback.

-->Nothing but death can keep me from it!--Nettie, promising to write
* In ''Film/{{Armored}}'', this is the primary motivation for Ty to join his colleagues in robbing their own armored transport company. After [[ParentalAbandonment his parents died]] he was [[PromotionToParent left alone to raise his younger brother]], but is struggling to make ends meet. He's in danger of losing their childhood home due to unpaid bills, and a social worker pays a visit to inform him that his brother will be placed in foster care if he can't provide for him, leading to this response.

* There was also a television series called ''Series/OnOurOwn'', in which the eldest brother, not yet of legal age, had to crossdress and pose as an older relative so that he and his siblings wouldn't be separated.
* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', one subplot was how Buffy was trying to make sure that Dawn didn't get taken away from her. Also, technically they weren't family, but Willow and Tara kept a robot-Buffy to hide the fact that Buffy had died in order to keep Dawn with them.
* In ''Birds of a Feather'' Sharon and Tracey find out that they were both adopted, their parents were only going to adopt one child but decided it would be wrong to split up the sisters.
* When the Fantasia split up in ''Series/MaddigansQuest'' episode "Plague", Timon and Eden insist on staying behind with their infected baby sister, even when Garland reminds them that by doing so, they're threatening the entirety of their home town.
* The real-world versions of Hansel and Gretel in ''Series/OnceUponATime'' are fighting to stay together after their mother's death. Emma has to find their father and convince him to take them before Regina makes her take the kids to Boston to be put in foster care.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Life}}'' has a pair of siblings living in a mall where a murder was committed because they're afraid that if they go into the foster system they'll be split up. [[spoiler: Dani finds their aunt who adopts them.]]
* When River was shipped off to the Academy in the backstory of ''Series/{{Firefly}}'', Simon Tam went to extreme lengths to save her after decoding her letters and discovering that she was being put through hell in there, leaving the life of a trauma surgeon in the Core behind and becoming an outlaw.
* An early ''Series/{{Bones}}'' episode involves two brothers in the foster system who worry about getting split up.

* The Newson family that come with ''VideoGame/TheSims2 Apartment Life'' are a group of six minors (two teenagers, two children, and two toddlers) who, with the exception of the toddlers, are not genetic relatives but were all adopted into the same family. When their adoptive parents died they chose to stick together rather than be separated and re-adopted. The family is particularly notable as it's the only pre-made household in the [[VideoGame/TheSims entire game series]] to feature no Sims older than teenagers. The games usually require at least one Young Adult or older sim be part of any player-made families making the Newsons even more notable.

* One time WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}} and DW's parents were arguing and Arthur imagined what would happen if they split up and neither parent wanted to take them - they'd have to live in an orphanage.

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has a few examples over the years:

* The Blackthorn siblings in ''Literature/TheDarkArtifices.'' With their parents dead, their uncle Arthur insane from dealing with faeries, their eldest sister Helen in exile and their eldest brother Mark forced to join the Wild Hunt, Julian, the eldest of the remaining siblings, [[PromotedToParent promotes himself to parent]] out of a fear that the Clave will split them all up and send them to different Institutes if they knew. Fortunately he has help in the form of his childhood friend Emma and their tutor Diana. Nonetheless, his attempts to keep his family together drive most of his more ruthless actions.

* In ''Fanfic/PercyTakeTheWheel,'' this is the main reason why Percy has been [[PromotionToParent promoted to parent]] --Bill and Charlie need to financially help the family with their jobs overseas, and no relative is willing to take in all five of the younger siblings. {{Downplayed|Trope}} compared to some examples, as it's acknowledged that they'd all still be in one family and able to visit each other, but everyone's so traumatized by the loss of their parents that Percy still thinks being split up is a bad idea.

* In ''Fanfic/PercyTakesTheWheel,'' this is the main reason why Percy has been [[PromotionToParent promoted to parent]] --Bill and Charlie need to financially help the family with their jobs overseas, and no relative is willing to take in all five of the younger siblings. {{Downplayed|Trope}} compared to some examples, as it's acknowledged that they'd all still be in one family and able to visit each other, but everyone's so traumatized by the loss of their parents that Percy still thinks being split up is a bad idea.