Please HELP, I'm so angry! and sad...

[PHillwife]

I am a mother of 2 beautiful girls. I have a 10 year old”firebug”. My husband brought in his 5 year old”sweetpea”. We live in Missouri.

Neither of our children have responsible “other” biological parents.

Sweetpea’s mom will not even speak to my husband. However we do occationally talk, and I have tried very hard to be polite. When we got custody of sweetpea, her mother”Poppy” lost all her State aide.( foodstamps, Medicaid, etc…) she has actually been kicked out of section 8 housing twice.

So she was living with a woman when we went to court and gained custody. Apperantly that day, after court she told her she wanted to get pregnant. Poppy started bringing home a different man every night, within weeks she had what she wanted. She went to the state aid office and was told due to her default on section 8 and other things she could not receive state aid….Sooooo she moved to Texas where she had a set of Grandparents, who immediately got her hooked up with a church and wham, back on state aide. She has her baby and he is now 3 months old.

 

Now mind you she owes us child support. A mere $200 a month. But it took a year for her to pay, so now 50% of her paychecks are garnished.She is working part time at a grocery store and barely making over $100 a week.

 

I do feel bad for her, but she made these decisions…

 

She sent me an e-mail today “I know this is a bad time for this but I have been thinking about this. What would it take on both of our parts for me to sign over my rights to being Sweetpea’s mom? You are the best mom she has and i am grateful. I want what is best for her and I think and know this would be it.”

 

I can’t imagine just giving up my kids! Now to prevent making this post 10 miles long I will just say we know for a fact this is merely to get out of the child support, and frankly she hardly calls, so she isn’t really being a parent anyway.

 

My initial instinct is to answer with” When you find good parents for “nate”(that’s the new baby) then we will discuss the other. It’s not fair that he should have to suffer as Sweetpea has. She has physical, mental, learning and social problems due to 4 years of neglect and abuse from her. It took my husband a lot of legal battles to save her and gain custody. (Missouri almost always favors mothers) While on one hand it would be a blessing to us to be rid of Poppy, I can’t help but feel like we would be abandoning this little boy. He deserves to be rescued too….

 

What do I do? This is one of those moments I am so torn

[_Jaffa_]

You could always accept her offer and then let social services know you are concerned about her ability to be a good parent to the little boy.

 

Thats about all you can do really.

[Hope75]

Your husband has a biological right to "sweatpea", and so if she is willing to give up custody, and has not been an active parent in this girls' life right along, I would print her email and take it to a family lawyer to see what can be done. My friend's son's father signed over his rights when their son was just a baby (for the same reasons) and it was a fairly simple procedure where they went to court and the judge made certain that was what they both wanted, and had them sign over the papers.

 

As for Nate, I have been following your threads in the past about this little boy, and I can completely understand your frustration and desire to help him as well, but you and hubby have no legal rights to him, and that has to be left up to the state to decide if she is an unfit mother and if it is within Nate's best interests to be in her care. If the state decided to remove Nate, you could certainly apply to be a foster parent to him, but unless they deem that necessary, there is little else that you can do. I think you mentioned calling Social Services to investigate this situation before.

 

Whether she sees this baby as a meal ticket or she really loves him and wants a second chance at being a good parent, that will have to be for them to decide. But you can certainly see what it takes to be a foster parent when you go to see the family lawyer about her daughter- and decide if you want to file the paperwork at that time. Having a biological sibling to the baby boy may put you at the top of the list for potential foster parents.

 

Good luck.

[arwen]

Let me get this straight. She got pregnant by some random man on purpose but she wants to give up her rights as a mother of sweetpea? Are you kidding? In which weird universe does she live?

 

I can see why you are so upset, I am even upset when reading this, as a complete outsider. Have you told your husband already? How does he feel? I think she is a very irresponsible person. Somehow she thought having a new baby would solve her issues, but she can't even pay the support she owes her other child... this is unbelievable.

 

I'd be torn to. On the one hand, a person who is willing to give up parental rights while pregnant with another baby, is clearly not being the mother she should be to her other child. So that would mean, agree with her and get it over with. On the other hand, you feel she should be responsible. I can't really place myself in your shoes, so I am just replying from what my heart says when reading this. I think I'd sign the forms to be sweetpea's mom. It is not because you will be able to get rid of this careless person this way, but because in fact you are the one who is a better role model (as a mom) for sweetpea. The poor thing.

 

As for her new child... I can understand that now that she is still also legally sweetpea's mother, you can at least keep track of how her other baby is doing. It's your maternal instinct that is calling you to help, but it's not your responsibility. What if she has yet another baby after this? You can't clean up after the mess she chooses to make out of her life.

 

I have been in a situation where I was a daily witness of a neglectig parent. One of my exes rented a room in the house of a man (65 y o ) who had a 4 yo girl with a 18 yo Romanian girl. They were married but the young gypsy girl wanted to be free. The child was often alone, was still wetting her bed out of sheer stress, it was heart-breaking to see. Me and the ex contacted legal services for child protection and sadly enough, never heard anything back. But you could still consider contacting them, but it's hard to NOT blame someone for things you don't know are the case now. You know how she treated sweetpea, but you are not a witness of what is happening to Nate now. I don't know what to advise you here. I wonder how your husband feels about this, after all he's sweetpeas father.

 

Ilse

[Beec]

If you love this girl, Sweetpea, that you are raising, then the first thing you need to ask is what is right for her? I think the answer to that may be to get her out of a situation that someone else may be able to exert some control over her, that's not good for sweetpea.

 

If someday Poppy wants a role as a non-custodial Mom, I'd still let her have it, because it might be good for sweetpea to know her Mom did not entirely reject her, but that's for another day or year. I've never seen anything as damaging as a mother rejecting her kids, and only a father rejecting his kids comes close.

 

As far as nate, I don't see much you can do. You and your husband have no rights to interfere with his upbringing.

[PHillwife]

I know. My husband fully supports me in all this. He left a message for his lawyer this morning to get her advise.

 

I guess I am one of those little girls that always loved children. I volunteered in High School at the local Children's hospital inthe nursery. I spent hours rocking and cleaning and feeding abandoned babies from crack moms and the like.

 

I would of taken them all home if I could.

 

Have you ever heard the song Allysa lies? link removed

I'm afraid if I don't do allI can.... noone else will. If Ifeel bad now... can I bear the pain of finding out something worse happened to him?