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agonyaunt2022-07-25 11:31 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-07-25 11:31 am
Dear Prudence: Two on Child Custody
First: My Girlfriend Put Her Little Sister in Foster Care When Their Parents Died.
Dear Prudence,
I have been dating “Rowan” for almost six months. I knew Rowan had lost her parents really young, but I just now found out she has a sister. Basically, their dad died in an accident when Rowan was 13 and her sister “Rue” was a baby. Then when Rowan was 20, their mom got cancer and died a year later. Rue was 8 and Rowan allowed her to be put in foster care. Rowan wasn’t in college or anything, she’d been working and supporting herself since 18. She says child services tried to place Rue with her, and she said no. She says Rue was a nice, normal kid and she didn’t hate her or anything. She just wanted to enjoy her twenties instead of raising a kid.
Rowan seems to think this was a totally normal and okay choice to make, and doesn’t get why I’m horrified. Currently Rowan and Rue are in touch but not close. Rue aged out of the foster system a year or so ago. She’s getting by on her own, although from the sound of things she’s possibly some kind of sex worker. Rowan doesn’t seem to want to discuss Rue. I can intuit, though, that Rue blames her for how hard her life was in the system and is now, but Rowan doesn’t accept that blame.
My biggest issue is I’m about 70 percent sure I’m going to want at least one kid in the next 10-ish years. Before I found out about Rue, Rowan had said she’d be down with that. But is there really any chance she’d be an okay mom? Do I need to worry about her abandoning our kid if something happened to me? How can I begin to talk to her about this? And should I even try? Or is someone who would do what she did, and still defend it years later, a terrible person I can maybe enjoy sexytimes with, but shouldn’t plan a long-term relationship?
— Aghast in Atlanta
Dear Aghast in Atlanta,
What Rowan did in her 20s isn’t necessarily an indicator of what she’d do in her 30s, should a kid enter the picture, but I don’t think the issue is about potential problems as much as it’s about current ones. You’ve got to ask yourself if this action is a deal breaker for you because it occurred, not because of what it connotes. Rowan has been through a lot and it’s hard, if not impossible, to put yourself in her mindset when she was 20. But the choice indicates a big difference in the ways that you two see the world. You owe it to yourself to ask if this difference is insurmountable. Now, you’ve only been dating six months and your potential kid is perhaps a decade away, so there’s a lot of ground to cover between then and now. But this incident is popping up as a red flag for you and you should work through it. This is tricky, because Rowan may feel that you’re using her personal tragedy against her. For this reason, it might be helpful to have this conversation with a couple’s therapist, who can help keep you both in the present, rather than the past or the future.
Second: I Think I’m About to Enter a Nasty Custody Battle … With My Mother.
Q. Older Sister: My mother “Stella” had me at 15. My grandparents raised me, and Stella was gone for most of my childhood. She got married when I was 15 and had my half-sister “Jane.” I went to school out of state and didn’t see much of Jane until her dad died when she was 10. Stella reacted poorly—she dumped Jane at my grandparents for four months without any contact. I moved back in to help with Jane. We got very close.
Stella showed up again and promised to seek grief counseling. What she actually did was join a support group and immediately remarry a widower with three younger kids. She adopted the younger two. Jane didn’t react well. She fought with everyone and even ran away once, and her grades tanked. And last month, I got a hysterical phone call from Jane…
Her stepfather hit her. I couldn’t reach Stella at all. So I drove five hours to get Jane. The right side of her face was completely swollen. I told Jane to pack a bag and come with me. Stella tried to stop me and “explain.” I told her Jane could come with me now or we could get the authorities involved. Jane has been staying with me ever since, and she wants to stay permanently. Her other grandparents live out of state and want Jane to live with them. Stella keeps making excuses about what happened and blaming Jane for acting out.
Our last conversation she told me I couldn’t possibly be ready to be a mother; I told her I couldn’t be a worse one than she was to me. I am not sure if I am ready for this. I live alone and work requires me to travel a lot. Jane needs security and supervision. We found a therapist, but summer is almost over. What should I do?
Your situation may not be an ideal one for Jane, but as you point out, it sounds like the best one available. For your part, you should make sure you have a strong enough support system to help you and to help Jane, if you two keep this arrangement going. For Jane’s part, you’ll want to reach out to the state to find out what your options are for obtaining custody. This would, of course, involve authorities, but you’re likely to find that that’s going to be your best option for accessing services, acting as Jane’s medical representative, getting her into school, etc. There are structures set up for situations like this—for instance, familial fostering—so see if you can take advantage of them.
Additionally, we had a question about guardianship come up last week and a few readers wrote in with information about guardianship assistance, which varies by state but which might also be able to help you and Jane. Here’s one website with information, with a big thank you to the reader who sent it in.
https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/adoption/adopt-assistance/?CWIGFunctionsaction=adoptionByState:main.getAnswersByQuestion&questionID=14
Dear Prudence,
I have been dating “Rowan” for almost six months. I knew Rowan had lost her parents really young, but I just now found out she has a sister. Basically, their dad died in an accident when Rowan was 13 and her sister “Rue” was a baby. Then when Rowan was 20, their mom got cancer and died a year later. Rue was 8 and Rowan allowed her to be put in foster care. Rowan wasn’t in college or anything, she’d been working and supporting herself since 18. She says child services tried to place Rue with her, and she said no. She says Rue was a nice, normal kid and she didn’t hate her or anything. She just wanted to enjoy her twenties instead of raising a kid.
Rowan seems to think this was a totally normal and okay choice to make, and doesn’t get why I’m horrified. Currently Rowan and Rue are in touch but not close. Rue aged out of the foster system a year or so ago. She’s getting by on her own, although from the sound of things she’s possibly some kind of sex worker. Rowan doesn’t seem to want to discuss Rue. I can intuit, though, that Rue blames her for how hard her life was in the system and is now, but Rowan doesn’t accept that blame.
My biggest issue is I’m about 70 percent sure I’m going to want at least one kid in the next 10-ish years. Before I found out about Rue, Rowan had said she’d be down with that. But is there really any chance she’d be an okay mom? Do I need to worry about her abandoning our kid if something happened to me? How can I begin to talk to her about this? And should I even try? Or is someone who would do what she did, and still defend it years later, a terrible person I can maybe enjoy sexytimes with, but shouldn’t plan a long-term relationship?
— Aghast in Atlanta
Dear Aghast in Atlanta,
What Rowan did in her 20s isn’t necessarily an indicator of what she’d do in her 30s, should a kid enter the picture, but I don’t think the issue is about potential problems as much as it’s about current ones. You’ve got to ask yourself if this action is a deal breaker for you because it occurred, not because of what it connotes. Rowan has been through a lot and it’s hard, if not impossible, to put yourself in her mindset when she was 20. But the choice indicates a big difference in the ways that you two see the world. You owe it to yourself to ask if this difference is insurmountable. Now, you’ve only been dating six months and your potential kid is perhaps a decade away, so there’s a lot of ground to cover between then and now. But this incident is popping up as a red flag for you and you should work through it. This is tricky, because Rowan may feel that you’re using her personal tragedy against her. For this reason, it might be helpful to have this conversation with a couple’s therapist, who can help keep you both in the present, rather than the past or the future.
Second: I Think I’m About to Enter a Nasty Custody Battle … With My Mother.
Q. Older Sister: My mother “Stella” had me at 15. My grandparents raised me, and Stella was gone for most of my childhood. She got married when I was 15 and had my half-sister “Jane.” I went to school out of state and didn’t see much of Jane until her dad died when she was 10. Stella reacted poorly—she dumped Jane at my grandparents for four months without any contact. I moved back in to help with Jane. We got very close.
Stella showed up again and promised to seek grief counseling. What she actually did was join a support group and immediately remarry a widower with three younger kids. She adopted the younger two. Jane didn’t react well. She fought with everyone and even ran away once, and her grades tanked. And last month, I got a hysterical phone call from Jane…
Her stepfather hit her. I couldn’t reach Stella at all. So I drove five hours to get Jane. The right side of her face was completely swollen. I told Jane to pack a bag and come with me. Stella tried to stop me and “explain.” I told her Jane could come with me now or we could get the authorities involved. Jane has been staying with me ever since, and she wants to stay permanently. Her other grandparents live out of state and want Jane to live with them. Stella keeps making excuses about what happened and blaming Jane for acting out.
Our last conversation she told me I couldn’t possibly be ready to be a mother; I told her I couldn’t be a worse one than she was to me. I am not sure if I am ready for this. I live alone and work requires me to travel a lot. Jane needs security and supervision. We found a therapist, but summer is almost over. What should I do?
Your situation may not be an ideal one for Jane, but as you point out, it sounds like the best one available. For your part, you should make sure you have a strong enough support system to help you and to help Jane, if you two keep this arrangement going. For Jane’s part, you’ll want to reach out to the state to find out what your options are for obtaining custody. This would, of course, involve authorities, but you’re likely to find that that’s going to be your best option for accessing services, acting as Jane’s medical representative, getting her into school, etc. There are structures set up for situations like this—for instance, familial fostering—so see if you can take advantage of them.
Additionally, we had a question about guardianship come up last week and a few readers wrote in with information about guardianship assistance, which varies by state but which might also be able to help you and Jane. Here’s one website with information, with a big thank you to the reader who sent it in.
https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/adoption/adopt-assistance/?CWIGFunctionsaction=adoptionByState:main.getAnswersByQuestion&questionID=14
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You obviously disagree with those ideas. I disagree with the idea that Rowan should not at the very least have been a regular, reliable, dependable presence in her sister's life, and that it says nothing about her as a person that she never, at any point over the course of ten years, chose to give Rue a home. This wasn't a decision she made once when she was 20. It was a decision she made every single day over the course of a decade. She made it when she was 20 and 25 and 28. She made it when Rue was a young child that maybe Rowan wasn't ready to care for and would have been an unsuitable caregiver for, but she also made it when Rue was 12 and perfectly capable of making her own school lunches and staying home alone on a Friday night so Rowan could go out with friends. Please don't mistake me: I am really not trivializing what it takes to care for another person at any age. But unless Rowan, or the LW, is withholding information, Rowan didn't make that choice at 25 because the then-13-year-old Rue had some kind of special needs that she felt inadequate to support her through. She made it because she just didn't want to. You don't have a problem with that. I do. It's not the kind of person I would have wanted to be, and I don't think it's the kind of person I could spend the rest of my life with.
And hey, I'll even own some hypocrisy, here: I have people in my life, people I care about very much, who don't share the values and ethics you and I apparently do, that we have any obligation at all to the children in our society. And maybe if I had actually been called on to raise my siblings, it would have been more than I could have done. God knows they drove me up a goddamn wall when I was in charge of them. But I like to think I wouldn't have left them in a situation I knew was less than I could have given. It's not about "obligation." It's about the kind of person I want to be.
And again: you disagree. That is fine and fair, and I would certainly rather my child grow up in a society run by people like you than by those who think it would be cool to leave her homeless or hungry or uneducated if her father and I couldn't provide a home and food and education. But the idea that if something happened to us (and between having lost a parent at a young age and being in piss-poor health, I am keenly aware of that possibility), the other adults in her life wouldn't be willing to make some sacrifices to make sure she had a good, safe home until she was able to provide that for herself gives me cold sweats. I know that's never going to happen, but I know it because, in addition to people who would want to take her in, there are people in her life who would even if they don't particularly want to be parents, and would provide her with a good home, because that's the kind of people that they are.
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