Clark Gorny Posted May 19, 2014 Posted May 19, 2014 I have been the primary Caregiver of two children now 2 and 3 years old for about 9 months, since I arranged an intervention for their mother(my sister) and she went to Rehab(for prescription pill addiction). I have been living at my mother's who has temporary custody of the children. Basically I have given up my entire life just to give these children some sort of hope. Mon-Friday I watch them from around 7am-5pm while my mother is at work. My mother is also an alcoholic however in my family that is the acceptable, so no way for me to arrange an intervention for her. My sister has been kicked out of one treatment center already although she has been clean for maybe 4 or 5 months now but even off the drugs she is a horrible mother just like my mother. Lots of information being left out to get to the question. My sister and mother have just been telling the children that she "has to work" however she is actually in a drug treatment center in California(we live in Maryland) the only contact they have is over the phone and recently sometimes skype. I am honest when the 3 year old asks me questions but I am not sure how to explain to a 3 year old that her mom is in Rehab and that we have no idea when if ever she will be coming back. Just telling her that she is at work is not acceptable. I am thinking of saying something like she is in California she made allot of bad decisions and is not able to take care of you etc... but the reality is my sister could be making allot more effort to be closer to her kids but she just likes being in California I want to be completely honest even if that means explaining that her mom basically doesn't care about her. What am I supposed to do I really don't know how to handle this especially considering that my mom and sister are not going to agree with me talking about being honest. When I says they won't agree with me that means they will possibly yell and scream at me accuse me of being selfish along with who knows what sort of evil shit. You never really know how my mom is going to react she is always ready to unleash the beast and will never take responsibility for her actions. I am good at deflecting their attacks so I know I will be able to take whatever they try to do to me. I just want to know what is the best way to talk to the 3 year old about this regardless of what the evil people in her life will think about it. I would like to be able to come up with something we can all agree on so that the children aren't getting conflicting stories . I can't outright say your mom and grandmother are evil people who only care about how they look on Facebook that would get me kicked out of their lives. I would appreciate any sort of feedback or advice on how to approach this. Please feel free to ask any question you may have, Clark P.S, -Just for the record my plan is to try to convince my sister to give me custody but everyone in my family is either an alcoholic or on antidepressants so I have no help or support from them whatsoever. I am completely broke because of this and its going to be awhile before I can afford to take care of them on my own. I decided it was best to plant myself in their lives for their most critical developmental years, eventually I will have to move out and be less of a figure in their life in order to build a proper environment for them to come live in.
Magenta Posted May 20, 2014 Posted May 20, 2014 Wow, what a horrible situation to be in. I don't have any advice, just wow.
Tyler Durden Posted May 20, 2014 Posted May 20, 2014 She has custody, you want custody, so she has the power until she gives you what you want. Don't piss her off. If the story doesn't hold because the 3-year-old is asking too many questions that you can't answer then you should call your sister and tell her that. Tell her that the coverstory is about to fall apart and that you will have to start telling a different story soon. Then decide together what the new story will be. Don't tell the child anything before you've cleared it with your sister, you want to keep her on your side. If the 3-year-old is perfectly fine with the story and you only find it unacceptable because you're pissed at your sister for getting away with being such a shitty mom, then realize that you're not acting in the children's best interest if you change the story. They don't gain anything by it, but you create a potential conflict between you and their mother which reduces the chance that she will give you custody.
Clark Gorny Posted May 20, 2014 Author Posted May 20, 2014 She has custody, you want custody, so she has the power until she gives you what you want. Don't piss her off. If the story doesn't hold because the 3-year-old is asking too many questions that you can't answer then you should call your sister and tell her that. Tell her that the coverstory is about to fall apart and that you will have to start telling a different story soon. Then decide together what the new story will be. Don't tell the child anything before you've cleared it with your sister, you want to keep her on your side. If the 3-year-old is perfectly fine with the story and you only find it unacceptable because you're pissed at your sister for getting away with being such a shitty mom, then realize that you're not acting in the children's best interest if you change the story. They don't gain anything by it, but you create a potential conflict between you and their mother which reduces the chance that she will give you custody. Do you have any suggestions for what I could put on the table as a recommendation for explaining the situation? I apologize if my post was not clear, I am looking for some help coming up with something I could present to the rest of the "family"as an alternative to just saying "she's at work" I can use all the help I can get, thanks -Clark
Tyler Durden Posted May 21, 2014 Posted May 21, 2014 Do you have any suggestions for what I could put on the table as a recommendation for explaining the situation? I apologize if my post was not clear, I am looking for some help coming up with something I could present to the rest of the "family"as an alternative to just saying "she's at work" I can use all the help I can get, thanks -Clark Your post was clear. I just wanted to highlight that your sister has a lot of power and that it's important to focus on your motivation for wanting to change the story. If the current story works for the 3-year-old then I wouldn't change it.If she's poking holes in the story though, I would suggest you propose to the others to replace it with this story:Do you know how candy tastes really good but if you eat too much of it you get sick? Well, there's also something like that for grown ups, grown-up candy. But it's too strong so actually nobody should eat it. Your mother ate some of the grown-up candy and then she got sick. So that's why she had to go somewhere else, to a place where they make her better and teach her how to be healthy. And that's why she can't be here.
Clark Gorny Posted May 21, 2014 Author Posted May 21, 2014 Your post was clear. I just wanted to highlight that your sister has a lot of power and that it's important to focus on your motivation for wanting to change the story. If the current story works for the 3-year-old then I wouldn't change it.If she's poking holes in the story though, I would suggest you propose to the others to replace it with this story:Do you know how candy tastes really good but if you eat too much of it you get sick? Well, there's also something like that for grown ups, grown-up candy. But it's too strong so actually nobody should eat it. Your mother ate some of the grown-up candy and then she got sick. So that's why she had to go somewhere else, to a place where they make her better and teach her how to be healthy. And that's why she can't be here. I appreciate your feedback but you don't have enough information to make such assumptions like "my sister has allot of power" its actually my mother who has all the power over my sister. My sister has basically just been going along with whatever my mother says. My motivations are crystal clear on this. I want them to know the difference between someone going to work and someone disappearing for unknown periods of time and to understand the difference between a day a week a month and so on. Telling the kids that mom is at work and she will come home one day, they have no way of understanding what that means. Allot of people in their life actually go to work and I don't want them to worry if they are going to just disappear one day. I don't need to tell a long story at this point, I need a simple way for them to understand the difference between someone going to work(and coming back soon) and going to work(and disappearing from their life completely). It doesn't have to explain anything about her being a drug addict just yet, I definitely am not going to suggest anything that makes my sister sound like an innocent victim although I am sure my "family" would love that. Although I don't think your exact suggestion would be helpful the conversation definitely has been, it really is coming down to me just need a word to replace work. I think I will just start telling them that she is at a Treatment Center and let it grow from there. Still appreciate anymore feedback you or anyone else has. Thanks, -Clark
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