My mother hit my little brothers on Easter.

[William Wyatt]

So my mother is pretty abusive and mentally unstable. I moved out of home a few years ago and started a career as an entrepreneurial musician. I am 21, make a decent living from busking, but I also try to find shitkicker worker jobs when I need to get big money. I still struggle with poor decision making and I am still far from healing. 

She had me when she was 15 in a one night stand. She is now 35 and has 2 young kids with her fiance. They are both abusive, dysfunctional, mentally unstable parents. My poor half brothers are suffering so much damage even this far in. She screams, yells, hits. She is selfish, somewhat has the mentality of a stereotypical teenage girl, but is much more abrasive, hardy and anger fueled. Sort of like the singer PINK, who is also quite an abusive mother... Told by doctors she has ADD and possibly Bi Polar disorder, not sure what i believe about those terms and definitions, she definitely feeds her trauma into her kids. 

Luckily Robert of 6 is very practical, extroverted, curious and tries to connect emotionally, I can see his trauma and weaknesses, but I am glad he has such a warm presence. He would fit in much better, but he may not gravitate towards philosophy if not for external guidance. 

However Sebastian, at 4 is more obviously damaged. she got even worse dealing with 2 kids. sebastian is still very poor at speaking and such. he has extreme emotional outbursts, mostly as a result of his parents abusive nature. He is really rebellious towards being controlled, He used to hit his head on the floor purposefully. They believe him to also have ADHD or even some form of Spectrum disorder... 

In brisbane, australia it is still legal to spank your kids. So I don't know how I can find these kids a better family. I've tried to tell her more and more about the damage of it, and she half apologizes to me for fucking up, blames it on her trauma. She doesn't take responsibility for her actions and doesn't have much self control. 

I thought I was getting through to her with my peaceful parenting stuff. she seems to be trying harder. she got parenting classes and the educational system is a lot better. despite the principle yelling at robert for spreading his feces on the bathroom stall She likely still hits them more than once a week and yells at them every day. I am not around enough to truly tell. But sebastian always tries to fight robert, if robert doesn't give him the toy they will fight. robert doesn't offend much, but he has selfish retaliations. This is what i think hapenned on easter. My mother then went up, yelled and then hit them both.... I didn't say anything, I just comforted robert...  

She wants me to come see my brothers all the time. But it's hard for me to try and change them. So I do feel like I have neglected them, not  giving them the attention that they need. I know I could help robert, but I just need to deal with being around them more often. 

I could try and urge robert to find another family. but the foster system has a bad reputationf or being horrible. I don't know if Me and him would have much choice of family. He still has a lot of attatchment to my mother. 

I don't know if I could raise them, they are already so far gone. I am still dysfunctional. 
Suggestions, help and any guidance would be appreciated. Should I play my mother

I don't know much else I can do? Should I just try and guide them slowly from the outside? Be loving to my brothers as much as I can? Report them if the law changes? 

[Luirru]

I cannot tell you what you should do, but I can tell you what I did when I was in a somewhat similar situation. I explored every legal avenue I could to see if and how I could take custody of the kid in question, which for me was very little as I was not a blood relative. Even though I ended up being unable to help the person in question, he told me he greatly appreciated the effort and has turned into a pretty good person. He ended up running away from home when he was 16 and stayed at my place until he graduated college, we spent those 5 years trying to work through his abuse and the inherent problems he faced. He is now a stand-up person who lived through a type of hell, so I know if he becomes a parent in the future he will look back on his earlier life (like I did) and do everything opposite he possibly can.

 

I hope this helps. It is never too late to help people overcome their abuse, every little bit makes the world a better place. I think you, everyone in fact, has a moral responsibility to help make the world a better place through peaceful parenting. That is justr my side though, take it as you wish

[kavih]

I'm sorry to hear about this, William. I would start with the root cause, your mother. You said she has apologized before, but then reverts back into her terrible parenting. Maybe grill her hard about it. Make her know she did wrong with you and is doing wrong with your brothers. If she doesn't want to have anything to do with you after confronting her, then I'm not sure what you can do since spanking is legal. On the other hand, the half apology is at least a sign she CAN admit to it being a problem, whether or not she wants to fix it. So, the other option I could see is to be in your brothers' lives more, showing them a real father figure and male role model. This will give your brothers hope and proof that good role models do exist. It sounds like a very tough situation. Again, I'm really sorry to hear about it.