Not sure which forum to ask this....

[ksm]

my 15yo DGD (adopted 10 years ago) has informed me that her bio mom is moving back to our community. Birthmom moved away 5 years ago. DGDs is 15, will be 16 this summer. She thinks she can just move in with her! This will be a disaster...if she actually moves back. She has been full of promises for a long time.

Don't they have to be 18? She signed away her parental rights...and we adopted... DGD is determined to break the rules of our home and grades have taken a dive.

Biomom is a mess... KSM

 

[New Leaf]

Uh oh KSM, more to worry about, UGH. As if you needed more on your already over full plate........
Minors can emancipate from legal guardians or parents. I am not sharing this to scare you, just so you have the information. Sigh. You are doing the best job you can do KSM. If your daughter is going to insist on this, what can you do? For now, day to day. No one knows what the future may hold.

Here is an article I found on emancipation....
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/emancipation-of-minors-32237.html

Prayers for you and yours, it is hard when teens go off on a road of their own and refuse to follow rules.......

Then again, if she does move back with her bio-Mom, it may be an eye opening experience.

As you have written, bio-Mom is full of broken promises.

Maybe this whole notion of moving back will not even unfold?

I think it is good though, to understand the options that are out there, and fortify yourself with knowledge.

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[InsaneCdn]

Ksm, this is just so... wrong. And yet, I'm not sure what you can do.
As much as possible, find out your rights, your granddaughter's rights, and what kinds of mechanisms might be available to you before or after the fact.

 

[ksm]

I told her that if she gets court approval, then she can do what she wants. It gets her to drop the argument and puts it back on her plate. I told her I will not be held legally and financially responsible for her or her actions if she isnt living here.

I don't think the court would think she is capable of being emancipated...as she just finished a 6 month court services for sneaking out of our home and hiding out (with help of her boyfriend) for three days. The court imposed a no contact order for the two of them. Fast forward, she completed the requirements of the court order, and now everything is dropped. And, boyfriend is now 18... She is 15. I have called the judges clerk and asked for help reinstating the no contact, I have called DGDs court services officer, who can do nothing, because the court has dropped everything.

He did mention that if they are over 18, he could tell me if they are on probation. So I asked, is boyfriend on probation? Yep, and he gave me the PO name. I called him and told him what was happening, and he said to go to the police, and he could have something to work with.

I have talked to the principal at school, who has talked to security at school, and they have boyfriend and DGD on tape at school, and boyfriend can be arrested for being at the school.

I called the social agency that is following with us for 6 more months, and asked them about our situation. The police won't give me a no contact order unless DGD goes with me to request it. She won't. Plus, if she did, she can break it when ever she wants, it is only binding on the boyfriend.

We saw DGDs psychologist last night and she spoke with me for about 10 minutes, she told DGD that she would not reveal anything that I don't already know about. Luckily, I know lots, but DGD thinks I am just a stupid old lady. But the psychiatric slipped (Fruedian slip?) and mentioned that DGD had bailed boyfriend out of jail!!!

I was hoping that knowing he could be charged with indecent liberties with a minor, they both would put things on hold til she is 16...4 more months...

I have enough info to go to the police...but I keep waiting for her to come to her senses. But I don't think it's going to happen. But this will probably hurt our relationship for the future...not that we have much of one now.

And this is why she wants to move in with biomom...no rules, inappropriate boyfriend would be fine with her. Heck, she would probably hit on him too!

KSM

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

ksm, have you posted in Parent Emeritus as well? Also, post on Watercooler. One of us will have been presented with this situation. Only someone who has walked through it can advise you in a worthwhile way. We can offer support and encouragement, but what you need now is a way to maintain self image and emotional stability, and factual legal advice. Then, if you and D H can get on the same page about how you want this to look as you go through it and what the best outcome for all concerned will be, that will help you both. Then, if you can decide now which are the family boundaries you will not allow to be breached, you will feel better prepared. Thinking about those boundaries (which is really what the birth mother is attacking, when you think about it) will help you two to remember the wonder of the family you have created together.

That will be important in the years to come.

No one can say how this is going to play out. So, I think it will be helpful for you and D H to create mental imagery of how it would all look if the best possible things happened. For me, that imagery was simple Family Dinner. Maybe that could help you, too. You will find your own imagery, but that one works to keep me focused on the best outcome instead of being bogged down in the ugliness that might be happening day to day.

Because she is undermining the child's family life, it seems to me that the bio mom will be making sky in the pie projections to her child and to herself to assuage her own rottenness. Whatever her fantasies and excuses and whoever she is blaming, this woman does not know her child's challenges or tendernesses or heart. She is sliding in under the radar beneath the mantle of Motherhood when the mother here is you. If the birth mother were honestly hoping to be part of her child's life, she would have come to you and D H with sincere gratitude.

Unless I am reading this wrong, this is not what is happening.

If I were in your position, my maternal alarms would be blaring but I would be unsure of my moral right to field events for my child.

I am so sorry this bratty birth mother is choosing to interact with your family in this way, delegitimizing everything.

There is grief for you, and for D H, in the way the birth mother is approaching everything to do with this child, in my opinion.

It is the situation that is bad. Not you, not your child.

The child is vulnerable to the birth mother in ten thousand ways because she is an adolescent and the birth mother is using that for all she is worth.

Can you find support similar to what we do here through an adoption site, I wonder. You cannot be the only mother this is happening to. This has to be undermining you all on so many levels.

So. That is all I know. Plus, I know that here on Conduct Disorders, there will be ethical others who can walk this time that is coming with you.

We just need to make them aware of what is happening.

So, post in Watercooler and Parent Emeritus too, if you haven't already, okay, ksm?

And of course we are always right here, too.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

I told her that if she gets court approval, then she can do what she wants.

While this is a logical response and at the end of the day, what would govern what happens, at an emotional level, I would fight for her.

I think our kids who were adopted struggle with the sense they were rejected, abandoned, thrown away. They have a great deal of anger. Your daughter/grand-daughter is splitting. She is putting all of her anger on YOU, and her fantasy that she can find acceptance and reverse all of the negative feelings (abandonment) she is placing on her birth mom.

We know that it will all come crashing down. But she will not hear it.

I think I would try to come from a place like this: I love you. I want you to have a life where you are valued and safe. I will fight for you until my last breath, so that you have the wonderful life and become the person you are in your heart.

Remember that children's story: I think it was Runaway Bunny, where the baby bunny kept running away and the mother kept following? And at the end, the mother declared. Runaway everywhere you want. I will always find you. I will always follow you. To the ends of the earth.

I think this is what our kids want to feel about us, as they fight us every inch of the way. That we will always be there. That we are their anchors in life. And we are.

this woman does not know her child's challenges or tendernesses or heart

Nor does she care, it seems.

She is sliding in under the radar beneath the mantle of Motherhood when the mother here is you.

Yes. This happened so many times with us, my son and I, where a neighbor, a friend, would try to usurp the connection between my son and I (with my son's help, because he would complain, tell stories about me.)

You are the legitimate mother. You are her true and real mother. She knows it but wants to fight you, because that is what she needs to do right now.

You cannot control what happens but you can control how you respond. You have nothing to prove.

You: I will always do what is right for your welfare. Always. If somebody is hurting you or may hurt you while I am here and responsible, I will never stop doing what I can and I must. Even after she either emancipates or turns 18 your stance will be the same. I may have no legal right to take a stand for your welfare, but I will always stand for your safety and your being a person of consequence, living a life of dignity and security. Even if it is only in my heart.

Regardless of whether we succeed or not, we can come from this stance. Because it is true.

COPA

 

[ksm]

Copa' some days I just don't have any fight in me. But even on the roughest days I have told her that I u dears tans she is upset with me (she actually hates we with a passion) but I am always here for her, I am not giving up, that I will be here when everyone else has walked away. But right now, unless I let her hang out with loser boyfriend, she will continue to hate me.

She tells me it is over, then lies to me and tries to see him behind my back... Just so tired. Even more "stuff" God nag on that I haven't written about... But for now, this is enough info. KSM

 

[Copabanana]

KSM, do I know it. How hard it is. It is easy for me to tell you. If you knew how I fall apart, feel defeated, feel my value as a person to be nil...you would know that I feel your pain.

Still, why we suffer so is because of our great love for them. And for the impossibility of our situation. We control nothing. Except what we decide.

COPA

 

[ksm]

Since I reposted this in parent emeritus... I thought I would also post my latest update here, too.

Well, the proverbial s#!t hit the fan last night. We let her leave with one "friend" for one hour... And she didn't come home, and would not answer phone, text or FB messages, even though I saw her logged on to her account. I called the police, and instead of coming here and talking to us first, they went directly to his house and picked her up. Supposedly, one office took boyfriend aside and one took her and the story they got was they wanted to "break up" in person. Yea, right. Don't believe it.

Then, they didn't take her to JV or file an official report. But there would be a report on file in case this happens again. Yea, right.

She sat there like she was incredibly put out, self righteous, unrepentant teen as if this was all nothing. I took the phone away. After she went upstairs, I got on computer, checked her texts and saw that while she was in the back seat of the police cruiser she was texting her undying love for him and how she would need him so much more than she ever did. Oh, and an apology to HIS mom... The one that doesn't care if underage teen girls are at her house partying.

I am so done. I am going to print out her last two texts to him and have the police add it to their report! And then I am going to call his PO and report what happened last night.

ksm



Read more: http://www.conductdisorders.com/com...ng-from-family-of-origin.61810/#ixzz41kj6W0IU

 

[ksm]

Small update...the probation officer I had been talking to called yesterday and told me that he called the boyfriend and his mom, to his office and then introduced him to his new adult probation officer (the previous one was juvenile probation - they promoted him to the adult department!) and they also have a no contact order...no phone calls, text, social media of any type and even third party messaging! Breaking this could put him in jail for up to 60 days.

DGD is taking this hard. She pretty much did not leave her bedroom after coming home from school and refuses to respond to anything I ask.

KSM

 

[InsaneCdn]

DGD is taking this hard

Of course she is. That would be "normal". The's an atypical person, the kind who when they head down a certain path, hang onto that path with a death-grip. They don't let go easily.

It is still the right thing to do.

 

[ksm]

Things are finally improving. DGD and another girl who was involved with the boyfriend talked at school and connected all the dots... They re now friends, and DGD says she is so over him and all his lies. I hope she stands strong! We are keeping her phone for a week, and once she has it back, I can still monitor texts and if it starts up again, I can go to the police.

She did some homework last night and started cleaning on her room. She has been so despondent the last couple of weeks that she just isolated herself in her room.

Crossing my fingers!! Ksm

 

[Copabanana]

I give her credit. These things are hard for any woman or young girl. She has the guts to face the truth. And the self-esteem to go on to face the next day. I am so glad she has defined the guy, not herself, as the loser. Good for her. Good for you for staying strong and on her side.

COPA