@Susan1 Last night, I got another distressed message from the 14 year old daughter of one of my cousins. It made me think of you and your ongoing feelings that this cousin of yours and her daughter make bad choices. The message from my cousin's daughter made me feel like a reality check wouldn't hurt you.
Correct me if I have this wrong, but I believe this is the bare bones of your cousin and her daughter's situation: Your cousin had a daughter via sperm donor who she then lovingly raised in a stable home. Said daughter had a baby sometime during her final year of college. Daughter now has a full time job and supports herself and her child while living with her mother who cares for her child in a presumably stable home. Am I getting that right? Daughter additionally is working out a contract for surrogacy which will pay her a sizable amount of cash in the end. It occurs to me, btw, that in Ohio, the amount she is paid for this may provide a down payment for a house for her and her child. Or it could be one heck of a start on a college savings plan for her child. But that is neither here nor there in my point. Let me tell you about my cousin and his children.
First our cast of characters:
Cousin: We'll call him F-Up.
His Parents: We'll call them Aunt B and A-Hole.
His children: Let's call them D and K.
K is a 14 year old girl. She regularly has long FB messenger conversations with me. K is the child of F-Up and a woman much older than him that he was sleeping with on and off in his 20s. I believe she was 40 or 41 when K was born. He didn't know the woman was pregnant until about a week after K was born because she had left town. He didn't bother to do anything about it, although Aunt B traveled the hour and a half to meet her new granddaughter. Aunt B saw K sporadically for her first 18 months. Right around the time she was 18 mths old, her mother showed up at Aunt B and A-Hole's house with K and a diaper bag. She informed Aunt B that she was "too old" to deal with a toddler and didn't ever want K in the first place and proceeded to leave her there. F-Up was in prison at the time. K has seen her mother, who lives a mere hour and a half away, three times since then and not at all in the last four years. So she lives with Aunt B and A-Hole. Aunt B works her ass off to support K, F-Up, her handicapped daughter, and (until his death at 24 in 2015) her son with CF. Plus whoever else wanders in to live at the house at the invitation of A-Hole. A-Hole lays around in his underwear stoned. And also sells drugs. Out of the house. F-Up does the leg work for the drug sales which is how he has ended up in prison three different times. So this is the situation my cousin's daughter lives in. Last night's distressed message was about how terrified she is of starting high school in a few weeks. She doesn't know how to do her hair or make-up or have the right clothes and is scared the bullying from middle school will continue. She is at the age where she point blank laments having no mother. I am 900 miles away so I can't exactly pop over and pick her up for a lesson on using eyeliner, either. Aunt B is overworked, overstressed and has had no support system to help her deal with the loss of her youngest child (at the burial, when the formalities were all ended, she began to stand up and it was like her legs collapsed under her and she nearly fell down--A-hole did not notice this as he had got up quickly to light a cigarette and took off across the cemetery without looking back at her or anyone else--F-Up and close friend of her deceased son caught her). She has checked out on handling K and K's life entirely.
But K doesn't always even live there, because Aunt B has never got legal guardianship. So whenever F-Up decides to live elsewhere, he is apt to come get K to live with him. At this moment, she is living in a shitty apartment with him and not one, but two girlfriends (or "dad's drug whores" as she has taken to calling them). F-Up is an addict whose addictions have expanded to include harder drugs like heroin in the nearly two years since his younger brother died.
Then there is his son, D. D is 19 years old. He is due to get out of jail in a few weeks after being arrested in a massive drug sting in their county earlier in the summer. The police came beating on the door at Aunt B's house at 4 a.m. and K witnessed it all. He, too, had been living with Aunt B and A-hole and apparently helping his lovely grandpa with the drug business. K was devastated to lose her brother. He is the son of an earlier girlfriend of F-Up. He was raised by his mother until she died of an overdose when he was 13. He then lived with his maternal grandparents until they threw him out, angry over his getting his girlfriend pregnant during his senior year of high school (custom maternity prom dresses would be a huge business opportunity in that area). That baby girl is not yet a year old. Her mother is pregnant (again by D) and the babies will be less than one year apart.
Perhaps, just maybe, your cousin and her daughter are not making as bad of choices as you think?
But I promise to make up and fill these gaps in my education!
