How to Raise Your Sister’s Kids part I
A quick search on Amazon comes up empty for books with this title. Since it isn’t written yet, maybe I’ll write it.
The short story is that JD’s sister has left her kids for the umpteenth time with their mom, the children’s grandmother. Grandma is capable of handling one of the kids at a time for a day at a time. I don’t think that’s unusual. When my sister-in-law leaves it’s usually under the guise of “I’m gonna go get a Coke, I’ll be right back” and she’s gone for anywhere from 12 hours to a week, without any communication or way to get ahold of her (she won’t answer her cell phone). This happened, most recently, yesterday. However, yesterday CPS and the police were called to take the children because grandma could no longer care for them. This is new. This has never happened before. It’s time.
This starts a clock for their mother. The mother now has 48 hours to claim her kids. If she does then the circus starts all over again. If she doesn’t then she has six months to take classes and follow the rules set by the state to regain custody of her children. It isn’t a perfect system by any means. The laws are all on her side. We have to wait and see what she does. She may do nothing and the children will be available at the end of six months for placement. She may pull it together and regain custody. In all likelihood she’ll get her act together a little, just enough and this will drag out for more than six months.
The children are six years, three years and six months old. My heart breaks for them. From the moment each one was born I told JD I would take them, accept them into our home as our own and raise them. Somehow deep in my soul I knew it would be a very real possibility that they would become our children. We have planned for them in ways that they don’t yet know. Each trip to CA I want to scoop them all up and bring them home with us. They didn’t ask for this. It isn’t their fault and yet, they are the ones suffering the consequences. It will be years until they can understand it all.
Their mother was and is young and unmarried. She has a grade school education, has been abused by her boyfriend (the children’s father) and has addictions of her own. I don’t blame her for her situation. I am deeply saddened that she does not realize the damage her actions have had and will continue to have on her children. I don’t doubt for a second that she doesn’t love them. She is simply unable to care for herself, let alone anyone else.
There is a simple way for her to surrender guardianship and temporarily assign it to JD and I (we would then apply for permanent guardianship), she won’t do it.
So, the first thing you must do if you are going to raise your sister’s kids is love them. The second thing you must do is get custody. The first was easy, done. The second will require more time for her and the state to make their decisions. In the mean time we’ll do what we need to do to get guardianship paperwork rolling so we’re ready when the children are available.