OH wants custody of baby niece?

[milkshakess]

So OH's younger sister has recently had a baby and there is possibility that the baby may end up in care.

She already has an 18 year olds on who has lived with their mum since he was 8.

She dips in and out of his life, she even forgot his last birthday, she hasn't really been a mum to him at all. Despite this he has turned out to be a lovely, smart and hard working lad.

Everyone was so surprised by the pregnancy.

From what we understand she was kept in hospital for 2 weeks whilst some kind of team were getting stuff ready for the baby.

I think the hospital staff were monitoring and observing her interact with the baby and something must of been flagged?

Her mum has sold her house and was due to move abroad in September but she had been visiting her and the baby at the hospital daily and helping.

OH isn't really close to his sister but he is close to her son, he calls OH the "best uncle" as him and the other uncles have all chipped into help raise him.
OH would sometimes not see his sister for years and she was always changing her number and would have to talk to her though her son.

Anyway the family don't want the baby to end up in care but everyone has young kids themselves ( we have toddlers and are trying for a 3rd).

OH wants to go for custody but the care would really fall on me and I work from home and have a very flexible job.

Just wanted input on the situation as OH and the family don't want the baby to go into care

OP, regardless of the rights and wrongs and morals of the situation, you absolutely should NOT take this baby in unless you really, really want to and your heart is in it. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks and it doesn't matter what your husband thinks. Asking you to raise a newborn to adulthood is a MASSIVE ask. And if he means taking the baby in INSTEAD of having another one of your own, I think that's the height of unfairness.

If you don't want to do it and if your husband is sooooo appalled by that, he's perfectly welcome to split up with you and take the baby in himself. I bet he wouldn't. He wants YOU to raise the baby.

You are just going to have to say no, I don't want to, and that's that. Maybe there'll be blowback, but at least you won't have to raise a baby that you don't want to raise.

In the adoption system, babies are the most highly sought-after. Maybe some lovely couple will adopt her and you can still see her as part of the extended birth family.

You seem absolutely love and I am sure you will make the right decision about this little girl.

Come back after the weekend and tell us how the visit went - and what the baby is like.

I'm wishing you good luck, I know this is not an easy decision for you to make either way. However I have a feeling it will work out.

I couldn’t parent a child with so many odds stacked against them. The mother sounds feckless and may have addiction issues which could result in fas. The father is probably feckless too if he’s fathered a child he doesn’t want or doesn’t know about. Unless you could handle parenting a special needs child don’t entertain the idea. It takes a strong person to parent a child that isn’t theirs and an even stronger one to parent one with high needs.

That's such a huge thing you are being asked to do.

I think that wouldn't agree unless you got married. Even if just at the registry office as a legal protection.

If you are buying a home is your name on the title?

Will you manage to hold down your job while caring for a baby? If not then how will your financial position be protected including your pension?

I feel like you are being asked to risk far too much and I'm wondering what protections are being out in place for you?

If you split down the track what situation would you find yourself in? Would you even have access to this child (even if you were the main care giver)

I would adopt and lovingly care for the baby and quit ever thinking of having a third. This little one would be a third for me.

Really only matters what you think

If I were you I’d be sorting my own precarious financial position as an unmarried SAHM before taking on routine care of your niece.

Wow, SIL must really be the most awful mother if concerns have been noted about her parenting and a placement for baby is being looked at before SIL has even left the hospital. 😱 Hopefully she might think about some permanent contraception now, instead of being so selfish as to keep producing children she can't/won't look after. I suppose the father is some feckless randomer, too. Poor little baby.

Vomit. Babies aren't puppies and even dogs are not interchangeable. This is disgusting.

Everyone pretending the high needs unrelated offspring of a mentally ill woman is the same as OP having her own third baby needs to simply shut up. You all sound absolutely gross and frankly demented.

So, to recap, a man you're not married to wants you to take the responsbility for mothering an unrelated high needs baby and become permanently and inescapably enmeshed with a mentally ill woman and his messy family dynamic.

You also don't get to have your own third baby but get to pretend an unrelated person's baby is interchangeable and should be accepted in your own child's place.

And you don't want to.

So don't do it.

I think i’d seriously consider taking this baby in, probably instead of a 3rd child though. I agree though that you don’t want the mother dipping in and out and interfering too much, so you’d need to ensure that it was official, and any contact was agreed by social services. Family members could help yes, but have to understand you and your OH will be the child’s parents. It’s a really tough situation. I think in your boat, having young DC already and wanting a 3rd, I’d adopt this child. You will grow to love her just as much as your own DC.

I just replied on another thread asking people if they’d take in a grandchild and said that whilst i’d not want to, as my own DC are adults now, I would. I’d also take in my 4yr old nephew if anything ever happened, as I could not see a family member go into the care system. That said, i’m sure there are a lot of families who would make great parents adopt a baby, but in your situation when you already have young DC, yes I think you should seriously consider it. But don’t feel guilt tripped if you decide not to proceed, you can still help out if MIL did decide not to move overseas and be heavily involved in her life.

Just FYI - OP has been with OH for 12 years, that’s commitment enough should adoption be the situation. They also have 2 children together on top. Marriage is not a requirement for adoption approval.

op has already said they are not married

op is not SAHM she has a job

A baby that doesn’t exist yet, and might never even with all the will in the world, is very much interchangeable. I know it is ‘the thing’ on MN to come up with an edgy, mock offence but you choosing to be disgusted by someone suggesting that this innocent little baby could fit into OPs home, which obviously has the want, the love & capacity for another baby, is not exactly a warranted thing to be offended over.

Keep us updated OP. What a mind fuck of a time you’re going through. Whatever you decide, it sounds like this little girl is lucky this has been picked up so young and she has the chance for a better life than SIL could ever give her.

Where is babies dad and his family in all of this? Babies aren't grown on their own.

Adoption isn't likely to be an option here though, as the poster said.

The points people make about marriage appear to be primarily financial. It's more of a risk for an unmarried partner to limit their earnings to do childcare than it is for a married one, because of the different way in which the law treats the two groups. 12 years together isn't enough commitment to get those protections if you don't also have a marriage contract.

This of course is still some risk even with one's own children, which is why unmarried women on here are often advised not to reduce hours, but at least OP has PR for her own plus legal rights to paid maternity leave and employment protections.

Wow. And we’re the gross and demented ones?

Sure, it’s complicated…

As an aside, why are so many people fixated on the lack of marriage? That doesn’t seem to be a concern or priority for OP? They already have 2 children, planning a 3rd, together 12 years. Marriage is not always the guarantee people think. Is OP not to be considered as family?

.

Honestly I think this is the universe giving you your third baby. I can understand you wouldn't want to share her in any way with your SIL so there's a lot to be worked out in that respect but I wouldn't be able to let her go into care either. Poor little baba.

It is early days, it can take months before the legal system decides if adoption is in the baby’s best interests.

How people manage their pensions and finances are what make the difference financially, surely? I get being married can help with some aspects more easily.

OP has 2 children already, and considering a 3rd without marriage so far (unsure if wanted, not mentioned). Why does it matter more now? Genuinely curious.

OP hasn't even mentioned adoption here. I don't know why so many people are jumping to that conclusion.

WRT finances, basically the distinction is that marriage gives spouses automatic rights in a way that unmarried partnership doesn't. So for example you mention pensions. An unmarried couple can list each other as beneficiaries but they can also change it leaving the other person with much less recourse to challenge. This is why it's more risky to be the one dropping your hours or doing anything to impact your employment in a partnership if you're not married. You don't have the same comeback if the other partner decides to withdraw the financial protections you based part of your decision on.

This matters more cumulatively, in that say 5 years with reduced hours cos you had 1 child is less time than say 12 years with 3. It's also particularly relevant here because kinship carers don't have rights to paid leave, or the same legal protections at work that parents and pregnant women get. So that leaves both more potentially vulnerable at work, but OP would be the primary carer which means OH intends more of that to fall on her. And if it does impact on her earning ability, being unmarried means she's not got the same legal ability to have that taken into account in any settlement should they split. Which people do, all the time.

None of which is to say that being an unmarried partner with 2 kids having already reduced hours isn't potentially risky either. And some of the things people are saying would be daft even if they were married.

Why are posters still telling op nonsense of “THIS IS YOUR THIRD BABBEEEEE!”
No, @milkshakess is going to be used as an unpaid nanny/baby sitter with no parental rights or input, just all the responsibilities!

Tribal communities practice cooperative parenting , and in at least one tribe, the Hadzabe, researchers who stayed with them found that children can have 17 alloparents, in another it’s about 6. We talk about ‘it takes a village’ but they live it. Their whole attitude to child rearing is different to ours. That does not make it a fantasy. The children have a lot of autonomy, once weaned and can choose how they spend their days.

Perfect. So can someone give Hadzabe a call?

Because the mum wants to retain contact. And social services prefer kinship arrangements in such situations so that the birth parent tie isn’t severed.

If OP and her OH split, he may say OP isn’t part of the kinship arrangements anymore because she isn’t family/kin.