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

Yes, as an adopter of 20 years and a foster carer of a decade, plus an academic in the field who has probably written one or two of the papers you may be referencing, I do understand that, when you are starting out, adoption is a triumph of hope over experience. Nowhere have I been ‘wildly aggressive’ ; that is a fallacious response. And one that has been reported. I am really happy to engage with any alternative viewpoint but I will not stop posting about the realities of adoption. You can read all the papers you like and think you know it all, until you get completely blindsided. Nobody gets to dodge the bullet. No one.

So you’ve replied and then reported the post - I’d love to know the logic.

Well done, I’ve written my own papers and I already acknowledged that the field is not settled. I haven’t once denied your or your child’s experience, just said it’s one of many, and yet here you are trying to belittle someone whose experience differs from yours, and making many assumptions in the process. I’m sure many people have been helped by your experience, but I find it quite disheartening to think how many might have been deterred by your insistence that children are always permanently damaged. It’s the reality for some, but not all.

I reported your personal attack. You accused me of being ‘wildly aggressive’. This is totally fallacious and unfair. It’s the go-to tactic of posters who don’t appreciate debate. Not anywhere have I said that children who have been removed from their birth parents are ‘damaged’. On the contrary, I have posted to point out that I consider this terminology harmful. You seem to have a problem with me posting about my personal experiences and my professional experience of adoption.

I found your post aggressive and I said so. I didn’t feel the need to report you for your equally ‘fallacious’ suggestion that I’d ‘swallowed ChatGPT’. I’d suggest that reporting posts you don’t agree with, rather than simply responding or ignoring, is absolutely the tactic of someone who can’t handle disagreement. But each to their own.

I have no problem with you posting your personal experience. I have a problem with you attempting to belittle the experience of others, as you’ve done to several people on the thread.

The brain is very plastic and new connections can and do form all the time. Even where there are attachment issues, these can be remedied if a good attachment is formed with someone, and you have years to do that (according to the theory we were taught).

Damaged is a horrible term. They're not broken. Hurt, traumatised maybe. Both things that can be helped and healed to a good degree. Maybe some ongoing wounds but who doesn't have those? We all have adverse experiences of one kind of other as children.

I'm sorry you weren't able to find good support networks for yourself.

I think I'll accept the word of a qualified and experienced child psychologist over a random mumsnetter, especially given it was my granddaughter he was talking about, I have lived experience of what he meant, and have met too many parents who are driven to distraction by the Disney-minded people who coo, 'these can be remedied if a good attachment is formed with someone, and you have years to do that.'

You don't know what you are talking about, so it would be better to say nothing. Damage is damage - let's not pretend that abused and neglected children are not damaged by their experiences. You can compensate, but you can't undo.

Update:
So the baby is now under the care of MIL, SIL was having some mental health issues in hospital.

I have thought long and hard about this and I don't think I am in a position to be able to offer a home to this beautiful baby.
I know PP are saying "Oh well it will be your third baby", it's not simple as that.

We would still have to deal with SIL dipping in and out of our lives and the baby would never really truly feel ours.

I suffer from endometriosis and I am 38 and I haven't really got time on my hands to be waiting around and this is something I want to go ahead with.

It would be m doing majority of the caregiving for the baby not OP, I mean he still goes out, goes on holiday with his siblings etc, his life hasn't really
changed but mine has and im not complaining about it as I wanted these kids so I would probably end up feeling resentful in the long run if I had missed my chances by having a third.

There is an older sister (lives in a different city) who is childless in her mid 40s who has offered that she will be able to help MIL but isn't in a position to have her full time.

It does look like MIL will be staying in the UK now.

Even now SIL dosent really say an awful lot on what's happened apart from the baby needs a home and then expects everyone to drop everything to help her and expect us to give her money.

Well, I think that’s the right decision for you. Poor MIL, though, and poor baby with a mother with significant MH issues.

Thank you for the update. I’m glad that you have made the right decision for you and your family. I wish you every happiness and luck with your third baby.

Op it was a decision only you could make. You absolutely can't take a child and then resent them.
I'd hope the older Sister is able to help MiL because I do think its a huge ask for someone in their 60s to take on a baby and the 20 year commitment.

I hope No Way was your response to her expecting money from you.
Fuck Off would be even better...

Thank you for updating us, OP. You are a lovely person for even considering it, and I can see that it was a hard decision for you.

To be honest, I was surprised to see posters earlier on in the thread who had the attitude that it should be quite straightforward as you wanted a 3rd child anyway so this child should be yours. Adoption is so much more than that, and this situation is complex.
It sounds like there is a network of family and hopefully the saying 'it takes a village' will be true and that will give this little girl security.

I think this is the best outcome- she doesn’t have other children at home (except maybe the DD) so other family in the home are not having their lives and children’s lives disrupted by dropping in and out DSIL.

Good luck @milkshakess , thanks for the update. It sounds like a difficult and likely open ended situation, but it’s good that you’re clear about what you want.

Wow that SiL is a selfish woman isn't she. She knows she has good people around her to pick up after she has destroyed things.

Your MiL sounds amazing.

You are making the right choice.

Thank you for updating. Many don’t

I get it must have been a hard decision for you - but in the end it’s the right one for you

baby wouldn’t be yours /no 3 as mum will always be about

you aren’t married so if you did look after /care for her you have no rights and might not ever see that child again in years to come

you didn’t right thing for you

I do feel for the mil/granny. She was getting her life back after looking after and bringing up her grandson for years

mum will need a lot of help by her family and this saga can go on for years /till adult

yes your partner can be a doting uncle and maybe the other sibling /sister can help more

She's in mental health crisis. I doubt she's doing any of this on purpose.

SIL was asking us for money to buy cigarettes and marijuana and OH was quite firm with her and told her to grow up and be a mother to her daughter.

She is actually very selfish as she was aware of what happened with her first child and then proceeded on getting pregnant for the same thing to happen again.

MIL is 60 and was expecting to retire and live abroad but now that won't be happening.

It is not as if SIL wasn't aware of what would/could potentially happen and she still chose to get pregnant (the pregnancy was planned).

We will be supporting MIL the best we can but it is already taking a toll on her.

I feel so sorry for her, she had first very very young like 15/16 and now at 60 when she thought she would be retiring but now she will be changing
nappies and looking after a new born.

SIL has already said she found looking after her first child very hard but MIL was in her early 40s back then and MIL was able to do take on the motherly role.

The daughter can’t expect everyone to look after her baby. Esp poor mil.

@milkshakess

Thank you for the update.

Tough decision, and a considered one, well done.

It sounds like a slow car crash in motion all round.

Good to have your boundaries in place with SiL.

Good luck to all involved!

And good luck to you, OP, for number 3!

Does she get to keep the brand new house because if she was a pensioner it would be words like under occupying, selfish and should move out for a family. But apparently if you give birth to a child that you have no intention of bringing up and doing the grunt work for and wanting them to be treated like a parcel then thats ok

Thanks for the update OP. 🙂 Your MIL sounds like a wonderful person. Best of luck to all of you with everything. 🙂 I think with your MIL being 60 now the lack of sleep is going to be especially tough for her, so I'm sure if there's anything your DH and you could do to help her get more sleep (like taking the baby overnight sometimes) it would be really appreciated. If you do though, make sure your DH is doing his fair share of getting up in the night and not leaving it all to you!

Tbh, while I can understand that your MIL doesn’t want to ‘lose’ the child to adoption, her choice isn’t necessarily a good one. Adoption would arguably provide the baby with a much more stable family and enviroment, with people who are prepared for a child they actively want.

It isn’t the wider family’s responsibility to take on the burden of cleaning up after your SIL’s bad decisions, and neither your husband nor your childfree SIL should be expected to upend their own lives to do so. Ultimately it was your MIL’s choice to take her grandchild on, no one else’s.

Social services are usually very keen to find kinship care placements for children before considering adoption. So it's likely that the OP's MIL was strongly encouraged by social workers to do this, rather than social services wanting the baby to be fostered or adopted outside the family and MIL insisting on keeping her.

I’m aware. Strongly encouraged or not, the MIL could have refused. It was her choice.