Social services asking me to have son and girlfriend and baby living with me

[TheOchreEagle]

My son is 19 autistic and still at college and lives at home, he has got his girlfriend pregnant it seems intentionally. Social services have asked us to house them half the week in his bedroom. My partner is not at all happy with the idea. I think it could potentially destroy our relationship.

I feel so torn I don’t believe it will work his bedroom is right next to ours and we would hear every noise. He is very resistant to being told anything and i don’t think his girlfriend would be very receptive to any advice.

They both have learning disabilities so would need close monitoring which would be difficult. I work at home as well as being a carer for my mother who although currently in a care home still makes demands on my time.

Social services have said there would be support but as it has taken 3 months to hear anything i find that doubtful.

I do want to help but living with us is just too much. Anyone had any experience of this or can offer any advice.

Shared lives type care? For parents with LDs and their children? No I'm afraid I have never come across anything like that in all my career. If that exists in your area then you are extremely fortunate.

Getting them on the housing register is no solution to anything. They won't actually get housed, since they are both already housed! And social services have nothing to do with council housing just FYI

This is called Shared Lives and is another possibility 😊

Really? The whole situation is a mess.

@SethAndReubenTooSendGaloshes I do get what you're saying about service availability but another factor is that (from the OP) it seems this pregnancy was intentional not accidental. You're in Childrens Services, you know the likelihood of baby 2 arriving in short order, whatever happens.

I don't know what the answer is but this plan to live between 2 homes where the grandparents are not fully signed up is not a sound one.

I've just googled - it's a very niche provision in a small number of areas but it does exist. It's not something most people would be able to access.

I am struggling to understand some of your points @SethAndReubenTooSendGaloshes . Do you work in Childrens Services?
You have stated quite a few things that are untrue but I'm assuming with good intention?
By the way, SS absolutely work with housing schemes up and down the country to find homes/placements for vulnerable adults. Even ones with children.

Oh please.
They can’t do it themselves. The chances are that the baby will be autistic with L/D.
They are 19. This was planned.
What happens if they want 10 babies?
They can’t look after a baby themselves and l suspect the6 can’t look after themselves without any support either.
This isn’t @TheOchreEagle baby. I would say no to SS as they won’t give you any support - and what happens when they have another baby living on your house? And then another?
My heart goes out to you -it’s an awful situation you find yourself in.
.

It really seems to me that you have enough responsibilities already. If you allowed this you would be spreading yourself too thinly.

The cynic within me says the child will end up in care fairly soon and that would be no bad thing, adoption is a good option.

Yes I do work in children's social work and I am embedded in the reality of service provision even if theoretically something should exist.

Ok I’ll be Cruella; I assume abortion is not being considered and is now too late?

What about when the next pregnancy happens? Has a long term contraceptive plan been made? I presume you do t get any say as to whether this should happen, you’re just expected to pick up the pieces?

What sort of monitoring do you think needs to happen? What do you think the risks are?

Before anyone assumes I am completely ruthless, yes in the unlikely event of my son appearing with his pregnant girlfriend and no visible means of support, I would take them in in a heartbeat and my partner would have to put up with it (same for his son). My question n this case is what will happen if you say no. I think the only way to find out is to do so, and step back in if the plan looks dangerous.

It’s very dependent on the family with LD if it’s even worth keeping the child there from a safety standpoint. It’s sad because I think back to the people I’ve taken to visit their dc in places such as soft play and the parents have been such a mixture. Some parents wouldn’t have been able to care for a baby safely, some would have neglected their children when it came to feeding or changing, some would have been from a lower socioeconomic background and had paedophiles crawling all over them under the guise of helping but really gaining access to the children. They were incredibly trusting and couldn’t possibly protect their children. I took a few sex workers who all had LD to meet their children, that was rough because they weren’t actually addicts as we always expect sex workers to be, (to be clear the sex work was standing around on street corner level, the most unsafe kind) they’d just been doing it themselves since childhood, likely like their mothers and the cycle of poverty/LD was never going to stop and social services were removing children for their safety often at birth. They all loved their children, often my clients though would be bored and constantly wondering off for a cigarette and couldn’t really engaged with their child. Every child I met had learning difficulties and often more noticeably so than their parents. If it was simply a family who needed help getting into a routine and support filling in forms to get their children into school, that kind of thing or even a few carers to pop in daily to ensure children are fed, bathed, the home isn’t chaotic or filthy, I’d really hope we could do that for people. My son won’t ever live independently, he has quite severe LD, he talks about wanting to get married and being a dad, he often decides what job he’d like and it breaks my heart saying to him how great it all sounds but knowing once he approaches adulthood he likely will be having a very limited future. He can’t read or write, doesn’t understand basic maths, lots of other issues. But all he wants is to be like everyone else. It sounds like the OPs lad has met someone on his level and wants to just be a typical grown up, have a family, it’s just so sad they’re not capable enough yet without huge support.

I would say yes knowing that I would be caring for the two adults and my grandchild. I would be making it clear to my son that if baby two comes then I will no longer house them and the chances are the babies would be taken into care.

He is her son and the baby is her grandchild.

I would see the longer term plan being once the child is old enough to need less basic practical care e.g. five, and care being more emotional support, then helping them get their own place but still being very involved on a daily basis.

OP your mum is in a care home. Sure there are clothes and toiletries to buy and money and appointments to manage, but the care here can be minimal.

Sounds like a frigging nightmare and like social services trying to do what’s easy not what best. I means what’s the plan, double everything in the two houses? Who takes them back and forth? Why would they not start as they are - baby and girlfriend at her mum’s with your DS visiting? Seems a big jump to start treating them as a family when in reality they’re just dating.

@TheOchreEagle
I'm sorry for your predicament
Literally sandwiched between a rock and a hard place with both generations on either side needing you
The one thing I'd like to ask though is
Where's the babys mother mother?
And however it all falls
I hope something gets worked out
But I am with your husband on this for what it's worth

Hard as it is, you must say a definite no. Once they are with you, social services will pay lip service and make all sorts of promises that will.come to nothing. You will literally be left holding the baby. This is from experience. Do not trust them to help you, they will not.

Ah, ok.
Yes, I think many people are unaware of what good support for families like this one can actually look like. It doesn't necessarily mean residential care for the whole family.
Fobbing their needs off on to the Grandparents is not the way unfortunately, if it is going to work at all. It nearly always ends in disaster, we never seem to learn from it.
If they are having this baby, they should be supported to be a loving, functional household if at all possible. If not SS will have to step in anyway.

Don’t be afraid to say no and to suggest alternatives.

Slightly varied situation but I said no when SS asked me to take on a baby they said would otherwise go into care. (Baby didn't go into care. They supported the mother, but they will always look for cheapest option first).

the cynic in me thinks SS are looking for the easiest option for SS and not what is best for your ds and g/f

so id say no, its not acceptable for baby to be living half the week somewhere and they need support externally

As they do not currently live together forcing them to do so in order to parent the baby seems to be setting up potentially volatile situation out of ss convenience. Do you have other dc living at home op? Does the gf family? The more obvious option is for her to look after the baby wherever she currently lives and ds visit, but assume her dm has already said no.

The baby's mother's mother has offered to house them for half the week, which is presumably where the request of OP has come from.

I can't see how going back and forth so frequently would be beneficial to anyone in this situation, I couldn't have coped with that level of disruption with a newborn as a much older, neurotypical person (I hope I haven't phrased that offensively).

I really feel for you OP, it seems like there's no right, obvious or easy answer here. It would be a big commitment and you have no idea how much bigger it would get - if they have more babies, if they struggle to cope, if living at the other home becomes untenable etc.

I do think you need to find out what will happen if you say no. Not to emotionally blackmail you but just to understand the full picture.

Absolutely no way.
This is SS's way of washing their hands of the situation.
I would hold firm.
Neither of them will listen or be told.

I have two ND and I wouldn't accept this.
These are the consequences of his actions.
What if she has a fight with her mum and wants to stay at yours full-time?
Once you allow this, you have no control over the outcome.

It's a no from me. I would not want to give up my life. The house would be absolutely chaos.

Abortion and long term contraception are not something OP would have any control or say over. The girl still has capacity to make those choices.

This