Grandparents Raising Children Support Group
This community is dedicated to grandparents who are the primary caregivers of their grandchildren. In cases where the parents are not willing or able to provide adequate care for their children, grandparents may take on the role of primary caregivers. Join the support group to find support, share your experience, and get advice from other members.
Hi, my GRG friends. I haven't been on here for a very long time, and I miss sharing with you!
My back story: My husband and I, after lots and lots of cajoling, got legal custody of our granddaughter, Isabella, at 9 months old and adopted her at 3 years old. (Both my daughter, Lisa and her ex, Carlos, reluctantly agreed to sign away their rights to us, as neither had the financial means nor the emotional maturity to raise a child. Plus my daughter is bipolar and Isabella's father is a drunk.) Isabella is now 5 years old and my daughter has openly acknowledged to me several times recently that she's glad we adopted Isabella.
Isabella knows we are her grandparents, she knows Lisa is her "belly mommy" and at 5 years old, she definitely favors Lisa when she's around, which is about once a week for several hours at my house, because Lisa is 25 now and very childlike. She plays with Isabella in a way I simply can't at my age (54). In other words, Lisa gets the best of both worlds as a mother--all fun and zero responsibility. But hey, she and Isabella have a bond that no legal decree can diminish and I believe it would be morally wrong to withhold Isabella from Lisa and vice-versa.
Isabella's father, Carlos, moved to NY for a job opportunity a couple of years ago. He got into some legal trouble (battery on his ex-girlfriend and photographing her nude w/o her consent) and was put on probation. He had the probation transferred to Florida and moved in with his older sister for close to a year, while working a low level job. We allowed him to visit Isabella with our supervision during that time (mostly early 2010), but he messed up on his probation (didn't go to psychotherapy weekly, but rather every other week) and had to move back to NY last fall to finish his probation. He told me at that point that he was just going to fade away because he didn't know how long it would be before he could see Isabella again.
Well, I just learned a couple of weeks ago that he allegedly has completed his probation and is now living with his parents in Puerto Rico.
ADVICE NEEDED: Isabella's father intends to move in with his older sister, Isabella's aunt, who lives about 40 minutes away from us as soon as he can. He's started hounding me by phone to let him have contact with Isabella. My husband and I really wish he'd just disappear because the guy is a drunk, can't seem to hold a job for any length of time, and most alarmingly, has a solid history of being abusive to women, including two battery arrests. We fee any visits/contact would only be for his own gratification and would just confuse Isabella.
Carlos says I will do more psychological damage to her, i.e. feed her abandonment issues, if I don't allow her to have a relationship with her birth father. He has tried threatening me with "I'll play her these phone conversations when she's 12 so she'll see you're the reason she doesn't know her own father" and "When she finds me when she's older and learns you wouldn't let me know her, she's gonna hate you."
Is there ANY validity to what Carlos is saying? His history is that when he lived local to us for the first 3 or so years of Isabella's life, his visits were very sporadic, and the last time he saw her (about nine months ago), she cried for him and pined over him for several weeks afterward. It was so difficult to watch her grieve for a man who really does nothing for this little girl except kick up a lot of emotion in her and then walk away without a second thought for weeks or months at a time.
Isabella totally remembers her father and feels a bond with him. She does ask after him occasionally, and even as recently as this past Sunday on her birthday, asked if she was going to see her daddy. I told her truthfully that he lives in Puerto Rico with her other grandparents. This answer used to placate her and now it seems to anger her.
I know Carlos is a waste of space as a father, but my granddaughter truly loves him, despite all his absences in her life. What do you think I should do? Let him talk to her on the phone? Let him visit her if/when he moves back to our area? Or continue to keep him cut out of her life? Please advise!!!
My back story: My husband and I, after lots and lots of cajoling, got legal custody of our granddaughter, Isabella, at 9 months old and adopted her at 3 years old. (Both my daughter, Lisa and her ex, Carlos, reluctantly agreed to sign away their rights to us, as neither had the financial means nor the emotional maturity to raise a child. Plus my daughter is bipolar and Isabella's father is a drunk.) Isabella is now 5 years old and my daughter has openly acknowledged to me several times recently that she's glad we adopted Isabella.
Isabella knows we are her grandparents, she knows Lisa is her "belly mommy" and at 5 years old, she definitely favors Lisa when she's around, which is about once a week for several hours at my house, because Lisa is 25 now and very childlike. She plays with Isabella in a way I simply can't at my age (54). In other words, Lisa gets the best of both worlds as a mother--all fun and zero responsibility. But hey, she and Isabella have a bond that no legal decree can diminish and I believe it would be morally wrong to withhold Isabella from Lisa and vice-versa.
Isabella's father, Carlos, moved to NY for a job opportunity a couple of years ago. He got into some legal trouble (battery on his ex-girlfriend and photographing her nude w/o her consent) and was put on probation. He had the probation transferred to Florida and moved in with his older sister for close to a year, while working a low level job. We allowed him to visit Isabella with our supervision during that time (mostly early 2010), but he messed up on his probation (didn't go to psychotherapy weekly, but rather every other week) and had to move back to NY last fall to finish his probation. He told me at that point that he was just going to fade away because he didn't know how long it would be before he could see Isabella again.
Well, I just learned a couple of weeks ago that he allegedly has completed his probation and is now living with his parents in Puerto Rico.
ADVICE NEEDED: Isabella's father intends to move in with his older sister, Isabella's aunt, who lives about 40 minutes away from us as soon as he can. He's started hounding me by phone to let him have contact with Isabella. My husband and I really wish he'd just disappear because the guy is a drunk, can't seem to hold a job for any length of time, and most alarmingly, has a solid history of being abusive to women, including two battery arrests. We fee any visits/contact would only be for his own gratification and would just confuse Isabella.
Carlos says I will do more psychological damage to her, i.e. feed her abandonment issues, if I don't allow her to have a relationship with her birth father. He has tried threatening me with "I'll play her these phone conversations when she's 12 so she'll see you're the reason she doesn't know her own father" and "When she finds me when she's older and learns you wouldn't let me know her, she's gonna hate you."
Is there ANY validity to what Carlos is saying? His history is that when he lived local to us for the first 3 or so years of Isabella's life, his visits were very sporadic, and the last time he saw her (about nine months ago), she cried for him and pined over him for several weeks afterward. It was so difficult to watch her grieve for a man who really does nothing for this little girl except kick up a lot of emotion in her and then walk away without a second thought for weeks or months at a time.
Isabella totally remembers her father and feels a bond with him. She does ask after him occasionally, and even as recently as this past Sunday on her birthday, asked if she was going to see her daddy. I told her truthfully that he lives in Puerto Rico with her other grandparents. This answer used to placate her and now it seems to anger her.
I know Carlos is a waste of space as a father, but my granddaughter truly loves him, despite all his absences in her life. What do you think I should do? Let him talk to her on the phone? Let him visit her if/when he moves back to our area? Or continue to keep him cut out of her life? Please advise!!!
In my opinion Carlos has absolutely no rights to your daughter any more. And your bio daughter technically has no rights, either. The adoption made your granddaughter your daughter -- and that ends any relationships she had before.
If you think it's good for her to remain close to her bio-mom that's fine. But if I were in your position Carlos would have no contact at all. He signed away his rights as a parent for good reason, and he continues to demonstrate what that reason is.
Our three knew their "daddy" (he really isn't the father of the eldest) for their first couple of years and remember him. However, they seem to have no interest in him whatsoever. He hasn't even contacted them by phone for at least three years, and we wouldn't let him speak to them anymore at this point.
I think allowing Carlos back in to their lives is what would add to the abandonment issues.
It's tough enough dealing with a bio-mom who gets all of the adulation and none of the responsibility. Why add to it when you legally and morally don't have to?
Just my opinion, anyway :-)
I know it's a difficult decision, one that I had to make with my biological daughter. Her father was abusive and left when I was pregnant with her. I moved out of the area and wouldn't let him see her, he never paid child support either. Now that she is almost 20, he contacted her wanting to be a part of her life now. We had a long talk and I said it was her decision since she's an adult. She emailed with him twice and now won't have anything to do with him. she said it was the idea of her dad wanting her that made her contact him back, but said her step dad is the dad that has and always will be there for her.
It may be difficult now, but with the love and stability you and your husband give her she will not feel abandoned.
That's a very difficult decision. I think I would seek counseling and ask what might be best. If you do decide to allow him to visit, I would continue with supervised visits only and never let her out of your sight. Guess my concern is that he might take her and go back to Puerto Rico with her where you would not be able to get her back. You have no way of knowing whether his parents say they want their granddaughter and he plans on taking her to them or not. If she does find out at some point that you did not allow him to visit with her, I doubt she would hate you for it, especially if you explained you were protecting her from him because he was 'unstable' at that point in his life. It's possible, as time goes by, he will mess up again and be gone for good - his history makes it unlkely he will stay out of trouble.
Welcome back. It was great to hear from you, unfortunately it has to be under these circumstances though.
I agree with everyone's response. He gave up his rights to be a parent the day you adopted her. In most cases, I could see allowing him to have some form of contact, but not under these circumstances, especially since he is abusive. I read where you wrote he said ""I'll play her these phone conversations when she's 12 so she'll see you're the reason she doesn't know her own father" and "When she finds me when she's older and learns you wouldn't let me know her, she's gonna hate you." I wouldn't worry too much about his idle threats because as an abuser, he thinks he can manipulate you as well. This is an abusers game. To bully or intimidate people into doing something he wants. I would call his bluff by telling him, if you are going to threaten me, then the conversation is over and have a nice day and please don't try to contact your child until you can do so without threatening me. I would also suggest informing him that since he gave up his parental rights and allowed you to adopt her, that he has no legal right to contact her at all, but you are doing this as a favor to him.
I agree wholeheartedly though to not let her out of your sight. I also agree that more than likely he will end up in jail again.
Carlos has no interest in kidnapping Isabella; that's not my concern. He just wants to have what Lisa has--the luxury of having a relationship with his biological daughter, on his terms, with no responsibility. He signed the termination of parental rights form in October 2009 with his own mother and older sister as witnesses for the notary--in other words, his own family knows full well that Carlos will never be able to provide the nurturing or the financial resources a child requires. They knew that even court ordered child support would land him in jail because he's a financial disaster. He just turned 29 and his parents continue to have to support him.
He knocked my daughter to the floor at six months pregnant, so hard she went to the ER to make sure the baby was all right. They got into a physical fight when she was eight months pregnant and she got arrested because she threw something at him and cut him over his eyebrow. He had been hitting and punching her too, but she wouldn't tell the police that so they didn't arrest him. He showed up drunk at Lisa's C-section and broke up with her that same night. This man is evil.
He got arrested just a few months later for battery on his next girlfriend, and he got arrested in New York, as I mentioned, for taking photos of his roommate--she had been his girlfriend and when she broke up with him, he refused to move out. When she found the pics in his camera, she called the police and had him arrested and got a restraining order against him. That's when he returned to Florida and moved in with his sister for close to a year, and sort of resumed seeing isabella. He failed to comply fully with the judge's orders and she had him move back to NY to finish his probation there--just wrapped up in June.
His probation required he take anger management classes and therapy. I can honestly say that, after speaking with him on the phone back in May when he came into town for a week and asked to see Isabella, that the therapy has done absolutely nothing to help change his personality and behaviors. My husband explained to him that, as long as he lives out of our area, we don't think it's in Isabella's best interest to reopen communication with him. We explained how upset she got when he moved to NY, months of crying for him. His response? "That's not my problem. I want to see her." He continues to be a nasty, obnoxious, immature person.
I know he has no legal rights, of course. It's the emotional damage that he's done and my concerns about minimizing any further damage. Knowing Lisa, she'll tell Isabella stories about Carlos when Isabella is older and that will help Isa cope with not having her father around. But right now, at just barely 5, she doesn't know the dirty details and we just tell her that her daddy lives far, far away. This has been the truth, but it won't be for long.
Thanks again for your input. It really helps ease some of my mixed feelings and confusion on this subject.
My daughter told me just last night that she feels more like Isabella's sister than her mother and I told her, "well, that's appropriate because legally that's exactly what you are!"
I sure have missed you ladies!