How do I help my nephew out of a bad home situation?

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Mel19

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My brother isn't a bad person, but he has a rather shoddy record with drugs and seems to have a "gift" for picking the worst possible girls to date--the kind that like to get in fights and break up every other week as if they were still in high school. The last one, who has a rather ugly record as well (though not quite as bad), who he's been dating for three or four years, got pregnant. She said she was going to have the baby, but then decided to abort it. My brother, of course, paid half, while his girlfriend's step mother paid the other half. At that time, their living situation was unstable. My brother has a steady job, but she's never had one since they've been together. Neither of her parents want her at their houses because of her attitude, and although my parents tried letting them live with them, they couldn't take their recurrent 1:00am fighting. Still, they invited them back over and over (my brother was never kicked out, only her, but he felt compelled to go with her and make sure she was taken care of), eventually even going so far as to buy a trailer they could live in (in their backyard). But that didn't work out very well either. If anything, it got worse. (They also got a kitten despite my parents warning that they weren't to have any pets in their trailer.)

And then she got pregnant again. My parents mostly put up with her and my brother's fighting because my father felt bad about turning a pregnant woman out, but it got so bad sometimes that my mother would convince him to until my brother and his girlfriend could work things out or just break up once and for all. Since then, they've "enjoyed" an on-and-off engagement, but have never been (and I hope never will be) married. After my nephew was born, they moved out and my brother got an apartment. (My parents had to clean up the trailer once after she was kicked out and again after they moved into the apartment, and each time several new things had been broken, split, or stained.) It didn't stop the fighting, or the partying. Both of them have issues with drugs and alcohol. They constantly call the police on one another, partly because she refuses to stop having drinking parties with her friends and breastfeeding the baby while she's drunk. In every instance, my brother was the one who was sent away or arrested--even when he, after coming home from work, had to try and disburse the remnants of a drinking party she was having in his own apartment (her name was not on the lease and only he paid for it because she didn't have a job) with his son sleeping in the next room. The police told him to leave and not come back until the next day.

Months after my nephew was born, the mother still wouldn't get a job (and still doesn't have one), yet wouldn't clean the apartment or fold or wash clothes, either. My brother was (and still is) essentially doing everything (she does take some care of the baby, though my brother would sometimes have to drive home from work just to change his diaper). And then they found out the place had mold, and the most dangerous concentration was in my nephew's room. For over half his life so far, he's had to live in a filthy environment and breathe in toxic compounds from the mold in addition to being breastfeed by a mother that smokes, drinks, and fights with his father. They moved out of that place as soon as possible, but they weren't the ones that cleaned it. My parents were. My brother put in an effort to help, but for the most part he was absent as well and one of his buddies helped out instead.

From there they spent a few weeks with my parents, and a few with hers. His fiance kicked him out within the first few days while they were living with her parents just so he would know she had the power now. Then they leased a house in a gated community from an elderly woman, where they now live with the woman's dog, their cat, and, of course, my nephew.

Just the other night, they went out to a bar with some friends. He didn't drink much because he had to drive them home, but his fiance got smashed and kept walking away with other men. Her parents were watching my nephew. My brother tried to get her to leave with him, but she refused. He went to pick up my nephew because her parents had only agreed to watch him for a certain amount of time. He came back to get her, but she still wouldn't leave. Instead, she took my nephew inside the bar and breastfed him while drunk. My brother called the police, but even after they arrived, they refused to do anything about it. My brother eventually got her into the car along with one of her friends he had to drive home (for obvious reasons). A fight erupted, his fiance got out of the car with the baby, and her friend punched my brother in the nose, breaking it. He got blood all over his shirt and new shoes and in his car. The cops arrested him and let him bleed some more in the back of their car before releasing him a few hours later. His fiance texted him saying he'll never see his son again and that they're over--but things like this have happened before, and they've exchanged the same words. One of my brother's phones (he had two) ended up smashed to bits that my dad went back and collected today.

She constantly threatens that he will never see his son again and verbally abuses my brother so that he's always thinking that everything bad that happens is his fault. She also accuses him of being abusive (she has hit him before and he grabbed her arm and made her sit down--in other words, it's always half-and-half). Whenever he calls the police, he's the one they arrest once they've run his name.

My brother is beginning to feel once more that everything was somehow his fault, which means the cycle is probably just about to repeat itself. My nephew is only seven months old right now, but he'll keep getting older, and he'll eventually come to understand the situation with increasing clarity. I want to do something to protect him from growing up in an environment that is both emotionally and physically detrimental before he gets hurt. (Right now he appears healthy and happy--he "talks" and laughs and smiles a lot and is an adorable little boy. I know my brother adores him, and I think his fiance does too, but they are unfit as parents.) My parents don't want to be "the bad guys," but I don't mind if it means helping my little nephew get the chance to be raised by a good family that will put him first rather than their own selfish whims.

I'm nineteen and in Washington right now, attending college, but this all taking place in California. I feel powerless because I have only heard about the overwhelming majority of these events (I have seen one fight and how dirty their apartment was, and am told the house they are leasing is in the same state of disorder and filth because she still won't clean or do much of anything, really). I'd gladly take care of him myself, but even if I would have to see him adopted by another family, it's better than where he is now. I've tried doing some research on my own, but all I've learned is that situations where a child is involved can be pretty sticky, and the first priority is, apparently, to keep the child with one or both of the biological parents (which probably means my brother's fiance would get him even though she's just as much a part of the problem on her own, if not a bigger part). Is there anything I can do? I don't even know where to start.
 
If you filed for custody, it would be very hard for you to have a chance of winning at all. If you are that concerned about the child, and it sounds like with good reason, I think the first step would be to make a complaint with CPS in the jurisdiction where they live. If CPS substantiates what you are saying to be true and they decide to remove the child from the home, I am pretty sure you could then look into adoption.
 
Whenever CPS/DHS become involved, the ultimate goal whenever possible is reunification with one or both parents. Only if this is unfeasible does placement elsewhere become a realistic possibility and in order for this to happen, BOTH parents would need to be declared legally unfit as parents.

You've said yourself that you don't actually know much of what's going on (if only because you're not there). But if you're hearing of neglect and abuse, why haven't you already gotten CPS involved?

(yes, that will become an issue if it turns out that there is neglect and you knew about it but didn't act)
 
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