I know that alot of kids have it alot worse, but I have decided I cannot be part of a family that treats children this way and not do anything about it. Let me back up.
the Ex has put the final nail in her coffin for me (this is me being Halloweenie). Last weekend was our scheduled visitation but she decided that she would take them to her parents house instead, who live 2.5 hours away from us. King, being the nonconfrontational, not wanting to ruffle the Ex’s feathers, person he is told her that was fine. Fast forward to this weekend, the kids miss their dad. Of course. They guilt him into picking them up for the day on Sunday. So off he goes to pick them up. When he has been gone for about 3 hours (Ex lives about 1 hour away), I call him to find out what’s the hold up. Apparently Ex dropped the SD’s off AGAIN with her parents. On her weekend. Which is where they were the weekend before we had them last. This means that Ex has not spent a weekend with her kids in at least 6 weeks (which is when I started counting).
On top of that, the kids keep having lice outbreaks. I understand those suckers are hard to get rid of, but not only will she pretend to not notice that they have it and continue to send them to school, when she finally does treat it, she doesn’t do it properly (i.e., wash all the bedding and clothing in hot water, pick out the nits, bag up all the stuffed animals and pillows), so it keeps coming back over and over. I had lice once when I was about 6. My mother was mortified and would spend hours upon hours combing through my hair making sure I was cleared.
On top of this, SD9 told King that she feels “neglected” by Ex and that her maternal grandmother and nanny agrees with her. That Ex comes home from work late (she’s a teacher) then drinks until she passes out.
To me it sounds like she doesn’t even want to be a mother and it breaks my heart. No child should ever feel unwanted by their parent. You would think it would be easy then to get custody since she doesn’t want them anyway, but she is a greedy one that would rather cut off her own arm then give up that hefty child support check.
The only way we can get custody of these kids would be if they decided to come live with us. I don’t want to split up the sisters and one of them is basically already on board. SD11 is very loyal to her mother though. Would it be terrible of me to start planting seeds in their heads (I wish you guys lived with us all the time; It would be cool if you were here enough to play sports on a team, etc)? Or if maybe their is another tactic we should utilize? I already know that this isn’t enough to get a court to turn over custody.
I know that this is the ultimate definition of PAS’ing but I really do believe they would be better off with us. I don’t want them to hate their mother or anything, but I really think that she is not being the best mother she can be and needs help (she is manic depressive and has bi-polar disorder). And before you think that us taking away her children would send her down a spiral, keep in mind last school year she lived with her parents during the summer and enrolled her kids in a school in their district, then got a job (and an apartment) an hour away and left her kids to live with their grandparents for the entire school year.
I know I have had my issues with them, but it seems to me the root of the problem is that these kids have never been properly disciplined. They have no structure. They live during the week primarily with a nanny, then get bounced from fun daddy weekends to spoiled grandparent weekends. What would you do in this sitch?
Help.
The Stepmonster 
I am right there with you! It is so painful to witness children (who we are told to care about) being poorly treated by a parent. It puts as us stepparents in a “no-win” situation. You see the pain in the children, yet do not want to speak poorly about the parent, etc. My husband and iare currently in a situation in which the children’s Mom has decided she can not “do” homework and everything in the evening, so she is hiring help. Sigh.
Obviously… she is neglecting the kids.
You can have that proven by getting testimony from the school (lice in hair is unsanitary).
Explain to the girls its just a temporary thing, until their mother is on her feet again.
Truth is you may have evidence of her being unfit.
Please be careful what you wish for. My DH’s children were in a similar situation; only the neglect seemed far worse (I don’t know the extent of your sitch). Their mother allowed them to stay up until they fell asleep (where ever that might be – on the couch, the floor, etc, on school nights at 3 am), their house was filthy (dog feces on the floor never cleaned up). How do I know this? When their mother unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack at 40, I helped to pack the children’s belongings when they came to live with their father and me. It was awful!!! Their Dad and I had often said we felt they weren’t being parented the way we felt they should be, but we only had them EOW.
However, the children were 15, 13 and 9 when she passed and it has been nothing short of hell on wheels. The oldest 2 decided after a year and a half that they had to live with their maternal grandmother or kill themselves (literally) because our house was too “restrictive” with “too many rules”. Even the youngest, who came to use at 9, struggles daily with the structure and rules of our home. Compared to my DD who is only one year older than that, she struggles greatly.
I know you are concerned about the children, but I at one time wished for DH’s children to live with us, so that we could better care for them. Our better care didn’t help. A child’s formative years are their early years and sometimes all the good care, structure, etc, can’t combat what they have already learned.
I know I’m coming to the post late, but my message is the same – if you think a change in custody is needed, do not delay in your attempt.
My 3 step-kids are currently 15, 13 and 11 – we received custody when they were 11, 9 and 7. The kids did NOT want to come live with us – none of them – their mom had filled their heads with all sorts of PAS ideas. For those who received custody of kids in later years, the harder it is for the kids to accept the change.
It wasn’t an easy decision for their dad and I to go after custody – it cost us over $10,000 and would have cost more if our circumstances hadn’t been what they were. My DH wasn’t sure he wanted to put the kids through the stress of a custody case – and my response was always the same – “Are you happy with how they are living now? Do you think it could be better with us? Then don’t you think it would be better for them to be mad at you now, as children/teenagers when most kids hate their parents anyway – or would you rather they hate you as an adult when they’re looking back at their lives and asking why didn’t you do anything to help us?”
When we told the kids that we wanted them to live with us, we said the following: “We disagree with how your mom is living. We would rather you live with us. Your mom and dad are not agreeing on where you should live, so we are asking the courts to look at both homes and make a decision. If the courts agree with your mom, we’ll not argue and we’ll be okay with it. However, we think you would be better living here, so we’re asking the courts to look at this.” 4 almost 5 years later, the kids have adjusted, they’re happy (as happy as they can be with their parents divorced and court ordered to live with one parent over another), and they’re in a stable house with a stable childhood.
Again I say – if you husband and you believe a change in custody is needed, please do not NOT try just because you think it won’t happen. More and more fathers are receiving custody every day.