15 year old cousin ran away to my place amidst family drama... what NOW???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP. your cousin is so incredibly blessed to have you in her life! You seem very caring, kind, and wise.

+1000. You rock op! It's people like you who save life's. Well done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 23 years old, no kids yet but a lurker on DCUM because my fiance and I intend to try to have kids soon after our wedding, which is also soon, and I want to know roughly what I'm in for.

DONT DO IT

Yeah. We both love kids, but this incident is giving me plenty of reasons to reconsider whether I'm ready to raise a child. I have spent most of the past day feeling totally in over my head and needing advice from (very kind and helpful!) strangers on a message board, while wanting to call my mother. Not the most promising signs.

Few of us begin our parenting journey with a traumatized 15 year old. Usually you work your way up to that. You are already learning what NOT to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she could be legally emancipated from her parents.

If another family member would put her up for a few years, it's just a little while until she is legally an adult.

We're likely going to look into some sort of legal guardianship.

The problem I can see is that it's not really a viable option to have a relative move into the same school district she attends now.

Parents with kids in high school or older: How disruptive would it be for a junior to switch schools?

In order to keep her at her current school, the only options I can think of involve a friend's family (I don't think it's reasonable to ask someone who isn't family to take in a teen for 3 years though) or foster care in her county (that sounds like a last resort to me... the overwhelmed system serves tons of kids in awful situations with no relatives as options and I don't want cousin to feel abandoned).

Our aunt had two young kids, one with serious health issues, and lives close to the hospital his doctors work at. Moving is not much of an option and probably neither is taking my cousin in long term if she has other choices.

My mom could take her in if cousin moves here, but her company's offices are not at all close to cousin's current home district.

My fiance had I had a long chat over Skype this morning, and while neither of us is convinced we're ready to raise a teen, we have agreed that being here for my cousin is very important and if my entire family, including my cousin, thinks I'm the best choice for her to live with, we're willing to figure out how to make it work since I know I'll have family support from my mother. He lost a (distant) cousin to suicide because of bullying over sexual orientation, so this hits close to home for both of us and we're willing to do whatever is best for my cousin.

Nothing is even close to being decided yet, but I'm starting to consider the options.

[Anonymous]

Correction to 1435: Our aunt HAS, as in currently, 2 young kids. Sorry for the typo... posting from mobile while I try to distract my cousin with fun vacation sorts of things to do, in order to get her mind off this for a while.

[Anonymous]

fwiw - I moved schools at 14 by choice (10th grade) and it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I felt like I finally found friends who understood me. Being the new kid isn't always easy, but it's not always the worst thing either.

You are a wonderful person for taking such good care of your cousin in this crisis and even if she doesn't end up living with you at least she will always know that she had a safe place to go when she needed it.

[Anonymous]

Moving schools is tough but I bet your cousin would do it if it meant not moving back home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 23 years old, no kids yet but a lurker on DCUM because my fiance and I intend to try to have kids soon after our wedding, which is also soon, and I want to know roughly what I'm in for.

DONT DO IT

Yeah. We both love kids, but this incident is giving me plenty of reasons to reconsider whether I'm ready to raise a child. I have spent most of the past day feeling totally in over my head and needing advice from (very kind and helpful!) strangers on a message board, while wanting to call my mother. Not the most promising signs.

OP, please, please, please don't feel discouraged by this. What you're going through right now would challenge the most experienced parent, and it sounds like you're handling it incredibly well. I've been a parent for many years now, but if I had a niece or nephew turn up on my doorstep night with a situation like this, I wouldn't know exactly what to do off the top of my head, I'd be asking for advice too. Because you're only 23 I'm going to tell you to go ahead and take some extra time before having kids because you can the freedom to do that, but please don't think you are somehow less competent to be a parent because you're not breezing through this without missing a beat. None of us would, and it's a credit to you that you're willing to ask for help and guidance rather than assuming you know it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moving schools is tough but I bet your cousin would do it if it meant not moving back home.

+1

[Anonymous]

The key thing is how/ whether you can gain full custody.

If not, chances are you're getting into a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Moving schools is probably one of the LEAST difficult things your cousin is dealing with right now. Sure, it will be a last minute scramble, but getting out of a physically abusive home (I don't care if you're opposed to spanking or think it's great discipline - beating a child with a special wooden spoon is abusive), negotiating her sexual identity, and facing adulthood a lot sooner than she was planning are much bigger deals.

I also agree with the poster who suggested not to let this experience sway your desire to have kids. You start with a tiny baby and work your way up to teenage sexual identity.

Also, I wanted to say that this is something that my family went through as well, though not with a relative. My mom has ALWAYS been the parent who me and my siblings' friends came to in times of crisis. Her rule was that she would never call their parents and tell on them, but if they wanted to stay in our house more than a couple hours, they had to call their parents and let them know where they were. One of my sister's friend's father responded to Friend's sexuality in the same way as your aunt, and Friend ended up living with my mom for several years. Friend is now fairly stable and well adjusted and credits having a safe place to run to when she was in crisis as why she didn't kill herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 23 years old, no kids yet but a lurker on DCUM because my fiance and I intend to try to have kids soon after our wedding, which is also soon, and I want to know roughly what I'm in for.

DONT DO IT

Yeah. We both love kids, but this incident is giving me plenty of reasons to reconsider whether I'm ready to raise a child. I have spent most of the past day feeling totally in over my head and needing advice from (very kind and helpful!) strangers on a message board, while wanting to call my mother. Not the most promising signs.

OP the way you're handling this situation is proof you're more than ready to have a child. This is all parenting is - making it work and taking care of your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm 23 years old, no kids yet but a lurker on DCUM because my fiance and I intend to try to have kids soon after our wedding, which is also soon, and I want to know roughly what I'm in for.

DONT DO IT

Yeah. We both love kids, but this incident is giving me plenty of reasons to reconsider whether I'm ready to raise a child. I have spent most of the past day feeling totally in over my head and needing advice from (very kind and helpful!) strangers on a message board, while wanting to call my mother. Not the most promising signs.

Lots of 30+ parents are here doing the same!

It sounds like you're doing a great job. I'm so sorry your aunt and uncle are such terrible people. Your poor cousin. Wishing you the best, OP.

+1

you're doing great OP. and you started "parenting" by diving right into the deep end with a traumatized teenager with emotionally abusive parents. Not that parenting is really easy starting with labor and poopy diapers. But it is a different kind of crazy. Now you know why we end up consulting strangers on the internet and calling our moms a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moving schools is probably one of the LEAST difficult things your cousin is dealing with right now. Sure, it will be a last minute scramble, but getting out of a physically abusive home (I don't care if you're opposed to spanking or think it's great discipline - beating a child with a special wooden spoon is abusive), negotiating her sexual identity, and facing adulthood a lot sooner than she was planning are much bigger deals.

I also agree with the poster who suggested not to let this experience sway your desire to have kids. You start with a tiny baby and work your way up to teenage sexual identity.

Also, I wanted to say that this is something that my family went through as well, though not with a relative. My mom has ALWAYS been the parent who me and my siblings' friends came to in times of crisis. Her rule was that she would never call their parents and tell on them, but if they wanted to stay in our house more than a couple hours, they had to call their parents and let them know where they were. One of my sister's friend's father responded to Friend's sexuality in the same way as your aunt, and Friend ended up living with my mom for several years. Friend is now fairly stable and well adjusted and credits having a safe place to run to when she was in crisis as why she didn't kill herself.

OP here again. Oh no! I'm completely ant-spanking. Please don't think I support my aunt and uncle's "discipline" method... I think it's disgusting and agree that it's abuse, but unfortunately CPS in cousin's home state/county at the time did not, so there was nothing my mom could do about that other than not allow any "spankings"/beatings of anyone in HER house (she tried; I heard her call and report it but nothing came of that). I wasn't trying to excuse it; sorry if my post came across that way.

Thank you so much for sharing your/your friend's story. That gives me hope that things might turn out alright for my cousin despite this mess as long as the rest of the family finds a way to help & protect her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moving schools is probably one of the LEAST difficult things your cousin is dealing with right now. Sure, it will be a last minute scramble, but getting out of a physically abusive home (I don't care if you're opposed to spanking or think it's great discipline - beating a child with a special wooden spoon is abusive), negotiating her sexual identity, and facing adulthood a lot sooner than she was planning are much bigger deals.

I also agree with the poster who suggested not to let this experience sway your desire to have kids. You start with a tiny baby and work your way up to teenage sexual identity.

Also, I wanted to say that this is something that my family went through as well, though not with a relative. My mom has ALWAYS been the parent who me and my siblings' friends came to in times of crisis. Her rule was that she would never call their parents and tell on them, but if they wanted to stay in our house more than a couple hours, they had to call their parents and let them know where they were. One of my sister's friend's father responded to Friend's sexuality in the same way as your aunt, and Friend ended up living with my mom for several years. Friend is now fairly stable and well adjusted and credits having a safe place to run to when she was in crisis as why she didn't kill herself.

OP here again. Oh no! I'm completely ant-spanking. Please don't think I support my aunt and uncle's "discipline" method... I think it's disgusting and agree that it's abuse, but unfortunately CPS in cousin's home state/county at the time did not, so there was nothing my mom could do about that other than not allow any "spankings"/beatings of anyone in HER house (she tried; I heard her call and report it but nothing came of that). I wasn't trying to excuse it; sorry if my post came across that way.

Thank you so much for sharing your/your friend's story. That gives me hope that things might turn out alright for my cousin despite this mess as long as the rest of the family finds a way to help & protect her.

Your post didn't, but there are people on this site who probably would not agree that what you've described is inappropriate. It is one of the topics of The Mommy Wars.

One other thought - if you live in DC, there are a lot of organizations that might be useful to your cousin. A list is here: http://www.thedccenter.org/groups_topic.php?x=Youth

[Anonymous]

Another vote to save the threatening emails/calls. A lawyer might want them later to help.