Hello:
My problem is complex and daunting.
Back in September, I moved from an abusive living situation to a battered women‘s shelter. I was there for three months. I sent my children to stay with their father and his relatives so that they would have some semblance of normal living while I got back on my feet. This month, I moved into a rental house. My son came willingly. My daughter, 14, refuses to move in with me.
Here‘s the trouble with the move. Her dad tries to treat her like an adult, complete with giving inappropriate details of his sex life and letting her boyfriend sleep over. He holds her accountable for nothing and in terms of freedoms, gives her nearly anything she wants. As a result, she is failing high school after only her first semester, she has had enough absences from school this semester that she could be counted truant if the school decided to push it...and today we found out that she‘s pregnant. She took off with some of her friends to a neighboring town, didn‘t tell anyone, just sent a text message saying she‘d be back and giving the news. I called the police and she did come back and we did manage to have a good conversation about the whole thing except...
Custody. Her dad filed for custody of her this month, allegedly at he insistence. Not while I was in the shelter, when he could have had a strong case, but as soon as I was out and wanting her to come back home. I don‘t think, given all this information, that any sane judge would grant him custody now, but it‘s a fight we don‘t need. That kind of stress isn‘t good for a kid in normal health, let alone a pregnant teen.
To add one more twist, my daughter has epilepsy. This means that her baby is at higher risk for certain birth defects, suxch as cleft palate or spina bifida, and that she is at higher risk for complications or for a miscarriage. She‘s adamant about keeping the baby but I know she isn‘t mature enough to understand the magnitude of what she‘s undertaking...not to mention, she‘s too young to get a job, at least in our hometown, and I can‘t afford another child, what with my oldest graduating high school this year and already in college half-time. I want to at least inform her of her options re adoption, but she won‘t hear of it, and I don‘t know how to approach it without it sounding like I‘m trying to force her. In the end, her decisions are hers to make legally, and I recognize that, but she needs guidance and her father is nothing but oppositional to anything I have to say, plus he refuses to take any responsibility for his role in any of the circumstances leading up to this catastrophe.
I‘m trying to get the three of us -- her, the ex, and myself --into a counselor to discuss this and maybe at least get him to desist with the custody order (that I had to go online to even know about), but in the meantime, I need all the advice I can get. I know I should have made her come to the shelter with me. I made a bad decision with the best of intentions. I know I am far from being a perfect parent and I know I have failed her up to now. I need help with what I should do next to keep from failing her -- and my grandbaby -- again.
Thanks.
~SadmominNM