Any suggestions for talking an idiot into giving up her baby for adoption?

The BBQ Pit
1

So, my best friend the stupid genius slacker gay truckdriver has a kid sister that I just absolutely cannot stand. Neither can he. The girl is a total oxygen thief who if there is a divine plan exists because somebody somewhere someday is going to need one of her kidneys. Where do I start?

Okay, it’s a dysfunctional background: bitter divorce, deadbeat dad, public assistance, mom with emotional issues and no self esteem, etc. etc., but she plays it like a cheap fiddle to guilt her mom into sending her money (that the mother absolutely cannot afford) years after leaving her house. The sister (I’ll call her Dinah, because her real name is from Genesis also and Lord knows she’s blown enough horns) is about 24, never finished high school, is always embarking on pipe dreams.

Some back stories on Dinah: when her mother got a totally unexpected $10,000 lawsuit settlement she conned the weak willed guiltsoaked woman into spending $2000 of it to send Dinah to “modelling school”. Dinah’s not ugly, but she sure ain’t model material- she’s short and chubby and tattooed and stupid and Panama City Beach isn’t exactly the place most people choose to do their runway training. Another time Dinah spent hundreds of dollars buying food from McDonald’s she didn’t want and didn’t eat so that she could play their Monopoly game because “I only need Pacific Ave. [or whatever] and I’ll have a million dollars!”, honestly too dim to realize that Pacific Ave. was the only piece everybody needed. Yet, dim and ignorant as Dinah is, she suffers from a severe self esteem problem- she’s got waaaaay too much of it. Dinah thinks Dinah is brilliant.

Anyway, Dinah has a track record for men that makes me wish I was one of those straight people who knew about sports so I could make an analogy to a team that always loses. When she was 12 she became involved with “Ray”, a really cute user who was gay-for-pay but, as she insisted loudly, “you’re not gay if you only do it for money!”. The next year she ran away from home and moved in with Ray. Her mother, a broken woman, just wrung her hands and did the “Oh to what unplumbed depths of woe have I yet to descend!” last act of the Hee-Haw Honeys Dinner Theater production of Phaedre, telling all that “what can I do if my 13 year old wants to shack up with a 20 year old male hustler who’s on parole?” The answer “Call his probation officer” landed on deaf ears, but eventually as young love will the relationship dried up and she was back at home.

Ray was far from the worst. There was the one who moved into the small apartment she shared with her mother, hocked her brother’s gaming systems while living in the house with them to buy drugs, and finally left after stealing her mom’s ATM card, cleaning out their account, stealing Dinah’s clothes (she’d planned to elope with him and gave him her bags) and even when he was caught Dinah convinced her mother not to press charges. And there was the drug dealer who had to flee the state because he cheated some guy out of several thousand dollars in a pot deal, and that’s how she ended up in Buffalo, NY or some such place where he had relatives, which she described as “Finally! A place where people are cultured and enlightened!” (not that the little Springer Princess would know culture if it bit her on one of her misspelled tattoos). She got pregnant by that one when she was about 19, had a miscarriage, and left when he turned abusive and drifted through the midwest for a while to various relatives, accumulating more cats, nametag jobs, and deadbeat boyfriends with records along the way. At one point her mother, who was living at around the poverty level at the time, got several months behind in her rent because she was having to send Dinah money for food, clothes, and eventually an abortion. Dinah’s mom is adamantly opposed to abortion, but was convinced it was the best thing since her daughter was essentially homeless and totally broke at the time and so was the rest of the family, and Dinah’s mom herself spent time in a home for unwed mother’s when a rape left her pregnant at about 16 (which is a whole other drama- the son was given up for adoption, grew up to be a wildly psycho freak, and came back to bio-Mom, which wasn’t a happy story.

This family almost reminds me of those blood soaked little patches that Elizabethan era nobles used to wear under their clothing to attract all the fleas and ticks from their furs and clothes to one place on their body. They exist so they can keep dysfunctions away from others. I don’t feel as sorry for them as I probably should because they bring so damned many of their problems on themselves in the most straight-line flow charts you can imagine, but that’s another story. Let’s return to Dinah and her disasters.

Finally she wound up back in Alabama. Her mother was living with my friend (her son) in Atlanta by this time, as eventually was my friend’s kid brother, three of them in an efficiency apartment (a violation of the lease and of an Atlanta ordinance, but that’s another story). Dinah found work in minimum wage jobs, lived with her estranged father until he left their apartment to move in with his latest wife, whereupon she ran into an old friend and became roommates. The old friend was “Ray”, the former hustler, now the father of two children by two ex-wives who had been crashing on relatives sofas because child support took all of his own minimum wage earnings.

The totally platonic roommate relationship resulted in her third (3rd) unplanned pregnancy in as many years. When asked why she didn’t use birth control she gave more excuses than an Ex-Gay Preacher in a Rest Area Raid: “I’m allergic to latex” “He can’t hold an erection in a condom” “Birth control’s too expensive” “I don’t have a way to get to the free clinic” “You have to wait in line and people look at you snooty” “I never finished high school, how am I supposed to know these things?” etc etc etc. More money her mom can’t afford, but this time she ‘miscarries’. (Later it was learned that the ‘miscarriage’ was medically induced, but she doesn’t count that as an abortion because it was ‘natural’; whatever.)

That was almost a year ago. Have I mentioned that Dinah has four cats that live with her, none of them spayed or neutered or vaccinated or reported on the lease? Anyway, things weren’t working out with the platonic roommate she was having sex with, so she was first hinting and later outright stating that she wanted to come to Atlanta, especially with my friend the gay slacker genius truckdriver (and the one member of the family who wasn’t fed after midnight- he has his own irritations [the fact that he’s brilliant but too busy chasing asinine Kramden like get rich quick schemes of his own to go to college being a big one and the fact he WILL NOT listen to sound advice- “Baby don’t buy that car it’s a lemon…okay, you bought that car, but don’t settle for liability insurance you’re gonna nee… okay, car’s gone, you’ve got no transport, but don’t move in with that drugged up hippie witchcraft priestess who… what’s that? You’re living with her? Didn’t turn out well? Okay, learn from your mistakes, but don’t move to Atlanta with no money and no degree because… so how you likin’ Peachtree? Don’t touch that burning stove babe… no, I mean it, don’t touch that hot stove because… I’ll get the bandages…”]\

Sorry, blown off course. The Japans by the looks of 'em… wait, no that’s Milwaukee. Anyway…

She announced she was coming to Atlanta, with her cats, to live in the furniture free shoebox efficiency with her mom and brother and occasionally her other brother. No amount of persuasion from my friend could convince their mother not to let her baby move in with them AND BRING THE CATS, none of them having the money for pet fees but all (save for my friend) somehow thinking that nobody would notice that there were 3 humans and 4 cats in an efficiency apartment meant for two people and one pet max. My friend resigned himself to it and just endeavored to stay in his truck as many nights of the year as possible (and will not listen to my pleas to have his name taken off the apartment).

Anyway, Christmas, by which time she had not yet moved to Atlanta but was still planning to, she announced she’s pregnant by her platonic roommate again. That, if you’re counting, is her fourth— 4TH---- unplanned pregnancy, which I think by this time counts as planned. Oh, and her platonic roommate former boy-ho drugdealer baby daddy has decided to go back to one of his ex-wives who lives in West Virginia. And one of the cats is pregnant. And she’s broke and behind on the rent (though she has broadband Internet and digital cable) and has no car (her roommate’s taking it) or health insurance. And when tearfully telling how she’s pregnant she asked “Why do these things always happen to me?”

Well let’s see… when the drugdealing Boy Ho’s hoo-hoo gets hard and he puts it into the dumbass whitetrash tattooed ex-non-model’s hah-hah-hole without a condom, and when the moon is transiting Jupiter and your dumb ass is not using birth control, then magic happens.

REST OF THE STORY in a moment

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I know you’re not done, but I have to leave the house for work, so I’ll have to catch the rest when I get home.

Other than that…all I can give you is a good old-fashioned, “Oy vey”.

(I know the location says Dallas, but I was raised on the North side of Chicago!)

3

So Dinah now believes that abortion is murder. One reason she believes this is that a Christian counselling center gave her a brochure saying that brain waves and thus self awareness start the first month of a fetus’s life. When her brother told their mother (who’s relaying this to him) that this is bullshit, even at the beginning of the second trimester there is no evidence that a fetus is self aware, and that brain waves alone don’t mean it either, and he might as well be explaining the finer points of Charlemagne’s legal system to a Doberman because his mother says emphatically “It’s not a lie! It says the same thing right here in this pamphlet they give her!” They also gave her, as she was leaving, a pair of baby booties and told her to remember that what was inside her would one day fit inside those.

Alright, while I am not morally opposed to first trimester abortions (I find them icky as a means of birth control, especially the second or third time they’re used) I can honestly understand why some people have extreme ethical issues with them. I really can. Nobody should be forced to have one. But the flat out lies and emotional blackmail the “counselling” center was using… AAAAAAAAAGGGGG!

But anyway, she decided she absolutely couldn not would not have another abortion. And, by the way, she’s still coming to Atlanta, to live in the efficiency with two adults, four cats, a litter of kittens, eventually a newborn and whatever assortment of lice and hitchhikers and homeless Korean war vets she picked up on the way. And still no health insurance and no money in the bank and the rent in arrears. On the bright side, baby daddy boy ho said “I support your decision whatever you plan to do”, but of course he supports it from West Virginia, where even in the highly unlikely event he had the money for child support it would cost more in the legal actions to make him pay than it would recoup.

My friend says his family now makes him hear Cartman from the COPS episode of SOUTH PARK: “Poor people tend to live in clusters.” But he finally put his foot down on the Atlanta thing, using his one trump card: the lease is in his name alone, it is up for renewal at the end of this month, and nobody else in the family can qualify for the credit check to take over the place, so he basically told them “If she moves to Atlanta it won’t be to that place”, because he certainly can’t afford thousands of dollars for cat’s vaccinations and pet fees and more importantly "I know damned well that she’d live there, she’d have the baby, then when it was two minutes old she’d con mom into selling a kidney so that ‘I can take this course in Cosmetology Appreciation I read about in Fort Ketchikan Alaska and then I’ll be able to support little Britney Kevina Dakota’ and that’s the last you hear of her until the kid’s 12 and his mom, who is 55 and has health problems and no money or retirement, would be stuck to raise the kid. So exactly what’s going to happen there is all up in the air.

But Dinah swears she’s going to keep the baby. No ifs ands or buts.

So, my friend is asking my advice on a campaign to convince her give the baby up for adoption. He’s tried telling her, directly and indirectly, “Dinah, there are adoption agencies where you can meet the prospective parents, make sure they’re good people. Anybody who qualifies to adopt your unholy will have medical insurance, money in the bank, a good home, two parents to love it. Hell, Atlanta has gay male couples who’d probably pay all of your medical expenses, give you a place to live, pay for your education and even let you have some form of relationship with the kid. If you keep this child you’re going to have to go on public assistance. It’s going to grow up in the slums of whatever town you live in. It’s going to have to go to the worst schools in the city. There is no way on Earth you will be able to go to college or get any type of skills because you won’t even be able to afford day care for the kid. You’ll end up resenting the hell out of it (in the unlikely event you stick around to raise it). It’s not a toy, it’s not a stray cat, it’s a human being that will be what you make it, and without education and without money and without the sense God gave a lobotomized wolverine and without even a fcking car or fcking health insurance or f*cking friends to babysit it what type of life is it going to have? Mom is getting older, she needs every penny she can get her hands on if she’s ever going to be able to retire, you don’t have a co-parent to help shoulder the load emotionally, physically, financially or in any other way, and if you absolutely have to give birth to this baby there are parents out there who have all these things and will love it to pieces besides. Don’t be a selfish bitch, give the kid a chance.”

He said it in nicer terms than that, but it’s still a no-go. “I don’t want strangers raising my baby.”

So he’s asked my help (I’ve told this story with his permission) in getting any suggestions for anything you can possibly say or do to convince a stupid 24 year old that she can’t raise a kid when she’s never once even been able to take care of herself. ANYBODY?

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Of course his other fear is that she’d be that type of LIFETIME parent who’d give the kid up for adoption, then when it’s seven and has never known any parents but the adoptive ones she’d turn back up and sue for custody and even though she’s living in an overturned van under the freeway with Squeaky Fromme, Danny Bonaduce, three prairie dogs and a Guatemalan streetwalker, she’d win.

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I’m waiting!!

::pets spayed and vaccinated cat while waiting::

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Moving thread from IMHO to The BBQ Pit.

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Cool. That means, if I’m not mistaken, that I’m free to I mention what a FUCKING DUMBASS SLEAZOID SHIT-FOR-BRAINS SELF-ABSORBED CUM-GARGLING PIECE OF HUTT-SMEGMA OULIPHANT-VART BITCH, SLUT, AND ASSORTED WHORE-PARTS BIMBO LOSER FUCKING CUNT that, imo, she is, without getting in trouble. (I’ve known this girl since she was about 14 or 15 and counting in her dysfunctional childhood and youth and all other factors I still loathed her from the first meating. It’s such a shame they can’t keep the baby and abort her.)

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:dubious:

I thought you were gay.

And had much better taste.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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Well if it wasn’t for the fact that getting the government involved would probably result in the kid getting raised in some foster home where the mom is an alcoholic drug-addict and the dad is an incestuous “opportunity-rapist” of children that’d be an option.

This is one of those “if I were in charge” situations.

If I were in charge I’d have her baby seized and taken from her at birth, and then I’d inform her than any legal rights she had in regards to the baby no longer existed. Then I’d send her off to the gulags (if I were in charge I’d need many for certain purposes) for 50 years hard labor simply because I find her existence offensive to me and I’d rather she not be free in the society in which I live.

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Damned depressing story, when you really think about it… But I enjoyed the amusing way you wrote it up. The bit about Danny Bonaduce and the overturned van made me chuckle out loud.

I wish I could help you with the actual question. As I said, the whole situation sounds a good deal less than promising. She doesn’t sound like the type to listen to reason; nor like the type who even has a better side you could appeal to. Maybe we can find some sort of Lifetime movie with a heroic birth-mother-who gives-up-her-baby-for-its-own-good to show her and she’ll want to model herself after it? Probably not, though…

How’s this – stop pussyfooting around trying to ‘put it in nicer terms’ and just lay it right out. Be sure to include the ‘heroic’ thing, just in case that resonates with her: “If you really loved this baby, you selfish, short-sighted girl, you’d want it to have a better life than you’ve had. Instead you’re setting it up to have a worse life. How is that love? You can’t even take proper care of these cats and you think you’re capable of raising a child? You’re not. There are dozens and dozens of couples in this state who could do a wonderful job of loving and raising your baby – and they wouldn’t be ‘strangers,’ they’d be the baby’s parents. You can choose the couple yourself and you’ll be a hero to them and to me and your brother – and, one day, to the baby. Giving the baby up is the selfless, loving thing to do. If you keep it you’ll be doing that for yourself, out of selfishness, not love.”

It’s worth a try, anyway. And, if it doesn’t work, at least you’ll have the satisfaction of telling her the unvarnished truth.

11

There’s an old saying that you can’t reason a person out of a position that they did not reason themselves into. It’s true, so you’re pretty much out of luck.

12

Sampiro, you’re like a magnet for um, uh, “characters.”

Good luck. Any way you can have her declared an unfit mother?

13

I hate to tell you this, but from the sounds of her, God Himself could tell her she’s making a mistake and she’d still do it.

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Why? I mean she is, but he didn’t say she abused drugs or alcohol herself, or that she herself was involved in criminal activity.

Last I heard, stupidity wasn’t a reason to take a child away. Neither was poverty. And if lack of “common” sense was, we’d have to reopen children’s homes to warehouse all the children.

I don’t think you can or should talk her into adoption. It is the best thing for the baby, but she needs to decide that. Putting a child up for adoption under pressure from others will make her regret it forever. It will also make it likely that if she does end up living in that overturned van, she will have a case to get the child back. And as much as its the best thing for baby, I’d hate to be the 18 year old on THAT birthmother search. Plus, it doesn’t sound like Mom will be real supportive of the adoption plan either. The girl gets her amazing lack of contact with reality from somewhere. And I suspect Mom will be less “stuck” than the enabling partner in this farce than you describe. “Oh, don’t worry Dinah, I’ll be right here for you, of course little Brityney can stay here while you take your Cosmotology Appreciation Course. And if you find another boy-ho to shack up with, go ahead and leave little Brityney with me until you are ready. We will find some way to make it all work out.”

15

Wow finally a Sampiro story I can relate to. Reminiscent of what my family’s going through right now, only not as “glamorous”. That might not seem the right word…but we’re just boring, Jesus-lovin midwesterners. And there’s no gay truck drivers involved.

Anyhoo…on TV people are always paying pregnant women lots of $$ to have adoption rights. The interested couple pays for medical treatment, food, an apartment, etc. And I dunno maybe some cash for new clothes?

Of course, I am not sure if this happens in real life. And usually someone ends up getting killed. Those are the kinds of shows I watch.

But if it DOES happen in real life - can she be talked down that road? She gets money, she gets to not have an abortion. Sounds downright tasty for a selfish bitch!

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Any kittie pics?

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:eek: yeeks

It’s like Paul Harvey on brown acid.

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Perhaps the only aspect of this OP which seems to have any resonance for me is Sampiro’s friend, the brother of the messed up girl. The messed up girl herself is arguably the modern poster child for “self destructive co-dependancy”.

If I were the brother, basically the only thing I’d be thinking is this… “Sometimes you gotta look after yourself coz no-one else will. You can’t rescue people in life. Sometimes people just wanna be self destructive. That’s a burden I just don’t need, nor do I deserve. My sister ain’t welcome… I’m moving on… from everyone…”

19

Get her lined up for welfare (are there minimum state residency requirements?), subsidized housing (are there long waits?), and birthing/parenting programs (is she drinking or on drugs?).

20

You know, a pregnant woman in a house full of cats is at risk for toxoplasmosis.

I’m just saying.