Girls's dilemma: Stay with horrid mother for beloved brother's sake, or get outta Dodge for her own?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Obviously another hypothetical. Today’s story, set in Memphis, stars Jessica. She’s 18, bright, beautiful, and charming, deserving of all the good things life has to offer. Unfortunately, the RhymerVerse God is a a perfect shit, so life has pelted her with lemons.

Jessica lives with her younger brother, Christopher, and their mother, Michelle. Jessica’s father was a rolling stone. He abandoned the family when she was in diapers, leaving Michelle with black eyes to remember him by, and and Jessica with less than that. Persons with basic arithmetic skills may note that this means the kids are technically half-siblings, but neither of them would ever refer to the other that way. To Jessica, Chris is her brother, full stop. She loves him dearly; he loves her just as much. Either would say that the other is the best thing in their life.

That includes their mother, by the way. Michelle is … unpleasant. Her husband started arguing with his fists only after Jessica was born, and Michelle’s always blamed Jessica for his abandoning the family. Since then, she has had a string of other lovers, all of whom left eventually. She blames both kids for that – but mostly Jessica, whom she accused, at age 10, of trying to seduce Chris’s father when the latter tried to join her in the shower. Michelle has never hit either of her kids, but her tongue is a deadly weapon. Given any excuse, she will call Jessica an ugly whore, a filthy bitch, or something worse. If there’s no excuse, she’ll make one. If Jessica seems to have made a friend or (worse) a romantic interest, Michelle searches for a way to drive them away, and she always succeeds. On two occasions, Jessica’s teachers have tried to get social services involved, but nothing’s ever come of it; the social workers say that nothing Michelle does quite reaches the level of criminal activity, even though she seems to have made it her mission in life to break her daughter’s spirit. Sometimes Jessica thinks she is succeeding. She has to fight the impulse to call herself worthless when she fails in the tiniest way, and when someone expresses sexual interest in her, she wonders if she is the slut her mother claims she is.

Michelle is not quite as bad with Chris-- or, perhaps, she is bad in a different way. At 10 years old, Chris barely reads at a first-grade level now. It breaks Jessica’s heart to see him struggling, and she tries to help him whenever she can; she’s studied the subject and thinks he is dyslexic. But he’s never been diagnosed. His mother won’t allow him to be tested, despite prodding from his teachers and from his sister. Jessica doesn’t know if Michelle is in denial about Chris, wants him to fail, or simply doesn’t care. All she does know is that Michelle won’t get him professional help, and criticizes Jessica for trying to help him herself. Michelle even discourages him even from doing things he is obviously good at. “You’ll just get his hopes up for no good reason,” Michelle says; “Chris is what he is. He’s just slow. He’ll never be anything more, and the sooner we all accept that, the better.” Statements like this often leave Chris fighting back tears, but he can’t bring himself to speak ill of his mother to anyone but Jessica.

Jessica is about to graduate high school as valedictorian, and she aced her SATs. She’s won a full ride scholarship at at Stanford, covering tuition, room & board, & books. She’s been offered a less generous scholarship (tuition only) at the University of Memphis, which Michelle wants her to take instead. Jessica thinks this is because Michelle doesn’t want her out of her control; Michelle says that Jessica’s going away to school is abandoning the family, just as her father did. She wants Jessica to live at home and continue working to help support the family, as she has since middle school. If Jessica goes to Stanford – or even lives on the dorm at the U of M – Michelle will cut her off entirely. She will not be allowed to see or contact Chris in any way. When Jessica asks who will help Chris with his schoolwork in that case, Michelle replies that that is not Jessica’s problem. If Jessica leaves, she won’t see either of them again.

What should Jessica do, and why?

2

Jessica should go to Stanford and call CPS on her mother. While at Stanford she should study forensics and trace evidence so when she murders her mother, she won’t get caught.

3

Wow I was reading the OP and thinking there just wasn’t a good answer for Jessica but this… I like this!

4

She needs to go to Stanford. Chris needs to know that a good healthy future is possible, and even if crazy mom cuts off all contact with Jessica, Chris will know she’s out there and has hope that she’ll find a way to rescue him, which is way better than the certainty of both of them staying in hell.

5

Go to Stanford. Get out. It sucks, but it’s the only way - we are not responsible for our siblings, but if Jessica ever wants to help her brother, this is the only way she can do it.

6

I chose option one (Stanford, save herself), but option 3 (Stanford, help Chris better later) works, too.

7

It seems that having Jessica around has done nothing to improve Chris’ situation. If Jessica won’t step up and get Chris out of there she might as well go to Stanford. She’s not helping him by staying.

I know that we’re supposed to accept the rules of the hypothetical, but Michelle will not be able to keep Jessica from seeing Chris without locking him up. Locking him up would be enough to get CPS involved and remove Chris from Michelle’s care, so the threat of never seeing Chris again shouldn’t really be a factor in Jessica’s decision.

8

I voted for "take the Stanford scholarship. In four years she’ll be in a better position to help Chris". She has to get out of that house, to stay might destroy her, and this is an incredible opportunity she must seize. It will be terrible for Chris to lose her daily influence, but long-term this will be good for his sake as well as hers. Plus, it’s possible her mom is all talk and might relent on the ‘no visitation’ rule, and it’s also likely that Jessica will be able to sneak around her mom’s ultimatum and have limited contact with Chris (internet, phone, coming to his school, coming around if mom isn’t home…).

IMO “forgo college for the moment; move out & take Chris with her” is probably the best option for Chris, but not for Jessica. But anyway it’s not legally possible. No way could an 18-year-old sibling get custody of a 10-year-old, even if the mother was proven to be abusive to the point that child services would feel it best to remove Chris from her for good (and unfortunately, abuse and neglect has to be horribly severe and repeated for this to happen - not diagnosing your kid’s learning disability and saying mean things to him have no bearing on this. You have to be beating, raping, or starving your kids to even have the possibility of them being taken from you). Taking him from her mom’s care could land her in jail for kidnapping.

9

Voted for the top 3, Jessica needs to do what’s best for her.

Jessica could move out and take Chris but what’s the end result. Even if Michelle didn’t take legal action Jessica will have to struggle to support herself and her brother AND try to get an education.

Chris is 10 years old, even if Jessica absconds with him and Michelle raises no fuss, how is Jessica going to handle insurance and health care? Does she know where his birth certificate and social security car are located?

There are myriad obstacles for Jessica to clear and at some point, some one will notice that she’s not Chris’ legal guardian.

Jessica’s only recourse seems to be getting the law involved. Go to Stanford, take advantage of that opportunity, and try to help Chris through legal channels like CPS which she could work on via phone.

Curses, largely ninjaed by rhubarbarin

10

I just don’t know. If I was Jessica I’d probably take the U of M scholarship and stay on to try to be a positive influence on her brother, but that’s just me, and I’m not the best decision maker in the world.

There’s no way I’d leave my little brother alone in that situation though. And you know I live in Memphis. I KNOW CPS won’t do a darn thing unless there’s repeated physical abuse.

11

It’s sweet that you think that Shelby County CPS will do anything before bones get broken, dear.

(For those who don’t know, RGG and I are both from Memphis, which is located in Shelby County, and whose social services are…unimpressive.)

Chris is ten. When Jessica says, I am going to school a couple thousand miles away, leaving you alone with Mom even though she insists you’re retarded and beyond help, in hopes that I can come back in four years to help you get out too, he is going to hear Chris? Remember that night I was miserable because Mom had humiliated me in front of the one girl from school brave enough to come over to visit, and the girl told me she’d never come back, and you hugged me and told me Mom was wrong about me and I told you that I’d never abandon you? Well, I was lying. You’re not worth my time.

Which is not to say that she shouldn’t go to Stanford. I wasn’t kidding with my vote. I don’t know what Jessica should do any more than RGG; all the choices suck.

I also disagree about Chris being Jessica’s responsibility. He’s less her responsibility than he is their mother’s, but I think she should take him into account.

Well, it hasn’t cured Chris’s situation. That doesn’t mean he isn’t better off with her around that he would be without her.

Pointing that out does not violate the rules of the hypothetical. I didn’t write that Jessica would never see Chris again. I wrote that Michelle says she will not let Jessica see Chris, which is a horse of another hue. Note also that I never specified Michelle’s motivations (at least, I tried not to, and if I ever seemed to do so it was in error); I only wrote about what Jessica perceived her motivations to be.

I don’t think it’s about never seeing him again. It’s seeing much, much less of him, and him seeing much less of her. She won’t be available to help him during the school year. She can reasonably predict that her mother will seek for another target for her bile. Chris will fall even further behind than he is.

I don’t think she has reason to believe that Child Protective Services is useful. I write that as a participant in the discussion, not the author of the hypothetical, so it isn’t gospel.

I do not have my evil hat on at the moment, Ms. Scuito. Say hi to Ziva for me!

You can choose both. The second half of each option is about motivations. Or maybe rationalization.

I don’t think taking Chris against Michelle’s will is an option either, but I figured someone would suggest it so I should include it as a poll option.

That said, it’s conceivable to me that Michelle might allow it. Reading my own hypo, I see little evidence that she’s interested in motherhood. But I also think that taking Chris in while she lives in a studio apartment and works at Wal-Mart is not to Jessica’s long-term benefit.

Yep. As I wrote above, I’m not confident that CPS would be helpful unless one of Michelle’s boyfriends ends up putting Chris in the hospital or some such.

12

One and three.

When flying, have you ever really listened to the flight attendant’s mandatory speech? There’s a bit about what to do if the oxygen masks drop, and you are accompanying a small child who needs assistance. You have to put your own mask on first, and THEN assist the child. If you pass out before you get the mask on the child, BOTH of you are screwed. If you only manage to get your own mask on, well, at least one person will make it out. You have to help yourself FIRST before you can help others.

13

However, I think she should find a way to go to college of her choice AND save her borther. Can she have her mom deemed unfit?

14

Leave, get her brother a cheap mobile, and tell him to hide it. Set up email accounts he can access at school/library. Send him letters (send them via a neighbour if any are sympathetic)…

I’m not sure how you’d be able to keep a kid totally isolated without locking them up.

She might not be able to see him easily, but she can still stay in contact unless the mother really is an evil genius, and while a 10 year old might have a lot of trouble with ‘I’ll come back in 4 years’ not being abandonment, that will be much less the case if they can get even the occasional message to each other… Messing up her own life to try and get his slightly less messed up is not going to help either of them enough to be worthwhile.

15

Agreed, absolutely agreed. Put your own mask on first, and then the other kid’s.

And of course the kid is not going to understand. Do we not do things all the time for our kids that they don’t get? And our younger siblings? Don’t we think that in our experience, we know better, even if the kid kicks up a fuss? Yet we do it anyway.

This is a particularly bad scenario, but she cannot help him if she is also stuck in the same poison pit.

16

Right now, Jessica can’t help. She can only enable. Later, she can and (if she’s the way you’ve written her) she will.

Step 1 of surviving a fiery car crash (after it happens) is getting out of the car…

17

Yeah, one and three.
In reality, there’s little she can do to help Chris right now. Better only one life ruined than two… and hers will be, too, if she stays (that’s answer 1)
And, in 4 years time (or maybe even earlier if she can stay in touch surreptitiously), maybe, just maybe she’ll be able to help Chris, even if only to help him pick up the pieces of his adolescence – better be there for him then, than get ruined herself and as a result not really be in a position to help down the line.
Unfortunately, Chris is probably majorly fucked :frowning: But retreating and regrouping is her only chance of helping him - later.

18

Chris will get through this if he knows that Jessica intends to return for him.

19

I see evidence that she’s primarily motivated by a desire to make her daughter miserable, and to keep her miserable. ISTM that Michelle has already given up on herself, and the only way she can deal with that fact is by thwarting Jessica’s efforts at anything she tries to do. In the circumstances, she’s very unlikely to allow Jessica to take Chris.

I voted for 1 and 3. I don’t agree that her brother is not her responsibility, to an extent. And she should be enlisting the assistance of her HS guidance counselor in the effort to maintain covert contact with Chris. I know that Chris doesn’t attend her high school, but IME teachers and staff at public schools tend to network, even between schools. Chris can receive letters through his teacher, sent either to the school, or to the teacher’s home. Jessica can also send funds for Chris to obtain letter-writing materials in the same way.

Unless it can be established that Chris is good at keeping the arrrangement a secret, I’d be a bit leery about providing him with a cell phone. But he should have an emergency letter writing/mailing kit in his possession so he can notify Jessica if Michelle does something sneaky, like move.

20

Alls I can figure is you misread my words. I said “repeated physical abuse”.
I have a friend who works for CPS. They have their hands tied because of stupid laws most of the time. It’s ridiculous. And that’s on top of being insanely overworked.

And that’s why I chose the option of her attending U of M. It’s a mark of responsibility that she’d be willing to make that sacrifice to protect her brother, in my opinion. Maybe she wouldn’t get into the college of her dreams but sometimes you do what you have to do to protect the ones you love.

In my opinion, of course.