My divorced sister has a 13-year-old daughter. They live with my mom. My sister is never home. She has a full-time job, which is fine, but she never comes home after work. She’s always going out with friends or to various “support” groups every evening; she’s never home until after 10:00 pm, which is her daughter’s bedtime. On the weekends she’s gone most of the day as well. She spends almost no time with her daughter at all. When I try to talk to her about it, she says her daughter’s old enough to take care of herself. I want to know if there’s any way (such as a court order) to make her spend more time at home.
Wow, short of hiring a hit-man, I can’t think of a better way to permanently alienate your sister. Have you talked to your niece about this? Maybe she really is okay with it, preferring the company of her grandmother.
No, there isn’t.
You don’t mention the girl’s father. Is he in the picture at all?
I’ve never heard of a court order to force a woman to spend time with her children, and frankly, I can’t imagine the girl would get much out of it, anyway, especially if her mother was resentful.
The courts cannot compel good parenting. They can award custody to another person if it’s proved that a child is being maltreated or neglected. (Since the girl is with her grandmother, she is not being neglected in the legal sense. Someone is caring for her.) But they don’t usually order how the parenting is to be done. (e.g, ordering the mother to spend X amount of hours socializing with her daughter.)
Courts tend* to side with the mother in custody issues unless there’s evidence of neglect, and it sounds like she could have a compelling excuse for her actions: that she’s working full time and in therapy, and knows that the girl is well cared-for in her absence.
I’m sorry, but outside of talking to her and trying to convince her, there’s little you can do.
- It’s not always the case, though. My grandmother was once awarded guardianship of a little girl who was no relation to her whatsoever instead of the child’s mother. The mother (who was the epitome of irresponsibility) gave Grandma custody when she moved so that the girl could stay in her school. Then, she changed her mind and demanded the child back. The girl did not want to go, and grandma knew she would be neglected, so they went to court. The judge sided with my grandma.
I know you didn’t ask for suggestions, but…Maybe you could talk to your niece a little bit about how she feels about the situation with her mother. If it’s all she knows, it might not feel like the glaring omission that it seems like to you. In the event that it does bother her, empathizing with her, letting her know that there are adults (like you) available to her, and helping her make some attempt to understand her mother’s behavior might be helpful as well. For example, coming to terms with the fact that her mother has significant limitations as an attribute for mom’s behavior rather than “I must be defective so she doesn’t want to be around me” would tend to lead to better adult adjustment.
One of my professional specialties is treating adolescent girls (I’m a psychologist) and the ones who have accessible and concerned aunties/grandmas can fare pretty well, even if their parents leave a lot to be desired.
Moved to IMHO for opinions.
samclem
[QUOTE=Lissa]
You don’t mention the girl’s father. Is he in the picture at all?
[QUOTE]
She spends every other weekend at her dad’s. That’s the only time they see each other; he’s an OTR truck driver and isn’t home a lot either. But he has remarried and my neice gets along well with his wife, who works part-time.
Another thing is that my mom is recovering from cancer and the chemotherapy damaged her kidneys so that she may have to start dialysis. She also has had strokes and seizures which she takes medicine for. She needs a lot of rest but my neice demands a lot of her time.
Then my sister comes home from her various “support groups” put on by her church – single parents support group, divorced parents support group, ex-spousal abuse support group, parents of drug addicts support group, can’t-handle-life support group ( :rolleyes: )… and starts yelling at my mom for all the “mistakes” she and my dad made and how they ruined her life, which she realizes now since she’s been learning about it all at the church. Then she yells at my mom for letting my neice watch MTV and eat ice cream.
I suppose my best bet would be to convince my ex-BIL to seek custody.
[QUOTE=Can Handle the Truth]
[QUOTE=Lissa]
You don’t mention the girl’s father. Is he in the picture at all?
Bolding mine.
Was the ex-spouse who abused your sister also your niece’s father? If so, please, please, please think about potential consequences of asking the former BIL to seek custody.
As far as forcing your sister to spend time with her daughter, you can put another marble in the ain’t-gonna-happen jar for me. I would think about Bryan and jellyblue’s suggestion of talking to your niece. While I don’t think she’s old enought to take care of herself, she is old enough to have input on how large issues in her life are handled. No matter what course of action you take, I hope that things work out well for your niece. Good luck!
Do YOU spend time with your niece? If you’re so concerned, why don’t you try spending some time with her?
Consider the possibility that your sister’s getting the help/support she needs could be in the long-term best interest of the whole family, but it is going to take some time. Also, the last thing I wanted at age 13 was to spend more time with my mother. True, I had no shortage of opportunities, but it was not my favorite thing.
Since your sister likes group activities, one thing I have heard of is mother-daughter book clubs. Maybe that is something your sister and niece could enjoy together.
I’d drop the whole issue w/your sister entirely. Her problems w/her daughter and w/her mother are HER problems.
Just be an excellent Aunt. That can make a world of difference.