I’ll call the teenage girl involved “Deborah.” Her parents are divorced. The girl is 14 and her mother has sent her to her father, who not only drinks and smokes but has given alcohol and tobacco to the daughter. And there are other grown men who apparently visit the father.
These people are not related to me, and I have only second-hand knowledge of the situation, although my source is someone whom I have known for a long time and can trust to tell me the truth.
This Deborah lives in southern Los Angeles County, as I do. Assuming I have the correct information, what would it be proper for me (or better, my source, a 71-year-old grandmother of one of Deborah’s friends) to do?
Mind your own business, I’d say.
Fourteen year olds drinking with parental approval is quite normal (how many kids get a shandy, watered-down wine etc) and even smoking, while obviously to be discouraged, is not the ‘crime’ you are making it out to be.
And dad has his mates visiting? What are you implying? I think you need to be VERY careful about your not-so-subtle innuendos here.
Yep, I’d mind your business if I were you, at least until you have something firm to base your accusations on. As it stands, you don’t have anything except a critical and suspicious mind.
My experience with LA County Child Protection Services is that they would care less about this. Being I
went through a similar experience with them, if that’s what you are getting at.
The child custody courts have their own ways of dealing with this, I would let them do their job.
BTW, what you might be thinking is needed, is called an ‘Evaluation’. This is where the county
sends someone to the house to evaluate the ‘situation’. The court can order this & you
have to pay for the person who comes to do the evaluation, for us, this was $900.00…Then, the county
might want to have the kid go to a psychologist for an evaluation, guess who gets to pay for
this? Yep & its not the county, it cost us, lets see, about $2,500.00.
Well, you catch my drift.
You might want to call the Parents Anonymous Helpline in your area to see what suggestions they may have, they’re usually full of sage advice. Each state differs in what it considers to be ‘negligent’ behavior. It sounds as if you’re a concerned citizen looking out for the best interests of a minor child, which in itself is a great thing!
Hope this helps.
Grown men visit my dad all the time. He calls them his “friends”. I think this is a fairly common occurence amongst adult males (and females too, for that matter).
Personally, based on your description of events, I’m not sure I see the sense in doing anything at all. I’m with the other posters who suggested just minding your own business.
I’d say reconsider your source.
The grandmother of a friend does not, to me, make a great source. My mom is 71 and I don’t trust her news reports.
So the guy has friend his own age over to the house? Is there something you’re not telling us or do you just think that men can not be trusted around teen age girls?
A bit of background:
I have known the older woman and her daughter–who will be 47 in July–since 1985; I met both on the same day. (I had been referred to the daughter to get a haircut–long story.) The granddaughter had not been born yet.
The daughter’s life has been quite checkered, with three illegitimate children and no apparent work skills. She has a ten-year history of drug abuse, and was at one time rebuked by a doctor who discovered the woman was herself taking medicine prescribed for her own daughter (who will be 17 in July); the doctor and the pharmacist could have run the risk of professional discipline–and even I could be implicated as an accessory, in the worst-case scenario, since I was the one delivering the medicine.
The daughter and granddaughter both live with the grandmother now. The granddaughter has had Deborah (of the OP) as a friend. I have spoken in very general terms as to the other men apparently involved, since I did not clearly recall the details the grandmother gave me and I did not want to “invent” such details.
When my brother and sister and I were little kids our parents would sometimes let us sip their wine or beer. Such things never caught on with me nor, to my knowledge, with the siblings. When it’s a 14-year-old girl, however, that makes a loud bell go off in my head. I must also point out that the grandmother has not solicited my intervention in the matter; she almost certainly knows much more than she has told me.
Color me confused! So Deborah’s friend’s mother has a checkered past? Is that it? If so, then so what? Why do you think Deborah is being abused?
I have to vote with the others. This is none of your business.
I am 30 years old, an engineer, an upstanding citizen, no illegitimate pregnancies, no run-ins with police ever, and I currently drink rarely. I don’t break any laws, except for occassionally speeding 5-10 miles over the limit.
My father let me drink when I was 14 - as long as he was there to supervise. I think it took away the mystique. When I went to college, so many kids whose parents had made alcohol a huge taboo drank heavily and were at much greater risk of alcohol poisoning from not knowing their limits, etc. To me alcohol was no big deal. I knew my limits and rarely, if ever, got drunk then or now.
I am not saying all 14 year olds should be allowed to drink. I am saying that there are too many variables here and you should stay out of it - bells going off in your head or not. The thing is, most 14 year olds are going to be experimenting - and most likely without their parents knowledge - that was the age it started when I was younger, and I am sure it hasn’t gone up - if anything down- in the last 16 years. If an adult is around to control it, all the better. I tried my first cigarette when I was 14, too. Such is the way of the world. Kids have to make mistakes for themselves to truly learn. I think her dad might recognize that.
As far as the father’s friends… I find it highly unlikely that anything is going on there. I think you are letting your imagination run a little too free. Like he would pimp his daughter just because he lets her drink? The two are worlds apart.
And it sounds to me like the whole group involved isn’t up to your moral standards, so why would Deborah be any better off with her mother?
A neglectful parent is worse than a parent who tries to be a friend, which is most likely what is going on here. So he isn’t a tower of discipline. I bet she feels like she can talk to him, something most dads can’t claim. And if so, she would tell him if his friends were molesting her.
Just my 2 cents.
Actually, knowing the three generations as I have, on an ongoing basis since mid-1991, I consider them a constant headache, more of a distraction than the non-related Deborah. The granddaughter is acting like a totally rebellious teenager–no surprise considering the normal efforts of teenagers to break from emotional dependence on their parents–or in this case the grandmother. (I’ve heard some lovely shouting matches.)
The grandmother’s I’ve-seen-it-all, jaded commentary is possibly her own side of the story; and I confess I don’t know Deborah’s. But I come by it honestly enough–my own parents split up before I was 12. It was a scarring experience to see my father attack my mother, for reasons I’ve posted elsewhere on the SDMB.
So I get sensitive about these things. (Another woman I used to know told me that her daughter, a classmate of mine in high school, had been treated to mental cruelty from her then-husband–and I was outraged so much I told the mother I felt like clobbering the husband with a skillet! That was unnecessary, of course.)
Surely the person first person to contact - if indeed anyone feels that “someone” should be contacted (and, quite frankly, on the basis of what you’ve posted to date, I don’t) - would be Deborah’s mother.
Do you think that perhaps the grandmother here is over-reacting and being overly suspicious due to what happened in her own family? It sure reads that way to me.
Reprise, you’re probably quite close. Just what the grandmother has seen fit to tell me in the last few years about what her kinfolk have done, positive and negative, includes so much that is negative that she is sensitive about it herself. (She has legal custody of the granddaughter and the daughter’s later illegitimate child, now age 5.)
My own senstivitity may be exacerbated by the fact that in my whole life (I’ll be 53 in about a month) I have consumed less alcohol than W. C. Fields (or his tippler characters) spilled in one night!
You’ve gone into great detail about Deborah’s friend’s family…and I’m still not quite sure how that’s relevant to Deborah’s situation. What am I missing here?
You’ve also stated *“And there are other grown men who apparently visit the father.” * What exactly are you trying to say here? It seems as though you’re implying something sinister here. Is there any other evidence that points to her father’s friends abusing her? Because if that’s all you’re going on, I think that your mind has concocted an elaborate fantasy.
An eldery woman has told you that the father of her grandaughter’s friend allows her to smoke and drink, and from this you’ve decided that some sort of abuse is taking place? I really don’t think you have anything to go on but idle gossip. It’s nice that you’re concerned, but I think your imagination has gotten the best of you. Please think twice before going anywhere with these allegations. You may end up destroying the lives of people you don’t even know!
dougie_monty, This is the drift I’m getting:
Kid has been sent to live (by possibly-neglectful mom) to live with Dad. Dad allows 14 yo daughter to drink alcohol. Adult non-related men may frequent the place (we don’t really know if they are friends, aquaintances, etc).
Okay, how to put this so no one gets on the defensive…
Yep, you may be overly concerned, or you may not be getting the full story, so your concerns may be misplaced.
However, I also don’t want to tell you to butt out or mind your own business. Much here depends on the circumstances. In some situations, I might not worry about a 14 yo in that situation. In others, I would be very worried indeed. (Of course, that doesn’t mean you can accomplish much, as I think the Child Protection info above has shown. 
)
If, for instance, we are talking about a dad who is neglectful or worse; if he’s involved in drugs and that’s why there are other men hanging out there; if the daughter is drinking and not just occasionally having a sip; if there is already a history of abuse or neglect, I think there is cause for concern.
I’m a little concerned to see many people automatically assuming that is a benign situation, and telling you, in effect, to stop being so suspicious. I guess I’d rather folks would be too suspicious than to automatically assume that every situation is benign. It could well be, given the mom’s situation, that this home life is the lesser of two evils. Then again, we don’t have any way of knowing that, and unfortunately, neither do you, unless Granny is telling you the whole story.
Go with your gut. Do you know this kid personally? If so, you’ll be able to pick up on behavioral cues if things go awry for her, probably. I’d keep an open mind, not assuming anything about the situation, and keep my eyes open.
Of course, I’ve never been one to mind my own business. Ah well.
Good luck.
karol
I admire dougie_monthy’s concern, but unless there is hard evidence of any actual abuse/neglect regarding Deborah, I would not do anything at this time…but I’d keep an eye out, just in case…
Whoops…I meant dougie-monty! :eek:
Note to self: Knock off the typos!
Originally posted by Kiz
monthy?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHaaHeeheheheheheheheeee… :rolleyes:
Hoo hoo…Oh well… 
OK, I get the point. However, it should have been obvious from the way I phrased the OP that I have some skepticism about the matter. And where there has been a disagreement between the grandmother and her daughter or her granddaughter–and the family seems lacking in self-control when it comes to how they talk to each other when I (or anyone else from outside of the family) is present–I will presume the grandmother’s appraisal is better. (Not that in this instance, as I have noted above, she is telling me the whole story.)
I have come by my concern–which the Teeming Millions clearly regard as exaggerated–honestly, in that my family has been severely riddled by alcoholism (I have reacted by becoming a teetotaler); 'nuff sed.
See, I told you my typing sucked today, dougie_monTy! 
**
I wouldn’t say exaggerated, Doug. Concerned, yes…and now that you mentioned the alcoholism, it’s totally understandable why you’re concerned. I’d be the same way.
Like I said, I’d keep an eye on them, just in case…