Sister, her baby, and my mental sanity

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Now this is a subject I have broached often before, and I don't know what to do anymore.

As you may know, I have a 19 year-old sister who had a baby 7 months ago. She is simply not taking care of the baby as much as she should. She expects my dad to take care of him when she is tired, sick, or out of the house with friends (which is fairly often). I frequently get saddled with helping out since she is not really wiling to do her part in caring for him. More than anything, I do this to help my father, because he is getting older (70) and is a single father.

I am having a harder time now that he can crawl and move around. Ever since he started crawling, he has a habit of lifting himself up using any elevated object he can find, including metal chairs, walls, TV stands, etc. Now, I am getting beside the point. He frequently falls down, and often hits his head. When I am watching him, I try to do my best to make sure he doesn't get into anything or hurt himself when he falls. He wants to get into anything that I don't want him touching, and will fuss hard if I tell him "no".

But last night, I was sitting in my room with him, trying to study. Meanwhile, he was using the wall to stand up, and he fell down on his butt with a loud thud and started crying really hard. I immediately held him tight in my arms and tried comforting him. She is really quick to anger. Within 30 seconds, my sister came into the room and got furious with me and accused me of not watching him adequately enough. She told me her son was going to become ret*d if I let him fall. She snatched him away from me and ran off to a different room.

Now, I went into a silent meltdown and just lay on the floor for several minutes. I decided to call my mother up and talk with her. She told me not to feel guilty, that things like that happen with little kids, and that it is normal for them to fall. She also told me that my sister's baby is not my responsibility, and that she doesn't think I am my sister is ready to be a mother. In other words, she thinks (privately) that my sister should put her baby up for adoption.

Everybody I am talking to tells me that I should tell her no and just quit helping out with the baby. However, I worry about my dad, so that is why I continue helping.

She also has been having problems with my dad since this last Friday. Not that she hasn't had problems with him before (Him and her have not been on good terms since my parents got divorced). She often has blowups where my dad will say something, she will take it out of context, and she will run out of the house in a huff (saying she will not talk to him ever again and that she wants to move out). Several people, including me, have suggested to her that she should go on welfare and move out, but she doesn't want to fill out forms due to fear that her ex-husband, a convicted drug dealer and inmate, will have to pay child support and see the baby). She has been getting a little mad with him. He told her he wanted her to watch her little child more, but she took that as him telling her she was a bad mother. She left in a huff, and was gone until the following evening.

I am always talking to myself, always paranoid, when I have to deal with the sister. She has had a bad attitude as long as I can remember. Its affected how I sleep (I surround my head with blankets so I won't hear my sister's cussing if her baby wakes up in the middle of the night), I forget to eat breakfast, and I leave for college most mornings without doing basic grooming. All I can think about is how to resolve the situation. I keep suggesting to my dad that he should kick her out (but he thinks that he can 'save her from herself' or doesn't say much (I don't think he likes the idea for whatever reason)) For instance, it happened this morning again. I heard her telling my dad that her baby woke up at 3AM, that she couldn't fall back asleep until 6AM as he was getting ready to take the dog out. After he went out, I heard her say something angrily. She kept saying (baby's name, Jesus Christ, shut the f**k up") as her baby was fussing a little. I just stayed in the bedroom, got dressed, and went to the kitchen to finish making my sack lunch. As I was walking out, I looked around. I saw the sister laying on the couch with her eyes closed, the baby sitting up looking at me with a huge smile on his face, and my other sister was sitting on the recliner with her earbuds in using her laptop. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

Lately, I have been having murderous thoughts towards this sister (I wish to God she would just surrender her child to Health and Welfare). I often feel angry inside towards my dad for not wanting to do anything to change the situation (I suppose I can't blame him, she would have a blow up at him anyways if he decided to quit helping out with the baby or if he kicked her out, so he has a precarious footing when it comes to her). Besides that, I he quit helping, I'm pretty sure my little sister would dump the hardship on me.

I know this situation is wearing on me (this is my heaviest semester of my academic career with 3 very difficult, essay-heavy classes). I don't feel like I can use my computer, watch TV, read a book, or do anything anymore at home. I am just ready to move out (in August). I feel very insecure about my interests around this sister, who has put me down for being into "anime and pokemon and other nerdy interests." I am doing everything I can to help out around the house and with her baby, in addition to my studies.

Do any of you have any pointers.

7 month old babies don't understand "no", much less right or wrong. At this age, if a child is going after something they shouldn't, if it's dangerous, tell them they will get hurt (as a matter of language development) and redirect their attention.



When children start to walk crawl or walk, they need to be closely supervised, and this is generally not feasible to do while doing homework, unless you have them contained to a play area. When you are doing homework, tell your sister you can't watch the baby.

It is ultimately her responsibility to care for her child, but if she isn't providing a proper level of care and will neglect the baby if no one else steps up to care for him, then the family should sit down and have a talk with her. Babies needs loving, dedicated parents. If she can't be this and is irresponsible to the point that she would put her whims of having fun above her child's safety or basic physical and emotional needs, perhaps another family member should have custody of the child, officially or non-officially.

As for putting the child up for adoption, at this age he already has a concept of who his family is and the likelyhood of him being adopted out isn't the best.

Is there no one in your family who loves this child and considers him a full fledged family member?

I just feel with the current situation that he shouldn't be here. He is not the cause of the problems, his mother is. I love his cute smile. But, I cannot possibly hope to raise him right now. She has a lot of financial and employment issues that she is making no effort to work on. She is just stuck in a rut. If something happens to my dad, I am unsure how she is going to handle raising a child on her own. She never talked it over with the family before she had him, but just hid it from everyone because of a fight between her and my dad at the time. Meanwhile, her temper (which has always been that way) is hair-trigger, and she will read a malevolent meaning into anything you will tell her. Hence, the "blowups." I don't know how my sister is going to take care of her baby. She claims to "love him," but she has issues with responsibility. I feel like he is in danger with my little sister, with her anger management problems.

As for the rest of the family, there is no way my dad with his age could obtain custody and expect to live long enough raise him to adulthood. He has already raised two generations worth of kids in his lifetime, and might have some latent heart issues which could flare up if he gets too stressed. He already complained of several mini-heart attacks and one mini-stroke in the last year or so. My estranged mother is currently incapable with hip issues and unemployment. Neither me nor my other sister could do it on a limited income and with both of us in college. Under any circumstances, I am not sure what the right thing to do is. I know keeping him within the family is the right thing morally as far as knowing that he is family member. But I worry about everyone else's welfare (including his) and I believe that if push comes to shove, that might be the only option beneficial to all.

What about the child's father?

I'm so very sorry that you're in this situation. You have a right to be angry, since you weren't the one to get pregnant with a convict but now you have to deal with the consequences.

I hate to say it, but sometimes when you help family members when they're irresponsible you're enabling them. It sounds like your family is enabling her to not apply for welfare, stay home and use you as a free babysitter. Her child falling was HER responsibility, not yours. Besides that, babies fall all the time.

There is a book called "Boundaries" by John Townsend that you can read. It's actually full of a lot of bible stuff, but it's very applicable to your life no matter what religion you are or aren't. You don't have to feel guilty for saying no when something truly is not your responsibility.

Don't do it, and don't feel bad for not doing it either. It doesn't mean that you don't love your little niece or sister if you don't, either.