Oh my goodness, YES! I thought I was the only one out there who thought raising my grandson was not the "second chance to get it right" that everyone claims it to be!! I too find my husband and myself to be saddled with a child and "starting over"...just when I was enjoying the fact that my youngest is almost 17.
He's three and the cutest, sweetest boy I've ever seen...way better than my own 4, which I attribute in large part to him being in a very good day care program. He is way too smart for his own good and has a wicked sense of humor. He loves to tease us. He is generally pretty good. Occasionally he will rattle the locks to make sure that all our "no's" are still "no". Sometimes he doesn't want to take "no" for an answer, but I just calmly keep telling him no and finally with tears he will accept it. His tantrums usually only materialize when he is too tired or too hungry.
After trial and error on my own 4, I have learned to be a lot more easy-going with this one. When he does some "kid" thing that seems irritating at first, I stop and think "Is this really wrong? Is he being naughty or curious?" I try to keep corrections and "no's" to a minimum so that when I really have to stop him from doing something, he knows I mean it and that it must be something important.
The problem is, since my daughter is a drug addict and presented us with this child at the age of 22, DCFS is involved. Even though this child has been living with us since he was born, he is still not "ours". We have DCFS checking us out weekly. The father's parents wanted to take us to court for an order of visitation, in writing, even though we let them have him every other weekend and all the holidays, plus vacation time. It is a break for me when they have him, why in God's name would I want to lose that??They are a thorn in my side. They even reported me to DCFS for allegedly sexually molesting my grandson. The charge was completely unfounded and thrown out, but still. The court has just awarded us guardianship.
So not only does my daughter (now 25) have this 43-year-old bum of a drug-addict ex-boyfriend shackled to her for the rest of her life, but so do we AND his crazy parents, who I call my in-laws even though there is no marriage. There are significant, but minor, disagreements in the care of this poor kid also. We're talking Walmart vs Designer clothes, that kind of disagreement. (We're the Walmart ones.)
I have been for years and am going through Hell with my two oldest kids and their drug habits. I am still helping out the third kid, who's 20, and my youngest, while best of the bunch (and a HUGE help with her nephew), still needs my attention. I am already plagued with depression and anxiety, so it is a huge thing for me to have any energy to keep up with this little boy. His questions alone wear me out! Plus, I'm just plain tired of doing all those things I did with my kids.
I stayed home with my kids for 17 years, washed my own diapers, made dinner every night, had 2, sometimes 3 part-time jobs, and still managed to run a Girl Scout troop, go to baseball, swimming, band concerts, football, Boy Scouts. We frequented every McDonald's and Burger King with a Play Place, every playground, and mall within 20 miles. That doesn't even count weekends of zoos, museums, amusement parks, and whatever else I could find to keep them busy and myself sane. I'm tired of these things now. If I never see another slide, my life would certainly go on quite well.
On the other hand, there was also an up side to being home with my kids all day. I didn't have to worry about getting them off to daycare and worry about how I was going to handle them being sick and not being able to go to day care, or being called in the middle of the day to come get them. Or how I was going to manage to get them to the doctor, dentist, etc. I also breast-fed, so I never had to worry about bottles in the middle of the night. When my grandson first came home, I wasn't even sure how to do the whole bottle thing!! Plus when you breast feed you can just pop in the boob whenever the kid cries...not so with the bottle!
My husband is on me constantly because I don't spend as much time with our grandson as he does. He claims he doesn't like being a "single parent". Well, guess who was the "single parent" when our kids were growing up. He can't grasp the fact that I did all those things already, times 4, and not so long ago that I'm ready to jump in and to them again. My daughter who sees her son about an hour a week asks me, "Don't you love him. He's so cute." Of course I love him. But I had my tubes tied 11 years ago so I wouldn't have to go through just this scenario of starting over.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my grandson a great deal. But on the one hand, I feel resentful toward my daughter for putting me in this position and making it very difficult for me to be free to pursue some of the things I would like. AND for subjecting me to having to deal with The In-Laws. On the other hand, my heart breaks for her everytime her son does, says, or learns something new. She is missing out on so much that she will never get back. It also stirs up the guilt I have over screwing my kids up.
