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Update on MOTY SSis

lieutenant_dad's picture

Submitted by lieutenant_dad on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 9:04am

My Mom and SF visited my SSis last week, and my mom gave me the skinny on what things are like for her and her family.

Apparently "poor" doesn't even begin to describe how bad off they are. The girls, her SDs, sleep on mattresses on the floor in their room. My SSis and her DH sleep on the couch, but of they want to sleep in a bed together, they pull a mattress off against the wall in their kitchen and sleep on the floor in there. They are so broke that they can't afford to wash clothes, so my SSis washes their clothes in the bath tub and hangs it to dry. Yet, my SSis is smoking a pack a day.

Apparently the house is filthy despite my SSis not working. They live in a project, so outside is nothing but dirt that the girls drag inside. The girls throw their food in the general direction of the trash can, but if it doesn't make it inside, they just let it sit on the floor or wall. The girls have next to no toys and outside is gross, so they get bored and unruly. SSis apparently had a job, but when they left the girls home alone, they destroyed the house so SSis quit. So, she's jobless but refuses to clean the house because the girls will just destroy it. I don't know what exactly they'll destroy as my SSis isn't keeping it kept up (to give credit to her DH, he works full time but makes peanuts, and he's not the sharpest tool in the shed despite being a very nice man, so he's never going to bring in a lot of money).

I just have to shake my head. It sounds like the only positive is that they manage to keep food in the house. I'm very tempted to go buy the girls new toys, sheets, PJs, and books since there are a boatload on clearance right now. Things that my SSis won't get any use out of because I just feel *that* sorry for those girls.

Ugh, I just don't get it. This is NOT how my SF raised her or my SBro. This is NOT how he parented me or my siblings. She was given multiple opportunities to make life better for herself, and she threw them all away. I just wish she didn't drag more kids into her BS.

Comments

beebeel's picture

Submitted by beebeel on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 9:16am

Sounds sad and disgusting. What was her bm like? It could explain why SSis is a hot mess.

lieutenant_dad's picture

Submitted by lieutenant_dad on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 9:31am

Oh she's a nut job. GUBM-MOTY type. She told my SBro that she had no son because he set boundaries with her regarding his daughter. She saw my SF as an ATM and only stopped treating him like such when a judge FINALLY put the smack down on her. My SF's family and his XW's family are mostly trash (like, their real lives mirror sh*t you see on Jerry Psringer and Maury, no joke) outside a few decent people.

I know where she gets it from. She's lazy, much like her family, and it's easier to do nothing than something. That's really what it boils down to. After she had her first two kids (by age 18), my SF and Mom offered to let her and her kids move in with them while she got her GED and LPN. Instead, her now XH bought them a trailer and she gleefully moved in with him so he could "support his family and they could all be together". When she got out of jail after losing custody of her kids, my SF and Mom moved her in with them while she attended COed therapy and rehab. What did she do? Defrauded some student loans, missed all her COed therapy and rehab, and moved in with her new BF.

She has lost all her chances and gets angry that no one wants to help her now. Well, when you piss it all away, no one wants to get pissed on again. She's SOL unless someone else wants to step up.

beebeel's picture

Submitted by beebeel on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 9:34am

Jeebus! Yep, makes total sense now. :O

At least your SF isn't enabling her and you don't have to worry about your mom being sucked dry.

ProbablyAlreadyInsane's picture

Submitted by ProbablyAlready... on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 9:17am

Those poor kids Sad I don't see how you can knowingly put them through that. Even a bad kid deserves to still be cared for and have the basics provided...

lieutenant_dad's picture

Submitted by lieutenant_dad on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 9:33am

Again, this is why I'm tempted to spend a small part of my tax return to send them some toys and books. I won't do anything to help my SSis, but maybe I can at least give the girls some happiness.

witch.hazel's picture

Submitted by witch.hazel on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 11:24am

I'd feel the same- would want to buy those kids some things. But, I'd also buy some cleaning supplies from the dollar store. There are actually people so broke that their houses are filthy because they can't afford the supplies to clean them! Of course, picking things up and not leaving food on the wall and floor are free...

lieutenant_dad's picture

Submitted by lieutenant_dad on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 11:38am

Oh I get that there are people that broke. I have done home visits/inspections before, so I know. But my sympathy runs really low when you smoke a pack a day but can't afford cleaning supplies or to wash your family's clothes. Assuming her cigs cost $2/pack/day, that's $60/month she is spending. Even at half that, she could buy a ton of cleaning supplies from the Dollar Store. Maybe not enough to keep everything clean, but at least enough to mop the floor or hit up a laundromat once a month.

beebeel's picture

Submitted by beebeel on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 11:44am

Cigarettes are $10 or more a pack here so I have very little sympathy for the smoker who cries broke. (Former smoker here.)

hereiam's picture

Submitted by hereiam on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 12:01pm

:jawdrop: Ten dollars a pack?!

I agree, people who cry poor, or are poor, but then have expensive habits is not something I have a lot of sympathy for.

Aniki-Moderator's picture

Submitted by Aniki-Moderator on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 1:15pm

$10 a pack?! Holey old socks!!!! :jawdrop:

I worked with a guy who 'made' his own cigarettes. He bought the cigarette forms (you could buy filtered or unfiltered, loose tobacco, and a machine. You place the empty cig form into the machine, load the chamber with tobacco, pull down the lever, and 'pack' the tobacco into the form. It cost him about $10 to make an entire CARTON of cigarettes.

Then again, that tobacco smelled worse than a rancid skunk butt...

hereiam's picture

Submitted by hereiam on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 1:21pm

I remember my grandpa making his own cigarettes! He had a rolling machine made out of wood. I thought is was so cool.

Exjuliemccoy's picture

Submitted by Exjuliemccoy on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 11:57am

Maybe a call to child protective services is warranted?

It sounds as if SSis doesn't know how to parent and is none too bright. It might be a godsend to get authorities involved.

lieutenant_dad's picture

Submitted by lieutenant_dad on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 1:50pm

They live in Section 8 housing which has some standards. They have food, electricity, and running water. The girls have beds. There are, by some miracle, no pests. I can't see DCS doing much, especially since SSis lives in an extremely impoverished area to begin with.

Though, given my SSis history here in Anti-Canada where her rights to her children were stripped away thanks to her behavior, it may make a difference. I just feel sorry for those girls. First their mother abandons them, then they're stuck with SSis.

Icansorelate's picture

Submitted by Icansorelate on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 12:06pm

Honestly it seems like the girls would just destroy any item you send. Why not take the money and put it in a 529 for them (you keep control of that type of account). if they day comes they want to get out and better themselves then there will be a bit of money to help them with college.

mommadukes2015's picture

Submitted by mommadukes2015 on Mon, 02/26/2018 - 10:33pm

My mom always says "Never miss a good opportunity to mind your own business".

Your heart is in the right place, and if you want to gift your Step nieces something, then by all means but unfortunately (I've learned after many years in Social Work) some people's living standards are just, well whatever they make them and that is neither here nor there.

Some of the BEST people I know lived in squalor, kind of like your Ssis. In fact, when my parents divorced I spent an awful lot of time in a run down single wide trailer where the adults slept on the pull out living room couch, the place had more pets than people and it was basically filthy. In fact, the place was up to be re-po'd at one point, until the repo company showed up and decided it wasn't worth taking (it was THAT bad). Up to my parents divorce we lived a solid upper-middle class lifestyle and this trailer (which was owned by a friend of my mother's) was the happiest place in my life at the time. Being on the outside looking in, I can see how someone would get the wrong idea. But even the nicest well kept homes aren't necessarily happy ones and sometimes the most shappy unkempt places, are surprisingly.....cathartic. As an adult now, I'm a total clean freak, but I wouldn't bat an eyelash if my daughter ever ended up with a friend with a place like that. Books. Covers.

My mom's friend grew up in a well to do family on the West Coast, she went to school in Italy, traveled the world is one of the most well-educated people I ever saw stand in a single wide trailer....but that's where she was happy and where she chose to live her life. My mom never understood it, but then again it wasn't my mom's to understand. Her friend died in 2015 and she and that dirty dingy old place was my safe space for a very rough few years of my life. Perhaps, there's more than meets the eye to your Ssis and her life.

Acratopotes's picture

Submitted by Acratopotes on Tue, 02/27/2018 - 12:05am

I'm a bitch, I will not buy them anything....

I will go over and say, here's some cleaning stuff, clean this place from top to bottom, yes you might be poor but it's no reason to be like pigs, if you keep this up for a month, I might consider buying you bedding etc, but I want to see improvement first.

I might even pay for parenting classes for SSis....