I helped raise my adult ss 35 and my adult sd 32 from the time they were 5-7 years old. Their BM was more concerned about her own life than raising them. BM wanted to be their friend instead of a parent so she provided no boundaries and rarely told them no. She sent them for visitation dirty and in rags. The clothing she sent on visitation had holes in them, coats were so dirty you would have sworn that they had been dragged in the mud! I sewed sds shirt on one visitation as I would not go out in public with SD wearing this shirt with the huge hole in it. BM on the next weekend visitation smugly sent SS with a bag of dirty torn clothes for me to mend! Can you believe the nerve! I returned them untouched but I should have thrown them in the garbage! The only time she ever bought them decent clothing was when they were going to DH mother's house! She even tried to send them to us with lice after we had informed her during one of the prior visitations that they had lice! Instead of taking care of the lice she was going to send them back to us - with so many lice that you could see them crawling in their hair from as far away as 3 feet! How could she not have seen this!

There was a time when sd was about 10 that she told me that she wished that I was her mother so I obviously I was not the evil SM that I am now made out to be. As far as I could see little if any of the CS money we sent was spent on the skids. I also made a point of never criticizing the BM to skids because of the simple fact that she was their mother- even when they would tell me the awful things that BM said about me.

BM's 2nd husband according to skids was abusive to them (they told us this when they were adults). No one told us anything at the time other than that everything was great and BM went out of her way to give us the illusion that her 2nd marraige and kids lives were great! BM also went out of her way to criticize everything we did. If I took them to the library to try to get them to enjoy reading she would refuse to return the books. She asked me to teach them to swim, I agreed but then she refused to let them come for leassons. If we took them fishing and they came back excited about their catch BM and 2nd husband would belittle their catch and tell them that they would take them next time to catch a shark! Like there was some type of competition between us! When we took them to the coast for the weekend or somehwere else for a few days she would always have an excuse that would cause us to have to bring the skids back early. Anything to try to ruin the weekend!

Nothing we ever did was good enough! Skids were always told that we did not do enough, call enough, take them enough places, spend enough on them, or have them over for dinner enough! The last one always amused me - I worked such long hours I did not have time to cook for anyone - it took most of my free time to go shopping for the groceries allowing no time to cook dinners! Intersting that BM did not do any of these things either but we were always held to differant standards. Adult skids as adults have continued these same high expectations of us that they do not adhere to themselves! Of course BM also did not mention that she made it pure h--- to even call to speak to the skids so why would DH want to try to call more than he had to. She also never provided school information and withheld outside activity notices so that we could not easily attend sporting, dance events etc. Of course we were blamed and lambasted to the skids for not attending but she just neglected to mention the fact that we were refused notification by herself. When I did manage to get hold of a schedule through outside sources and we attended events she would pitch a fit if she saw us there!

Despite all of this and other poor behavior on BMs part, for some illogical reason adult skids blame my DH and myself for not being there for them when they were growing up! Adult SS 35 blames DH for not teaching him how to hunt, and not being there when he was supposedly being abused by BMs 2nd husband. I have no idea how he imagines that DH should have done this with his EOWE visitation and the denial that was coming out of BMs mouth about what a wonderful life they were all leading! I wonder why BM is not blamed when she was there and could have stopped her 2nd husband but obviuosly didn't!

I also don't know what they expected us to do as they were the ones that quit coming to see us when they turned teenagers! I can not count the number of times we were told that they were coming - then they were coming a day later, hours later, and finally they were not coming at all. Of course all of this was relayed at the last minute with BM in the background mouthing off as usual! It was obvious that these last minute changes were nothing more than an attempt to hold us hostage EOWE knowing full well that they never planned to come that weekend. Yes, DH did finally stop falling for this. We finally started making plans for ourselves on their weekends knowing full well that they would be a no show and I feel no remorse for continuing to live our lives just because they chose not to visit! The only thing that put an end to this somewhat was the birth of our oldest Bd - so I guess the tables were turned when they felt a little competition!

Of course they came around when they wanted money and they were livid when they were told on occaision that DH had nothing to give at that time! I have never understood why they think DH has all of this money hidden away - their BM took everything worth anything when they divorced. All DH got was the debt! And as if this debt and CS (an amount that took most of his dispoable monthy income)were not enough, BM later dumped thousands of additional medical debt on him as a result of her poor parenting skills!

As adults these adult Skids still use these same tactics regarding whether or not they were coming for a holiday event. They would ask me to make certain foods which I did, then call DH up and say they would be late and then after several of these calls they would call and say they were not coming! After this happended on 1-2 occiasions I no longer considered their requests for menu items and no longer reminded DH to invite them.

Of course now neither one of them will speak to their dad all because he wouldn't give them his pitiful small inheritance from his mother. What a shame that even with the inheritance that he is still not out of debt since his divorce! Now it appears that Skids want part of what is mine - since I am the only one that has anything. These are the same skids that call me names, refuse to acknowledge me in my own home etc! Can you believe the nerve!

As a result of thier recent behavoir, they are no longer welcome in my house, I no longer want my BDs to have interaction with them and I will not spend any more time, effoert or money on them. I am done.

So in answer to a previous poster - I am not sure that Adult Skids will ever believe that BM is crap no matter how many years go by! Our adult skids believe BM is the saint that she portrays herself to be - never mind her horrible parenting!

Perhaps in other people's cases, this revelation would come if skids were not clones of BM and instead had more of their Father's traits ???????