I am the stepmother of a 10 year old boy, and I have been his primary caretaker (I'm a SAHM/student and DH works full-time) for over five years now. His mom has been in and out...mostly out. She calls him maybe once a year, and doesn't pay her court-ordered CS of $130/month. She refuses to exercise visitation with SS, despite our repeated attempts to make visits as convenient for her as possible. She hasn't actually seen SS in about two years now, if I remember correctly. She didn't even bother to call him on christmas, thanksgiving, new year's...and has actually forgotten how old he is. Yipes.

SS obviously has conflicting feelings about this. He calls me mom, and he is just as much my child as my other four children are, but of course he wants his mom to show some interest in his life and be involved.

The woman is a giant wagonload of crazycakes, but I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say that she is not the best person to care for him in the event that something should happen to DH.

We are seriously considering pursuing TPR/adoption. If any of you have thoughts/experiences, I would be very interested in hearing them. Thank you.