Cant agree with Bio Mom
Let me first start off by saying I have tried for the past two years to not judge my two stepdaughters' (3 and 4) biological mother. I can't imagine how hard it is to have these two girls on a consistent basis without a partner to help. However, there are many things that worry me as far as the girls maturing and growing up.
Here is a list of things that I am concerned about:
1) Both children's teeth have completely decayed. They have fake teeth or caps. I have known them since they were 1.5 and 2 and that is how it was when I first met them. She gives them juice, candy, sweet tea, and any other type of sugar you can think of. The girls claim they brush their teeth and she does not help. When we ask her, she gets defensive and won't answer us if she helps them. The girls REFUSE to drink water when with us. That is all I will give them with the exception of juice once a day (watered down). They always want sweet tea or soda.
2) The two girls sleep together with her every night. When we try to get them to sleep in their room at our house, they freak out!
3) They share underwear with one another and might I add that the underwear has stains in them. She does not help them wipe. She thinks they need to do it completely on their own. I agree to a point but if there is continuous stains, something should be fixed.
4) Evertime we have them (every other weekend), they are on a new type of medicine...one week for allergies and the next for cold, etc. Her grandmother watches them quite often and her house is full of mold and smoke.
5) They both still use sippy cups. We have bought them bottles with straws to use but she continues to send them with sippy cups. The girls try to sleep with them at night time.
My husband doesn't like to see them cry and doesn't want to fight with them so he lets it go. As we start raising our newborn, I fear this will be the same. I am okay with being the disciplinarian but he doesn't want to fight with her on some of these issues.
On top of all of this, the 4 year old is very manipulative. She tries to appear as the innocent one but always is doing something behind her parents back. She hits and lies all the time. I want to put her in time out when she does this....but he says we should just talk to her. He's worried that she'll go home upset and tell her biological mother and then she'll yell at him.
One time when she hit her sister AND my newborn baby, I calmly told her that she needed to go to tell her daddy what she did. When he asked her, she started hysterically crying and couldn't talk. Of course that is the exact time that her mother FaceTimed them. Her mom was upset that she was crying and kept asking the 4 year old what we did to her....
I love seeing these girls and love having them part of our family. I am genuinely worried about how they will grow up with these issues. Am I overreacting? Are these things normal? I just want them to grow up in the best house that they can. With my husband's job and my own, it would not be easiest to have them 50/50. Both of us spend many weekends on the road for work.
Any advice...anyone!
You have a larger problem
You have a larger problem than your disapproval of BM's parenting. That would be your husband. He doesn't agree with your ways/opinions enough to practice what you preach or his kids while he does have them under his roof. He's willing to let it all go.
The usual advice here is you can't care more than the actual parents do.
This is only in my
This is only in my experience, but when you parent with your DH its different than when BM parents with him. I'm pretty bossy though. He will parent your child differently. Then you'll have a whole new issue, he treats the kids differently than your Bio.
BM is only part of the
BM is only part of the problem. Your DH and his lack of testicular fortitude in dealing with his XW is as much of a problem as BM being your Skid's crack for kids/sugar dealer. If your DH will not step up and protect his children from their toxic womb donor and enforce behavioral standards on his elder children then he is causing their teeth to rott out of their skulls as much as their idiot BM is.
Much more disgusting is that he is serving his/your newborn child and the 3yo up as sacrifices to his eldest toxic spawn. DH needs to pull his head out of his ass. NOW!
Here is the solution.
Create and enforce kid behavioral standards NOW! If the Skids don't follow the rules, they feel the pain of the consequences of their choices to not follow the rules.
They get no sugar. PERIOD! If they are going through kid crack withdrawals while visiting daddy then so be it.
They brush their teeth with direct supervision by daddy 5x per day. In the AM, after each meal, and before bed. Get the dye pills that they chew after each brushing that stains any grunge left on their teeth. They continue to brush until there is no stained grunge. Lather, rinse, repeat.
DH needs to smack the shit out of his XW in court with the dental health as the primary proof of neglect by BM. If I were DH I would have those girls in my custody. BM is an abject failure as a parent. If DH does not change his tune he is not far behind BM on the abject failure as a parent peformance curve.