I don't even know what to say...so sorry for your kids, you and DH...

she would not take him to court because it costs money, and I think she lied that she moved, didn't she? or she really did move? she puts kids through so much emotional trauma...so sad, i wish I have any advice, jail for her sounds great actually

That is just so awful! Oh, the poor little guy! He shouldn't have had to be so upset, let alone on the first day of school.

I feel bad for your all SKs, it's just not fair to them.

I think your idea of stopping visitation is good. Let her take DH to court---she won't.

(((HUGS))) to all of you.

"she would not take him to court because it costs money". Nope, she can file in forma pauperis and it might not cost her anything. In addition, legal aid is available, and is based on household income. In other words, a working step-parent's income will either help pay for an attorney - or that parent will go without one, because of the step-parent's income (assuming that the parent's income is low enough to qualify due to layoff, etc.)

Mom, I'm so sorry you and SS had to go through this, again. It's so frustrating when kids are all excited about something that you know is never going to happen - but you can't even say that. I've said so many variations of "That sounds nice" over the past several years.

Our BM is going to be moving into a big new house soon too! It's going to be any day now - and has been since last August. SS doesn't even pay attention anymore; I'm not sure he'd believe his mother at this point if she told him the sky was up.

I wish that, for even one day, these women could feel the pain that they put their children through.

Money aside, I just think this woman is all talk and not much else. I could be wrong--but I don't see her taking the time to go to court. She doesn't have a leg to stand on, first of all---secondly, I just don't see her CARING enough to do so.

She might threaten but I bet that's about as far as she'll go.

in this case i think stopping visitations all together might be the best idea, but she will manage to interfere through her parents, it was better when she out of state

I have heard of legal aid helping moms on welfare for free in court. That does scare me! The thought that she could take dh to court with a free lawyer and get some type of visitation on paper that we HAD to abide to scares us. Right now everything is at DH's discretion and he has always given her just enough visitation that she accepts when he says no. But I worry that if we cut it all off she will run to court.

Then on the other hand I know the thought of actually having to pay money to support her kids is a scary thought to her! I mean right now she doesn't pay anything for the,, but gets about $600 in free groceries a month, plus housing assistance, and perhaps even cash assistance for them!! She would risk losing all that if she took dh to court. Though I hope she loses it all since we reported her.

Our biggest concern is that right now she hurts the kids by being in and out of their lives. She has a boyfriend who is no good for the kids to be around and the thought of the kids sleeping over at her home is worse than crawling across glass into a fire! We know in our hearts that her being out of the picture would be better for the kids than what she has been doing! If she were to go to court and get visitation on paper and have the kids on a regular basis and expose them to her dysfunctional life it might actually be worse than what she is doing to them now.

It is kind of like a damned if we do damned if we don't situation! I don't know what is best, all I know is I can not stand what this woman is doing to MY kids!

"I have heard of legal aid helping moms on welfare for free in court. That does scare me!"

I know that legal aid will not take all cases. And quite frankly, I don't think BM is exactly a stellar candidate for their services. They would help a woman who was wrongfully being withheld from her children, a woman whose ex had perhaps skipped town with the kids, a victim of domestic violence, etc---THOSE kinds of situations.

Okay, so here is a woman who does not pay any child support, has gone and had THREE more children, and who hasn't done squat for her other three.

She does not look good at all.

I really would not worry much about that, I just don't see legal aid helping her out.

I think it just depends on what BM were to tell Legal Aid; they might feel inclined to help a poor innocent mother whose mean ex just withheld all visits to her children. This is very similar to what we are going through right now. DH was attempting to hold BM to some kind of schedule, and end the random show-ups/no-shows - she was unhappy with this and now we're on the temp order heading for the modification. (And yes, she did go to Legal Aid - they gave her advice but did not send a lawyer with her as of yet.)

BM was not remotely concerned about CS; first, because it's a completely different issue than visitation and apparently she didn't think that DH would really file for it, and secondly, because she's on unemployment/welfare and was absolutely convinced that she would not have to pay anything. She found out otherwise.

Mom2emall, we've researched and researched on this. There is just almost no way to prevent horrible parents from seeing their children (unsupervised) unless they are a serious danger to their kids. Emotional abuse is a danger, but it has to be to the point where the child starts stuttering or wetting the bed or such before it is "serious" enough to matter.

For all the blather about the "best interests of the child" I've seen very little which makes me think anyone in the court gives a *#&$# about SS' best interests, at least until he's mature enough/fed up enough to speak up for himself in proceedings. Over and over it seems like it's assumed that all parents are exemplary until proven otherwise - fine in most cases, but how many times does one have to prove that the same parent is still a piece of human garbage?

I keep hoping that there is some magical solution; that if I look hard enough and long enough that I will find some obscure piece of law which will solve everything and BM will only see SS at the counselors' until she is cleared to be an adequate parent or something.

But I don't think it's going to happen. I think BM will continue to screw around with SS' life and we will continue to put the pieces back together. I fear that you may be in the same boat.

"Over and over it seems like it's assumed that all parents are exemplary until proven otherwise - fine in most cases, but how many times does one have to prove that the same parent is still a piece of human garbage?"

This is so true. I think the family court system is a joke.

When BM was drunk and tried to take SS from our house, DH applies for a restraining order on SS's behalf. He did NOT get it.

Want to know why? Because SS wasn't in the car with her.

And WHY was he not in the car with her?

Because I stopped her and called 911. It would have been better to let her drunk @$$ drive off and get pulled over with him in the car. BUT--that would have been so dangerous for SS, so obviously it wouldn't have been better for HIM. It would have been *better* from a legal standpoint for us, though.

It is pretty crazy. We had a police report and everything---but it still was not enough to prevent her from anything other than *drinking when her son was with her.* That was all we got. Better than nothing, but it still astounds me.

It's sad but I think in most cases people actually have to physically harm their children before the state or courts step in. Otherwise, Mattie is so right---everyone is assumed to be a good, competent parent.

"It would have been better to let her drunk @$$ drive off and get pulled over with him in the car. BUT--that would have been so dangerous for SS, so obviously it wouldn't have been better for HIM. It would have been *better* from a legal standpoint for us, though."

And that is exactly the problem. Remember learning about Solomon and how he threatened to split a baby in half, so that each of two putative mothers would get part? And, of course, the "real" mother said no way, she'd rather have the other woman have her child than have him harmed - so Solomon gave her the baby, since she obviously cared about it the most.

The family court system seems to be the exact opposite. If one parent does not really care about a child's well-being, and their goal is simply to "win", they're liable to do much better than a caring parent who will almost always end up giving in rather than take a chance on the baby actually being split, so to speak. In our courts the parent who said "Oh yeah, split the baby - he's mine and it's my right to have him" would in fact end up with joint custody.

The other thing that bothers me is that behavior that would get kids immediately removed from the home if a parent was custodial, seems to be ignored and/or tolerated if it's a non-custodial parent. House is filthy, mom's a drunk, kids aren't fed; oh well, it's only for a short time period. They'll be fine. Yet if custodial parents act that way then CYS will remove the kids and those parents only get supervised visitation - but good luck getting supervised visitation without their involvement.