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Family dynamics are strange
Apr. 5th, 2010 11:32 amI have a bit of a dilemma. The other day I was told that Widget's mother plans on taking him back this summer. As in, he'll live with her permanently and visit us on weekends and the occasional holiday.
There are a couple of problems with this plan.
1) She has no job.
2) Despite having no job, she just got a new home. (Trailer. Whatever.)
3) I suspect she's still not quite playing with a full deck. She's regressed to that state she was in after she first moved out of the house. More on this in a second.
4) She does not have legal custody of the Widge. My father does.
You might recall that at the start of the year I got violently ill. It was bad and I'll spare you the details and we'll all just agree it was not a good time for me. Anyway, the second day of my violently ill streak, the boy met with the social workers and was gifted a packet of papers that, when read, revealed my father had been granted custody of the Widget for a whole host of reasons, the least of which is this:
My brother can't pass a drug test to save his son's life and Widget's mother willingly stayed in a relationship in which she and her boyfriend (at the time) beat the shit out of one another and the boyfriend abused Thomas. Thomas was also put in the position of defending his mother physically. Widget's mother has thus far, to my knowledge, not completed the various classes/courses/whatever they assigned her to deal with her anger management issues. I don't recall if there were others, but that's the one I do remember.
Sometime after that, she spent the weekend here and on the last day of her stay, she and I had a chat about the fact that neither she nor the boy had custody of Widge anymore. I asked if she'd taken whatever class she was supposed to have and she said no. She didn't have the money for it, and that it sucked because it was keeping her from being able to have any of her kids. Well, that and the lack of a job, I guess.
To me that says she realized that she'd lost custody of the kids and that, if nothing else, she had at least one thing she HAD to do to get it back. Also, over the course of the afternoon I noticed she seemed less... with it than she normally was. I've seen her a couple of times after that and she still seemed... I don't know, off? We aren't close enough for me to know for sure when she's normal/sane and when she's just in a bit of a mood. But with the recent hair changes (like our troubled popstars, she changes her hair color depending on her mental state/relationship status) and the new piercing and the fact that she told Cass that she could take Thomas whenever she wanted because grandparents have no rights in S.C... I worry.
So. The dilemma. I obviously need to alert Mums to the fact that hello, Widget's mum is plotting to take the Widge. BUT I don't want to alert her to the fact that I have a spy because that spy could yield other important bits of information. Also, given the fact that since last fall began, I don't think Widget's mum has lived in the same place for more than three months in a row, I'm not entirely sure she'll still be in any position to try and regain the Widge.
What to do, how to alert Mums without outting the spy.
There are a couple of problems with this plan.
1) She has no job.
2) Despite having no job, she just got a new home. (Trailer. Whatever.)
3) I suspect she's still not quite playing with a full deck. She's regressed to that state she was in after she first moved out of the house. More on this in a second.
4) She does not have legal custody of the Widge. My father does.
You might recall that at the start of the year I got violently ill. It was bad and I'll spare you the details and we'll all just agree it was not a good time for me. Anyway, the second day of my violently ill streak, the boy met with the social workers and was gifted a packet of papers that, when read, revealed my father had been granted custody of the Widget for a whole host of reasons, the least of which is this:
My brother can't pass a drug test to save his son's life and Widget's mother willingly stayed in a relationship in which she and her boyfriend (at the time) beat the shit out of one another and the boyfriend abused Thomas. Thomas was also put in the position of defending his mother physically. Widget's mother has thus far, to my knowledge, not completed the various classes/courses/whatever they assigned her to deal with her anger management issues. I don't recall if there were others, but that's the one I do remember.
Sometime after that, she spent the weekend here and on the last day of her stay, she and I had a chat about the fact that neither she nor the boy had custody of Widge anymore. I asked if she'd taken whatever class she was supposed to have and she said no. She didn't have the money for it, and that it sucked because it was keeping her from being able to have any of her kids. Well, that and the lack of a job, I guess.
To me that says she realized that she'd lost custody of the kids and that, if nothing else, she had at least one thing she HAD to do to get it back. Also, over the course of the afternoon I noticed she seemed less... with it than she normally was. I've seen her a couple of times after that and she still seemed... I don't know, off? We aren't close enough for me to know for sure when she's normal/sane and when she's just in a bit of a mood. But with the recent hair changes (like our troubled popstars, she changes her hair color depending on her mental state/relationship status) and the new piercing and the fact that she told Cass that she could take Thomas whenever she wanted because grandparents have no rights in S.C... I worry.
So. The dilemma. I obviously need to alert Mums to the fact that hello, Widget's mum is plotting to take the Widge. BUT I don't want to alert her to the fact that I have a spy because that spy could yield other important bits of information. Also, given the fact that since last fall began, I don't think Widget's mum has lived in the same place for more than three months in a row, I'm not entirely sure she'll still be in any position to try and regain the Widge.
What to do, how to alert Mums without outting the spy.