I am 55 years old, my husband and I are finally at that point in our lives when we would like to be empty-nesters...but we have a 26 year old daughter who lives with us---with her two small daughters---4 1/2y & 2 1/2 y.
My husband & I adopted our daughter 3 days after her birth in 1982. It seems that she is most likely the products of drugs and as a result she has lots of problems---i.e. anxiety, hypersensitivity, mood swings, emotionally incontinent, and an occasional violent episode. We had her tested when she was very young and she was found to have a borderline IQ---the bottom of normal---also ADD and even Schizophrenia and Bipoloar Disorder. Because she is so close to normal there was no help for her unless we paid alot of money that we did not have. She insists on raising her girls even though she has no income, no child support and no insurance of any kind. Most of the time my husband and i end up with both of her children. She will get up almost every morning, when the girls begin to disturb her sleep, and herd them up the stairs for my husband and I to feed, diaper and to generally care for, This we do not mind most of the time as we would much rather that they be with us than have to put up the impossible nature of our daughter.
Here is a typical example---
One morning our daughter will wake up and ecide that that day she wants to be mother and we let her have her children but then she will scream all of the day at them because they are making the normal noises that small children make! This fuss is not only because of hypersensitivity but also because their noises prevent her from concentrating on HER TV shows or reading HER book, etc. If the girls watch their TV shows, movies and or books then my husband and I end up reading them to them. Then the following day we will end up with the girls for an almost uninterrupted 2-3 week stretch. This 2-3 week stretch will end when she gets angry with the way we are disciplining her children; she will pitch a fit that we are interferring and trying to take over her parenting role and and she will have them again for another 1-3 days! She does not undertand how important it is for small children to have a regime so that they can develop their own discipline as well as developing good habits of eating, sleeping and hygiene. I have tried to outline a simple regime for her, many times but she eventually throws them out because she is sure that i am trying to interfer with her parenting! She cannot take an kind of advice even when she initiates the request. I have invited her several times to walk beside during the course of a day to observe how I get on so well with her girls but she eventually suspects that I am interferring again and wlll end it abruptly! My husband and I have been recently discussing putting the two girls in pre-school so that the girls can have some kind of discipline and personal training---we worry because our oldest granddaughter begins kindergarten this coming Fall! We have also thought about taking the girls away from her not only to prevent abuse but so that the girls can have insurance. We think it would destroy our daughter if we did this but we fear more that she might destroy our granddaughters if we don't.
Our daughter ended up married sort of accidentally---she invited her husband to come and live with us years ago (withour our permission of course). Once we had this young man living with us it was very hard to get rid of him. We actually love him and enjoy him, he has a playful nature and he is really good with his daughters---much better than our daughter is with them! But there are so many more things that we cannot tolerate! He lies, steals, reads porn, does drugs, cannot hold a steady job, will not do any chores regularly and eats us out of house and home! When we suspected that our daughter was having sex with this young man, we insisted that either he move out or marry our daughter. Unfortunately they married and abt 2 years later they had their first daughter and then abt 2 years later they had their other daughter. He has moved in and out of our house many times since he married our daughter and has even spent some jail time (for drugs, domestic violence with a girlfriend while he was/is married to our daughter---and stealing); my husband and i laid down the law the last time he moved out and told him that he could not ever move back in with us! He now lives north of us in another state and he will visit occasionally bringing gifts for the grls with him when he comes. My husband and I suspect that he has another girlfriend up north and that that is why he will not give us his address nor allow us to come up there and visit him.
My husband and I love our daughter very much but we just do not know what to do about all of this nor what to do with our daughter! Her yelling really disturbs me especially in wondering what it is doing to her two small girls!
Please help me/us!
