It’s been a terrible, terrible week thanks to SD15 and I keep coming back to this question - why does DH and my family have to suffer thanks to BM’s mistakes raising a kid that is so messed up that she’s beyond hope? Her BM shouldn’t even had kids to begin with. She couldn’t support them and she was mentally unstable. Child support was her main source of income.

I was talking to my mom about the problems with SD and she brought up an interesting point. It may be old fashioned but in the last 50 years, all the efforts to help single moms raise children has completely ignored what’s in the best interest of the child.

SD‘s BM has 3 kids by 3 different fathers, none of whom she was married to and ultimately had her kids taken away by CPS and her parental rights terminated. She had a short relationship with DH, lied about being on birth control and only contacted him a year later after his daughter was born hitting him up for child support. She barely worked and has mental health and drug problems. Child support payments, disability and welfare were how she supported herself along with shacking up with mentally ill guys who abused her kids.

My mom brought up the point that it used to be if a woman like SD's BM got pregnant, she would have gone to a unwed mothers home and given the baby up for adoption since she had no way of supporting it. That’s what happened to her cousin (who was in her early 20s not a teen). She came from a strict Catholic family and that’s what was done. The daughter her cousin gave up for adoption contacted her mom a few years ago and grew up to be successful, well-adjusted and a productive member of society (something that will never be said about SD).

DH isn’t blameless and he was a stupid immature teenager who should have worn a condom so none of this would be an issue. But he didn’t have any say in what happened with SD when she was born, he was just hit up for child support. If he was given the option of giving her up for adoption he would have. He wasn’t prepared to be a parent and was serving in the military when she was born.

Now his life and his family’s lives are turned upside down trying to “fix” his daughter who is damaged behind repair and a lost cause no matter what he does. SD is going to end up a drain on society like her mom and probably make DH a grandfather by the time he’s 36.

I don’t know what the solution is. Child support laws and welfare programs were set up with the best of intentions to provide for kids and help single moms, but these are being exploited by women like SD‘s BM who don’t deserve to call themselves mothers and shouldn’t be allowed to keep popping out more kids they can’t take care of or raise properly.

So many couples looking to adopt but are on wait lists for years and have to adopt kids overseas. I can’t help but think how much better SD‘s life would be if she had been raised in a stable home environment by adoptive parents rather than being a burden on my family.

Instead of being focused on our family and marriage, DH has to be spending all his time and energy dealing with his daughter who will never recover from what happened when she was living with her mother. She’s going to pull him down with her and destroy my marriage in the process