I just really don't know where to begin with this one...For the record, I am a father myself, but this is about a recent experience I had with my brother-in-law over the holidays that I just can't shake.My brother-in-law lost his wife when their daughter was just 6mo old. Tragic by any measure, but they were barely in their 20's and with a new baby. We live far away from the rest of our family, so my wife's parents and grandparents were there to help him through this time with offers of childcare and whatever else he needed. I guess at some point he began to rely on them too much, to the point where me and my wife were questioning if he was even raising his daughter. I'm not sure if he ever really wanted to be a father; his wife was far more excited by it than he was, so he might have just "got stuck" so to speak.She's just over 3.5yo now, and we had an opportunity to stay with them for a week over the Christmas holidays. What we saw was basically neglect and treating her as if she was an adult, while at the same time infantalising her.He has a live-in girlfriend now about the same age as him, for just over a year. From what we saw he basically has next to no hand in parenting his daughter. Bedtime, mealtimes, discipline are all left to the girlfriend. Every interaction I saw between GF and the daughter was straight to threats of timeout. I never heard one kind word out of her mouth. She wouldn't give any time for the little girl to react before immediately jumping on a punishment. Their form of punishment? Standing in a corner holding an empty bucket over her head until they decide she's had enough. Once our niece was sick with fever and was being carted off to grandparents house, and the GF was sitting on the stairs wanting to get her ready to go out to the car. She was cuddling with my wife on the couch and the GF just called her over "come put your coat on". Didn't get up to carry her, or come over to her. My heart absolutely broke. I can't imagine having a sick child and expecting her to carry on as if everything is normal. I ended up carrying her to put her coat on because she was just so tiny and tired.That's another thing. Even to this day, more than 3 years after her mother dying, they still send her two weekends every month to grandparents (his and her parents) for the entire weekend. But of course it doesn't end at that. When she's sick they'll often send her over to grandparents. And when the grandparents have to work, they bring her into work with them. Of course BIL and his GF don't really seem to mind this. Pretty sweet arrangement having 2 weekends every month where you literally don't see your daughter. Meanwhile his parents and grandparents are taking care of his daughter while he's off working, and GF seems to stay home. They're grandparents, they shouldn't be expected to raise her. His parents even have a permanent bedroom set up in their home for her, that's how often she comes over.Their house was constantly filthy. Dishes always piled high until we did them. Trash overflowing until we took it out. Floors never swept, carpets never vacuumed until we did it. The laundry in the basement was piled so high that they basically had another family's worth of clothes waiting to be washed. I found a rotten Dairy Queen cup on top of the washer, with presumably still Blizzard still inside, and the lid was BLACK with mold. Her bedroom looked like it had never been cleaned properly. There was cat puke everywhere. Of the two litter boxes (both out in the open of course), only one was scooped in the week we were there, while the other one wasn't even looked at. Their bathroom was actually scary. Holes in the walls of the bath area that were bulging, the paint EVERYWHERE peeling and flaking, fixtures loose and held on by old cracked caulking.Their bedtime "routine" is perhaps what got me the most. GF takes her (remember, father doesn't do anything with this little girl) to brush her teeth, puts a pullup on her (more on that shortly), puts PJs on, and puts her in the room and closes the door. You know those child safety knobs on normal doors? That's on the inside of her bedroom. But that's alright, because she knows how to open it anyway. Oh, but don't worry, they literally TIE HER BEDROOM SHUT with string so she can only open it a few inches. Their reasoning? They don't want her to wander out into the street. Because they only lock the knob lock on their front door and not the deadbolt that is so stiff an adult has trouble operating it. Her bedroom of course has absolutely nothing in it. There's a bed and a dresser, and that's it. They don't allow toys, books, or nightlights in there. Period. Their rationale is that "she has to learn to sleep in the dark, so deal with it".As for the pullups, the girl is fully potty trained for pee and poop. I never saw her have a daytime accident the entire visit. For bedtime though, every time I woke up with the girls she was entirely dry. A girl pushing 4 who consistently wakes up dry is nighttime potty trained in my book. They're keeping the pullups because the GF can't be bothered to get out of bed in the morning. Because her father won't do anything for her.One morning I heard my niece call out that she needs to poop. The GF called back that she'll be there in a minute. 20 minutes go by before she gets up to let her out. If my daughter was sleeping in her cousin's bedroom I'd let them out when I got up (normally around 0800 because they'd both come into my room and jump on me and my wife) and feed them breakfast and play with them. If my daughter was sleeping with us (she also got sick this trip), then it wouldn't be unusual for GF to let niece out nearly 2 hours after she woke up.The way they handle her emotions is the worst perhaps though. Whenever she cries for any reason, they tell her they can't understand her and to take a deep breath otherwise she goes in time out. Now I know for a fact that this approach does work. When my daughter is crying uncontrollably I help her to calm down by breathing and if she's talking in a whiny voice I ask her to use her regular voice, but the key there is we help her calm down before telling her to talk properly, and when she's sick we just take care of her. No matter the circumstances, they sternly tell her to talk normally and they can't understand her until she stops crying. This of course has led to her faking crying a lot of the time, because she is absolutely starved for any attention. The entire visit, she would respond so well to me when dad/GF were out, but as soon as they came home, the orders started getting barked and she started misbehaving again. I'm not a perfect parent by any means, but I had that little girl behaving nicely and having fun.Her diet consists mostly of pre-made foods when she's at home. Yogurt in a tube, juices, muffins from the store. Most of the food in their fridge was expired, but that didn't seem to stop them from serving it to her. She won't eat anything mixed or with sauces. I know there are kids with sensory issues, but this doesn't read like that. It's more that they've never given her anything proper and always give in and just serve convenience food. My daughter picked up a bit of this on the trip, and in the few days since we've been home, we've managed to get her back eating properly. They make her eat off adult plates and cups and silverware. Always. We give our daughter a mix of her plates and regular plates and silverware, depending on her mood and the meal. Her eating area was absolutely filthy. The table looks like it's NEVER been washed (I took a scrub pad to it and came back 4 times to get it clean). The placemat is CAKED in food and cat hair. It's almost stiff.I've always considered adoption, even though I have a biological child. I never could settle on the circumstances under which I would adopt though. This visit literally had my wife in tears for how she was being treated. This is the first time I've actually thought I could fully adopt a child. What they're doing just isn't right. Locking a child in her room, a father contributing absolutely nothing towards his child and getting a GF who is quite frankly scary to "raise" her. The GF has other personality traits such as absolutely no respect for privacy (barging in a locked bathroom on my wife), no manners (charging through several people in the hallway on her way out without even saying goodbye or excuse me), and both her and BIL would frequently leave the house for hours on end with our niece still at home (we were there) without even asking us to watch her.I would adopt my niece in a heartbeat. I just don't know if what I saw was enough. Clearly a lot of the things I saw were a pattern not limited to the holidays or when everybody is sick. But to even approach this topic with him would probably cause a rift in the family, even if we think we can give our niece a better, more stable life.I guess I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. I absolutely believe we would be able to provide the proper care and attention she needs, not just locking her in her room at the end of the day so we can go play computer games. I'm just not sure I'm ready to deal with the emotional fallout of even attempting to ask for adopting her. Even if he agrees, the family might hate and resent us for it, for taking her away. At this point, I don't know if the grandparents know how he's raising her, or if they are turning a blind eye because they have a granddaughter in town and they don't want to lose her.I wish I'd never stayed with them... via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2izPkXs
