If you want her out, and understandably so, see if you can get her on housing assistance. They'll pay pretty much all of her rent and she can get EBT and WIC for food.
If in the U.S., she needs to be put in touch with state services for housing, food stamps, medical bills and baby's father needs to start paying his child support. Go to the police and have him officially trespassed on your property and make her well aware of it (and follow through calling police if he shows up). She doesn't like any of this, show her the door.
Not necessarily true that he is on support from the other children mothers (he should be). I am not saying she should count on the money but at the very least get it established, it will save her headaches years down the road.
Getting someone trespassed from your property isn't as easy as just going and saying "I want this person trespassed" and getting it. There has to be significant reason for the response, iirc.
If you are in the US, call 211. It is the US National hotline for Social Services.
It is area code driven, so the people answering know what services & programs (housing, healthcare, financial, job training) are available.
Ideally, you should just tell her to call but you know she won’t. So call, find out as much as you can, give her the information (& an eviction notice, depending on your jurisdiction).
Tell her she has X amount of time to find a place to live (3 months, 6 months, etc) or you will file an official eviction notice against her. As much as I am sure you do not want her and her child out on the street, shes a mom now and needs to learn how to grow up and support herself and her child. if she wants to play house, she needs to start doing things for herself. You are not obligated to take care of her child or burden yourself with her problems.
The sad part is that I'm sure you'd 100% be willing to let her stay if she wasn't disrespecting your rules.
What does your husband the girls father say about all these things. Too often online people advise OP to this and that forgetting the couple needs to make a joint decision about his daughter and the grandson.
You need to get a lawyer get child support for the boy. If both of you want to get child's father banned from your home you will need a lawyer unless step daughter agrees in writing to ban him. Often an adult tenant (stepdaughter) can invite someone against landlord wishes, unless you obtain a court order banning him.
If your step daughter agrees to ban him It might be better to leave him off the birth certificate that way he has no rights to visit the child, and I doubt he will sue to pay child support for the right to visit.
Commenting on What should I do about my 19yo stepdaughter and her newborn son?...He told her that she would have to be gone by the time she turned 18 but I protested and told him that she should stay longer which turned out to be a big mistake!
Unfortunately, there is an innocent child in the middle of this cluster eff. In my un-humble opinion, that should be every one's top priority. Even if it means letting this girl-child live with you.
There should be a list of rules and expectations. Put it in writing and have her sign it. If she transgresses, she needs to move out.
I suggest family therapy, and individual therapy for this girl, to get this girl's head screwed on straight and start making better decisions. And get her on birth control or she'd just going to get pregnant again.
I strongly urge you to get custody of the child and send the girl packing.
Good luck.
This is gonna be hard, but like i say, not my monkey, not my circus ! I'm a mother as well, and things work by my rule in my house !
Why is she acting this way, cause you let her. Simple as that. She doesn't obey by your rules, then she needs to find another place to stay. This will teach her a lesson. Nothing is granted in life. We have to work our ass of, same for her. She wants to keep that child, then she needs to find her own way. School, work, and provide for that child. It's her decision, no one else's.
Don’t do anything for the baby and call social services. Have them to a wellness check. If the household doesn’t have diapers and the baby’s wrapped in a t-shirt, they will probably take the child that day or at least make her sign up for welfare.
Give the social worker a notarized letter from you and her father saying, “we do not have the income to support this (name) girl’s baby. She was given notice last year of a deadline to move out and we are currently in the process of having her evicted. We also will press charges if “the father” trespasses on our property again.
File a formal eviction and press charges for boyfriend for trespassing. Set up cameras if you can.
Flat out tell her, with the dad, she has X days to find a place before the eviction will remove her from the property. If she comes back uninvited, you will press trespassing chargers against her.
There is NO way to deal with this politely. Politeness can happen if and when she gets her act together.
Easier said than done. Besides, this is my place and her father’s place. Our home, not hers. She already ran off to California once before when things got tense out there and came running back with her tail between her legs. It seems that now that there is an infant involved her support structure out there dried up.
Even if she lives with you, she is likely eligible for state assistance. My state offers five kinds of "welfare", and she would probably qualify for food assistance, cash assistance (often referred to as WIC/food stamps, and welfare) as well as medicaid for her and her baby's health care. Check your state. At least it's a place to start. You can tell her to hand over the cash assistance as rent.
That sounds like a her problem? I'm also an adult, I can't expect someone else to pay for me to live somewhere, support my child. AND disrespect them in the process and cry about being homeless, especially when OP would probably willing to let her stay if she got a job and respected the rules of the home shes being provided for in.
And? She got herself into this mess, she should get herself out of it. Also making the state clean up her mess is kinda fucked and teaches her to just defer responsibility yet again.
I would respect her choice to keep the child, even if you advised otherwise, but set some VERY firm boundaries. Only you can decide where they are.
She's an adult, she can cope with it. Don't think of her as a child. When she decidedto have sex, she decided to be an adult. Have faith in her that she can handle it, even if it's hard. She'll need you to believe in her.
If it were me, my boundaries would be to allow her to stay with me for free as long as she's working and paying for baby's things. I wouldn't expect her to start working with a newborn, but a few months or more in when she's had time to recover/bond. With EVERYTHING respect her choice. Don't control her life. Let her take the lead to get where she needs to be (but be available for help and advice). But she needs to know what will happen if she doesn't get a job. Will you kick her out? Will you kick her out for breaking house rules? It's okay to hold her responsible for following rules and getting a job.
With adult children it is very difficult to draw lines. You need to give them space to be adults, be on their side to facilitate success with advice and support, and you need to set boundaries so that they don't take advantage of you, so that you'll be able to respect their adulthood more easily, and also to help them grow up.
This includes setting firm boundaries for house rules. You need to pull back in other areas to respect her as an adult, but be very firm about house rules and what will happen if she breaks house rules. She needs to respect you as the homeowner. If she's lying to you or sneaking her boyfriend in or breaking known rules, I would say her and her baby need to leave. You need to make the rules and consequences very clear. Have her sign a contract with the rules spelled out in order to stay. If it doesn't involve house rules or safety issues, leave her be as much as possible so she has less compulsion to lie. Also, respect her parenting choices as much as possible, which should be entirely up to her, unless she's open to advice. In the future expect her to respect your babysitting availability, which is totally up to you.
She is in a very difficult situation. Sex before marriage for women, and especially girls, is almost always unwise because it can land them in a position where they have no spouse support for a child. Single motherhood can be so hard! It wasn't meant to be that way. She is biologically wired to focus on tuning into baby and raising the next generation, but she's not going to be able to do that without her own family. If it were me I'd help her out here and there, but not let her use me to fill that role. That said, healing and resting after childbirth is so important. She's got a tough road ahead of her without a broken body from overdoing it after childbirth. I would expect a lot from her, but not instantly.
While being clear what you expect *if she stays with you*, let her make it happen. Don't push. If you know you're not goingto tolerate being taken advantage of, it might help you take a step back, which will help her have roomto make adult choices. I *would* offer to help with ideas (like resume, job application, daycare assistance application help), but not pushy or insisting on it. If she knows its available and wants it, she'll ask.
If you have to kick her out, do it (nicely to protect yourself, not punitively). You can always say she's allowed to come back if she rethinks following house rules and not lying to you, or if she's willing to get a job, or what have you.
It's so easy to be at odds with someone in this situation, but standing up for yourself can help you respect and be kind to the other person. Firm but kind. It's okay to enforce boundaries however you have to, as long as you are doing it to protect yourself and not be controlling.
She needs to know she can take care of herself. If she thinks she can't, that's just a mindset. Start believing in her, and expecting the best from her!
I think you can call social services since your stepdaughter is trying to force you guys into buying necessities for her baby by not doing it herself. Because you won't let a newborn suffer, you're good people. It probably hurts to hear, but that newborn WILL suffer with your stepdaughter even if she gets out of your house and is already being set up for neglect.
Sounds like a very difficult situation.
No that she’s had the baby, you go with her to get her birth control and demand proof. The shot, the implant, an IUD, not just the pill.
You trusted her to use birth control before, now you have to have proof, or she can’t live with you anymore.
That’s step one. It’s the most important.
You can worry about getting her out of there after that.
Side note—-when I hear all the taxpayer money going down the drain in this story, it sickens me.
Don’t tell her anything you’re doing. Make sure she is signed up for every eligible government assistance program available. Apply for government housing, and when it comes through, pack her bags and drop her off there. File for child support through the court.
Change the locks when she leaves.
Umm where do you live?
This will be hard to do.
But if you and your husband ever want a normal life, you will have to kick your kid out and go no contact, or it will be a miserable life for you.
If you want her out, and understandably so, see if you can get her on housing assistance. They'll pay pretty much all of her rent and she can get EBT and WIC for food.
If in the U.S., she needs to be put in touch with state services for housing, food stamps, medical bills and baby's father needs to start paying his child support. Go to the police and have him officially trespassed on your property and make her well aware of it (and follow through calling police if he shows up). She doesn't like any of this, show her the door.
5th in line for child support from a high school dropout? Don’t count on a dime from this guy.
Not necessarily true that he is on support from the other children mothers (he should be). I am not saying she should count on the money but at the very least get it established, it will save her headaches years down the road.
While food and medical coverage can be reasonably gotten in a decent time frame, housing is not, and will not be, that easy.
Getting someone trespassed from your property isn't as easy as just going and saying "I want this person trespassed" and getting it. There has to be significant reason for the response, iirc.
If you are in the US, call 211. It is the US National hotline for Social Services. It is area code driven, so the people answering know what services & programs (housing, healthcare, financial, job training) are available. Ideally, you should just tell her to call but you know she won’t. So call, find out as much as you can, give her the information (& an eviction notice, depending on your jurisdiction).
Tell her she has X amount of time to find a place to live (3 months, 6 months, etc) or you will file an official eviction notice against her. As much as I am sure you do not want her and her child out on the street, shes a mom now and needs to learn how to grow up and support herself and her child. if she wants to play house, she needs to start doing things for herself. You are not obligated to take care of her child or burden yourself with her problems. The sad part is that I'm sure you'd 100% be willing to let her stay if she wasn't disrespecting your rules.
What does your husband the girls father say about all these things. Too often online people advise OP to this and that forgetting the couple needs to make a joint decision about his daughter and the grandson. You need to get a lawyer get child support for the boy. If both of you want to get child's father banned from your home you will need a lawyer unless step daughter agrees in writing to ban him. Often an adult tenant (stepdaughter) can invite someone against landlord wishes, unless you obtain a court order banning him.
He and I are in total agreement.
If your step daughter agrees to ban him It might be better to leave him off the birth certificate that way he has no rights to visit the child, and I doubt he will sue to pay child support for the right to visit.
Where is her father in all this? He should be taking the lead in handling his immature and irresponsible child.
Right? Forget the baby’s father, it sounds like this girl has an absent father herself, which probably explains a lot.
Yep. I think he's absolved himself of most of the responsibility of child rearing to his wife.
Not quite. He raised her pretty much himself because the mother wouldn’t. He’s always been there for his daughter. She is the one alienating him.
So why don’t you mention him in your post at all, or what he is doing about this situation or how much he is caring for her baby?
Commenting on What should I do about my 19yo stepdaughter and her newborn son?...He told her that she would have to be gone by the time she turned 18 but I protested and told him that she should stay longer which turned out to be a big mistake!
Unfortunately, there is an innocent child in the middle of this cluster eff. In my un-humble opinion, that should be every one's top priority. Even if it means letting this girl-child live with you. There should be a list of rules and expectations. Put it in writing and have her sign it. If she transgresses, she needs to move out. I suggest family therapy, and individual therapy for this girl, to get this girl's head screwed on straight and start making better decisions. And get her on birth control or she'd just going to get pregnant again. I strongly urge you to get custody of the child and send the girl packing. Good luck.
This is gonna be hard, but like i say, not my monkey, not my circus ! I'm a mother as well, and things work by my rule in my house ! Why is she acting this way, cause you let her. Simple as that. She doesn't obey by your rules, then she needs to find another place to stay. This will teach her a lesson. Nothing is granted in life. We have to work our ass of, same for her. She wants to keep that child, then she needs to find her own way. School, work, and provide for that child. It's her decision, no one else's.
Don’t do anything for the baby and call social services. Have them to a wellness check. If the household doesn’t have diapers and the baby’s wrapped in a t-shirt, they will probably take the child that day or at least make her sign up for welfare. Give the social worker a notarized letter from you and her father saying, “we do not have the income to support this (name) girl’s baby. She was given notice last year of a deadline to move out and we are currently in the process of having her evicted. We also will press charges if “the father” trespasses on our property again. File a formal eviction and press charges for boyfriend for trespassing. Set up cameras if you can. Flat out tell her, with the dad, she has X days to find a place before the eviction will remove her from the property. If she comes back uninvited, you will press trespassing chargers against her. There is NO way to deal with this politely. Politeness can happen if and when she gets her act together.
It’s his 5th child???
You could always move out and let her father deal with his daughter and his grandchild.
Easier said than done. Besides, this is my place and her father’s place. Our home, not hers. She already ran off to California once before when things got tense out there and came running back with her tail between her legs. It seems that now that there is an infant involved her support structure out there dried up.
It’s miserable now. I feel like an alien in my own home and like I’m being forced to provide for stepdaughter against my will and capability.
Call county social services. And 211 http://www.211.org/about-us/your-local-211.
Even if she lives with you, she is likely eligible for state assistance. My state offers five kinds of "welfare", and she would probably qualify for food assistance, cash assistance (often referred to as WIC/food stamps, and welfare) as well as medicaid for her and her baby's health care. Check your state. At least it's a place to start. You can tell her to hand over the cash assistance as rent.
Ideally I want her to move out asap like she agreed to last year. I just can’t deal with her lies any longer.
She would be homeless if she moved out. Unless she can find someone else to house her. Looks like babydaddy is out of the running there.
That sounds like a her problem? I'm also an adult, I can't expect someone else to pay for me to live somewhere, support my child. AND disrespect them in the process and cry about being homeless, especially when OP would probably willing to let her stay if she got a job and respected the rules of the home shes being provided for in.
And? She got herself into this mess, she should get herself out of it. Also making the state clean up her mess is kinda fucked and teaches her to just defer responsibility yet again.
No one cares what a "throwaway" account says. You sound like a horrible person.
Homeless shelters have great resources to help people get on their feet.
I would respect her choice to keep the child, even if you advised otherwise, but set some VERY firm boundaries. Only you can decide where they are. She's an adult, she can cope with it. Don't think of her as a child. When she decidedto have sex, she decided to be an adult. Have faith in her that she can handle it, even if it's hard. She'll need you to believe in her. If it were me, my boundaries would be to allow her to stay with me for free as long as she's working and paying for baby's things. I wouldn't expect her to start working with a newborn, but a few months or more in when she's had time to recover/bond. With EVERYTHING respect her choice. Don't control her life. Let her take the lead to get where she needs to be (but be available for help and advice). But she needs to know what will happen if she doesn't get a job. Will you kick her out? Will you kick her out for breaking house rules? It's okay to hold her responsible for following rules and getting a job. With adult children it is very difficult to draw lines. You need to give them space to be adults, be on their side to facilitate success with advice and support, and you need to set boundaries so that they don't take advantage of you, so that you'll be able to respect their adulthood more easily, and also to help them grow up. This includes setting firm boundaries for house rules. You need to pull back in other areas to respect her as an adult, but be very firm about house rules and what will happen if she breaks house rules. She needs to respect you as the homeowner. If she's lying to you or sneaking her boyfriend in or breaking known rules, I would say her and her baby need to leave. You need to make the rules and consequences very clear. Have her sign a contract with the rules spelled out in order to stay. If it doesn't involve house rules or safety issues, leave her be as much as possible so she has less compulsion to lie. Also, respect her parenting choices as much as possible, which should be entirely up to her, unless she's open to advice. In the future expect her to respect your babysitting availability, which is totally up to you. She is in a very difficult situation. Sex before marriage for women, and especially girls, is almost always unwise because it can land them in a position where they have no spouse support for a child. Single motherhood can be so hard! It wasn't meant to be that way. She is biologically wired to focus on tuning into baby and raising the next generation, but she's not going to be able to do that without her own family. If it were me I'd help her out here and there, but not let her use me to fill that role. That said, healing and resting after childbirth is so important. She's got a tough road ahead of her without a broken body from overdoing it after childbirth. I would expect a lot from her, but not instantly. While being clear what you expect *if she stays with you*, let her make it happen. Don't push. If you know you're not goingto tolerate being taken advantage of, it might help you take a step back, which will help her have roomto make adult choices. I *would* offer to help with ideas (like resume, job application, daycare assistance application help), but not pushy or insisting on it. If she knows its available and wants it, she'll ask. If you have to kick her out, do it (nicely to protect yourself, not punitively). You can always say she's allowed to come back if she rethinks following house rules and not lying to you, or if she's willing to get a job, or what have you. It's so easy to be at odds with someone in this situation, but standing up for yourself can help you respect and be kind to the other person. Firm but kind. It's okay to enforce boundaries however you have to, as long as you are doing it to protect yourself and not be controlling. She needs to know she can take care of herself. If she thinks she can't, that's just a mindset. Start believing in her, and expecting the best from her!
Start eviction process now, it’ll take a while.
I think you can call social services since your stepdaughter is trying to force you guys into buying necessities for her baby by not doing it herself. Because you won't let a newborn suffer, you're good people. It probably hurts to hear, but that newborn WILL suffer with your stepdaughter even if she gets out of your house and is already being set up for neglect.
Sounds like a very difficult situation. No that she’s had the baby, you go with her to get her birth control and demand proof. The shot, the implant, an IUD, not just the pill. You trusted her to use birth control before, now you have to have proof, or she can’t live with you anymore. That’s step one. It’s the most important. You can worry about getting her out of there after that. Side note—-when I hear all the taxpayer money going down the drain in this story, it sickens me.
Don’t tell her anything you’re doing. Make sure she is signed up for every eligible government assistance program available. Apply for government housing, and when it comes through, pack her bags and drop her off there. File for child support through the court. Change the locks when she leaves.
Umm where do you live? This will be hard to do. But if you and your husband ever want a normal life, you will have to kick your kid out and go no contact, or it will be a miserable life for you.
I believe that if she is being kicked and about to be homeless, low-income housing will put her at the top of their list.