Miscommunication. Rant.

I hate that the Babymama situation has become the predominant topic on my blog. I'm sure that any regular readers are totally fed up with the situation and would like to throttle me or else to get over it. More likely, they'll just surf on over to the next, cheerier, happier, funnier blog. Can't say as I'd blame them. But for those of you kind enough to hang on, I say thank you. It means a lot to me to have a forum where I can pour out my thoughts and feelings on this difficult subject - whether or not anyone is even listening. So here's my latest Babymama drama.

Since her car died, my hubby and I have been shuttling Holy Terror back and forth to preschool. Not just to keep her routine intact, but more for our own selfish sake - to get her out of our hair so she doesn't drive us nuts all day. When she's home for the day, Babymama does her usual daily routine - back and forth between nose-in-a-novel and playing video games and talking to her boyfriend on the phone and smoking cigarettes on the (no-children-allowed) sunporch. You will note that all of these are solitary, non-child-friendly activities. Problem. HT is not a self-entertaining child. At all. And she's not very good at playing with my babygirl - her version of playing with her is to show her a toy which she hadn't taken any notice of, get her interested in it, then yank it away saying "no, no, no, it's mine, you can't have it!" Not much fun for babygirl, who by the way is completely capable of self-entertaining for up to 20 minutes at a shot. So anyway, what HT wants is to play with adults. Preferably Babymama, but if not, then us. And she's very insistent about it. She tries to engage Babymama in play, but Babymama tells her "go play" and keeps her nose buried in her book. So HT comes over and bugs me. Or my hubby. We don't really want to play with her all that much because, well, she's not our kid, and we have our own kid to play with. So the more Babymama puts her off and we don't engage her, the worse she behaves, until my hubby is off his rocker and spanks her and puts her in the corner and she starts throwing temper tantrums, one after another. It's absolutely unbearable.

So on Wednesday, HT and Babymama slept late - no getting HT to daycare before the 9AM cutoff. I asked Babymama what she was going to do with HT. She said she was just going to keep her at home. I told her she needed to keep her entertained so she didn't drive hubby and I nuts. Well, about 2 hours later I noticed Babymama was keeping HT cooped up with her in "their" bedroom. Hubby caught Babymama when she came out for a ciggy break and asked why, and she said, "Your wife told me she doesn't want to see HT today." No, that's not what I said at all!!! AAAARGH!!! So after I got my babygirl down for her nap, I took Babymama aside and had a difficult discussion with her. I told her that when HT is home with her for the day, she needs to stop the book-phone-video game-cigs on sunporch routine and actually ENGAGE HER OWN CHILD, thereby keeping her entertained instead of allowing her to drive us up the wall. I didn't care where she did it and I certainly didn't mean I didn't want to see or interact at all with HT; I just didn't want to be saddled with the primary responsibility for keeping her occupied because SHE'S NOT MY KID. Well, Babymama just looked at me in that passive, stunned, deer-in-the-headlights way, nodded and smiled, and said "Oh, OK!" And then she spent the day playing with HT, dressing her up in her new dress-up outfits that she got for Xmas, building with her new MegaBlox, coloring with her, walking her to the park, etc. HT was clearly thrilled. Hubby and I were able to relax and enjoy ourselves and our time with Babygirl. Everything was relatively harmonious in our overcrowded little household. I thought everything was OK, for once.

Postscriptum: A couple of hours after I had my little chat with Babymama, she went upstairs and complained to my sister-in-law A. that I thought she had horrible parenting skills. AAAARGH!!! Actually, I think she is capable of good parenting when she focuses on it and makes an effort, but I also think she has allowed herself to descend into poor parenting since she moved in with us because she was perceiving us as being willing to do it for her. Well, no more. We are HT's Auntie and Uncle, not Mommy and Daddy, and we will just not do the primary parenting thing any more.

I'm so sick of the drama in our house. There is so much talking behind backs going on. I complain to my hubby and my brother and law and my sister in law. Babymama complains to my hubby and my brother and my sister in law. Everyone is so sick of the talking behind backs. But it's so hard to think of just sitting down and having a frank, honest discussion with her, telling her everything I think of her and her absolute refusal to develop any coping skills whatsoever and take any ownership of her own life, because you know what? I HAVE TO FACE THIS CHICK, IN MY OWN HOUSE, EVERY DAY. It's tense enough as it is. I want her out so bad I sometimes cry about it. I just can't see any light at the end of the tunnel. She's so comfortable being dependent on us. Now she doesn't even have food stamps any more and we have to feed her too. But she won't ask for food. She'll just let HT cry because she's hungry and tell her, "I'm sorry honey, I don't have anything to make us for dinner" and then we feel bad and offer to share whatever we're having. Like I'm going to let a child starve under my own roof.

Dammit! Chicky, take some fucking responsibility for your own welfare! Get a job that you can get to by bus! ASK for help, at the very least! For crying out loud, I can't stand the fucking sight of you and your stunned, passive, miserable, pop-eyed face! You are absolutely NOT the first single mother to fall on hard times. Other single mothers fight and struggle and do what they have to do to protect themselves and their children from the circumstances in which they find themselves. You? You fucking collapse. You hide out in books so you don't have to face the wreck you've made of your life. You chain smoke cigarettes. (And where the hell are you getting the money for those, at $5+ bucks a pack, when you can't afford to feed your child?!) And you let other people who are not responsible for your misfortune carry your weight. I can't stand you. I hate you being in my house. I'm so angry right now I want to break something, but there's nothing around me I can break right now, so instead I'm just going to sign off from this post, shut my office door, and have a little cry to get rid of some of this frustration. Rachel, I hate you for doing this to me. This just can't go on. But I don't know how the hell to get rid of you.