Having a baby is hard enough when you have a stable home, a partner who willingly pitches in, and money in the bank. Her sister-in-law has none of that, and yet, she thinks adding another baby to the mix is a good idea.
This woman’s husband has a 23-year-old sister who is a total disaster. Her sister-in-law recently learned that she’s nine weeks pregnant, but she already has three little kids she can’t care for: a four-year-old daughter, a two-year-old daughter, and an infant son.
Her sister-in-law’s oldest children have a deadbeat dad who is barely in their lives and hasn’t given her child support money for several months in a row.
“He left in the middle of the night when her middle [child] was only 6 months old to be with another woman. Her youngest is 8-months-old, and the baby daddy is in a different state; he is not coming back to the home state because he has a warrant, and his father just got diagnosed with a terminal illness, and he wants to stay with him,” she explained.
“This guy isn’t any better than the last; he is not supportive in any way. He does not help with finances; if anything, he wants her to pay him money and send him and his family food.”
“She doesn’t work; her mother pays for her rent and everything she needs. Barely. They are barely scraping by with the money she gets from food stamps and the money from her mother.”
She cannot wrap her brain around why her sister-in-law would want to have a fourth baby right now, since she’s so wildly unstable and can’t provide for the kids she already has.
She is aware that it’s completely her sister-in-law’s choice whether or not to have the baby, but that doesn’t mean she has to keep the kid.
She actually told her sister-in-law, as kindly as she could, that wanting to keep her child is a very selfish decision on her part. Her sister-in-law said she’s not going to give her baby up for adoption.
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“She’s already struggling with severe anxiety, depression, derealization, severe migraines, etc.. She will have 4 under 5, a single mother, and no help from the baby daddies,” she continued.
“…She asked me to help her so she can sleep once she has the baby (like come watch her kids), and it just made me mad…Obviously, I can’t convince her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, and I don’t want her to resent me. I want her to be able to come to me when she needs me, but where does it stop?! How do I help her?”
I mean, she has to just come out and say it: tell her sister-in-law that she’s not going to help her at all, and she made her decision, so she has to deal with the consequences of that. Also, she still has that second baby daddy; she should ask him for help before he runs for the hills.
Obviously, she can’t help her sister-in-law or stop her from what she’s doing, so creating some distance is possibly the best idea here.
What do you think?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
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