difficult children' grandparents adopted their son (difficult children' bio dad) when he was 14 days old.
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She quit her job on the spot to be a stay at home mom. They had waited for him for almost 10 years, unable to conceive. They devoted their lives to him. She ended up pregnant and within 7 years, had 2 more biological sons.
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What they know of his birth family is that his mother was a college student, and his father a construction worker in his mid-20's. His father's father died around age 40.
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By the time difficult children' bio dad was 4, bio dad's mother returned to work because of him - she couldn't stay home with him anymore. He was a basket case, hyper, wild, out of control. It was blamed on her parenting - she was too strict, not strict enuf, loved him too much, didn't love him enuf, babied him too much, expected to much of him, etc etc etc. Most docs told her to take parenting classes, ask her mom to help her, and give him 40 acres, he'll run it off. Needless to say, it didn't work. Bio dad is 40 years old and lives in his parents' barn, drives a broken down truck and occassionaly works odd jobs, but mostly is unemployed. Gets fired as often as not.
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difficult child 1 was an unplanned pregnancy between bio dad and a 17 year old high school dropout/runaway/alcoholic. She was a last fling before he left for boot camp. When she found out she was pregnant, she moved in with bio dad's parents. Stayed there til difficult child 1 was about 14-16 months old and they kicked her out for repeated pot use. From that point on, difficult child 1 lived here and there. She wasn't a terrible mother, but wasn't a good one, either. She drank, used drugs, tricked to pay for her habits. difficult child 1 spent until he was 3.5-4 witnessing that. While difficult child 1's behaviors aren't as extreme as bio dad and wee difficult child, the root behaviors are very similar. And he's perfectly capable of equally alarming extremes - he just doesn't stay in that extreme state all the time.
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difficult child 2 was also not planned, but his dad and I were married. His dad was cheating on me, and I was actually getting ducks in a row to divorce his dad when I found out I was pregnant, so the pregnancy was not stress-free. However, I had a good job, I knew I could take care of myself and the kids, etc. I stayed home for 2 months when he was born before I returned to work. After the run-in with dad not caring for him, he had a stable babysitter, a family member, and was the center of our lives.
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I am told wee difficult child is a cookie cutter of his bio dad.
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Three very different scenarios for raising these 3 boys, and yet, at the age of 6, all are carbon copies of each other. The one link being bio dad.