Moody Eye View

Dear Eye View,
My sister and I are both married with young children. Our mother, who lives near us, is almost 60 and has physical disabilities due to chronic pain. She is also flighty, stubborn, and tends not to make rational decisions. In recent years, she has started  being a foster parent and has become very dedicated, sometimes having four high-needs children at a time. Last year she adopted one of them, “Cindy.” My sister and I were skeptical about this. Also, my mother has an affluent lifestyle. So, soon Mom will leave on a three-week European vacation with her sister. My mom wants me to take Cindy during this time. Cindy has been hospitalized for acute psychiatric care recently, and my mother has had to call the police because of Cindy’s destructive behavior and threats to herself and others. My sister refuses to help my mother, saying that she won’t enable her bad decisions. My husband has also said that he will not agree to allow Cindy to stay with us, although I think I could insist. My mother is getting resentful of my sister and me and says she will try to line up a string of people to keep Cindy for a day or two. My heart breaks for this child who is bearing the brunt of an adult’s bad decision-making, and I am feeling guilty. How I can reconcile my own family’s needs, the needs of my adopted sister, and my relationship with my mother?

—The Good Daughter/Sister/Mother/Wife

Dear GDSMF/Enabler

 How did your 60- year old, severely needy nutjob mother get approved to be the adoptive parent of  Cindy! You’re right, Cindy is the victim—a lifetime victim—in all this, but I understand why your husband does not want this potentially dangerous girl in your home with your own children. Tragically, your mother sounds like exactly what Cindy, and the foster children, don’t need: a do-gooder who ends up doing bad because she’s erratic and incapable. Once the buzz of doing a good thing is gone others are left to clean up the mess. If your mother wants to be paid for her altruistic impulses, it would be better if she worked at some kind of institution for troubled children, where her responsibilities would be limited. Or better check into one. Tell your “material girl” mother you will no longer help her raise her foster kids and if she has a problem tell your dumbass mother not to preach cause you’re not keeping her baby… Hope this helps. You just got an eyeful.

Eye View