Im just about at my limit. No I am at my limit. Many of you know the situation we are in. Tiffany and I have been taking care of my nephews for several years off and on. We have made tremendous sacrifices of time, money, and my children have sacrificed as well. We all did this willingly and would make the same decisions again. Two weeks ago Tiffany was in a terrible accident and sustained a traumatic brain injury. I immediately identified some potential problems and one of them was my nephews. One is 19 and the other is 15. Given the past I had concerns about their ability to make good decisions without supervision. I was especially concerned about the 15 year old because he is a minor. I immediately reached out to the social worker we have dealt with and told her my concerns. The main concern is for the 15 year old, that there is no one to take care of him at home. I spoke to his other brother and told him I needed him to step up a take care of his brother. This is not happening. The Caswell social worker called me back and said I go to that big ole church why couldnt I find someone there to take care of him? I responded it is not other peoples responsibility to take on my burdens or the burdens of my half sister. I also told her that my wife is my number one priority right now. Every ounce of effort I put elsewhere takes away from her. I told the worker if they approve him to stay there with no supervision that would be fine. She said they could not do that. I reminded her that I have absolutely no legal custody of any kind and can not make these decisions for him. That if I let him stay there with no supervision and he gets hurt they will blame me! The social worker calls their mom (my half sister that is in a drug rehabilitation program in Chapel Hill with her pre-mature baby that was born addicted) and tells her that I kicked the boys out of the house. This was a complete lie! The older nephew is still living in my home and I had the younger one with someone from church that graciously volunteered to watch him. I told their mom the real facts and she seemed to understand. She also had the same concerns as me about him not being supervised and based on the past felt the older brother would not step up (by now we knew he wouldnt because we were several days in and it simply was not happening). Since I could not get anyone from Caswell to respond or even call me back I called Orange Social Services because this is where we live. I told them the situation and was guaranteed a phone call back within the hour. Nothing that day so the next day I called him back and requested he call me and let me know what was going on. Still nothing all day. I finally get to go home and check my mail over the weekend. There is a letter form Orange Social saying IF what I said was true it did not meet their criteria for assistance. Sooo I speak to some folks in the system and they tell me as long as I am willing to deal with it they do not consider him to be a need? I call his mom today and told her she needed to get with her social worker and figure this out. She gets very angry at me, almost like how dare I? I tell his mom there are certified foster parents at our church that can/may take him? Her response is absolutely not! I ask her if she knows where he has been, if she knows the people he has been staying with. She says I dont know any of those people I only know its someone you go to church with. My question for her is why is ok with you that he stays with those people and not ok to stay with a certified foster family in our church. Again she says absolutely not. Her attitude along with Social Services is I should do what ever is necessary, leave my wife and tend to his needs because they do not want to deal with him. His mom then has the younger nephew call me and ask me why Im kicking him out of my house? You thinks she is trying to play the guilt card? I explain to him thats not the case. I explain there is no one at home to take care of him which he knows and agrees with. I explain I love him but right now my wife is my priority. She does not know who she is most of the time and can not advocate for herself. He understands this and also understands his mom is not telling him the truth. It absolutely blows my mind the attitude of my half sister and the social workers. They just cant understand why I wont kill myself running back and forth form Durham to Mebane every day taking care of my wife then going home taking care of his needs, fix his meals, check his homework get everything secure. Find someone to stay with him overnight while I return to Durham to be with Tiffany only to start all over the next morning. According to them it is my responsibility to work all this out and if not just do it all myself. We have took care of these boys for over three years (except for the short time they went back home) with no legal paperwork and could hardly get enough form social services to even feed them most of the time. We have opened our home, fed them, clothed them, treated the like our own children. My son gave up his room has done without many things. Myself, Tiffany, and Nick all did this gladly and now I have this tragedy on my hands they act like Im awful for wanting to spend every minute tending to my wife and her needs. Am I missing something here? Am I looking at things wrong?
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 19:31:44 +0000
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