Dear Prudence,
My sister-in-law is a mess. She is a drug addict who started running away at 16 and only resurfaces in her parents’ life when she has a child she wants to unload on them. For more than a decade she has put them through a carousel of arrests and convictions, attempts at rehab, and giving birth to drug-addicted children. My husband and I adopted her daughter after the state took away her parental rights. I ended up dropping out of my graduate program to concentrate on her/our daughter’s care. Now she is a healthy, happy 4-year-old, but her 10-year-old brother has a host of health and development problems as a result of his mother’s drug use. My in-laws are raising him.
Now my sister-in-law has surfaced again for the first time in several years. She got caught using a stolen credit card and is facing a series of parole violations. She’s also pregnant again. My in-laws are broke and nearing retirement, with a 10-year-old to raise; they cannot take on an infant, and neither can I. They want us to take this baby. I won’t. I can’t. I love our daughter, but this isn’t the life I wanted. I want to have a baby myself, and I know if we take this second child on, that will not happen. Our daughter has a lot of difficult issues to deal with already. My refusal is breaking my family’s heart. I hear my husband on the phone weeping while talking to his parents. They have good memories of the girl my sister-in-law used to be, but I can only resent her. How do we get through this?
—Can’t Parent Again