Nobody Wants Her

You won’t regret taking your granddaughter in, I promise. Thirteen years ago two of our grandsons came to live with us. Mum had problems because of her abusive relationship with the boys’ father and couldn’t cope. The boys are now seventeen and thirteen, and are gorgeous. The older one is off to university next October. We will miss him so much! Even though he’ll be home for holidays. It’s not what we planned for our retirement (I’m now 73 and my husband is 75.) It can be exhausting, but we don’t regret a minute.

Reading your post, GG, I am in tears too. the love you have for your family shines through. It's gonna be tough, but that love will help you know what's best. Plenty of good advice here on this thread and the one GNHQ has linked to. {shamrock]

Hello grandadgarage
Before I retired I worked for a voluntary organisation called HomeStart. Obviously I don't know where you live but HomeStart have a website where you can check if there is one in your area. HomeStart offer support to families with children under 5 who are experiencing stress. They use carefully trained and vetted volunteers who are themselves parents to offer nonjudgmental, confidential support. They are completely separate from social services and you can refer yourself, it won't matter you are a grandparent rather than a parent. In my role I talked to many families who had experienced HomeStart support and they found it invaluable. If they are local to you please contact them and get some support for both your GD and yourselves .

I don't know how old you are and how well, but thinking forward, how old will you be when your GD is 18 and legally an adult?

Would you all be better off, if someone in her mother's age group became her legal guardian and you retained your role of grandparents?

This may seem cold, but it isn't meant like that. Sometimes we need to be realistic and God forbid it should happen, but if you or your wife became disabled, senile or died before the little one is grown up, she will then be faced with settling down in another home.

I think you are doing the right thing and I also don’t think you should home your daughter it will just bring the chaos to your door the very thing you are trying to get your granddaughter away from
She will do well with two loving grandparents and yes someone does want her the two of you do even though it won’t be what you were expecting but you will all adapt
The sad part is you dearly love your daughter too and are obviously very worried about her and I don’t know that there is anything at all you can do for her, she appears to have a self destruct button albeit on pause I think all you can do is leave the door open and hope she meets someone who is not into drugs she seems easily led so maybe someone else could lead her down a straighter path
Good luck and every good wish for yours and your little granddaughters future together

I can’t imagine the mix of emotions you must be going through. Thankgod your granddaughter has you.

It must be so hard being full time caters to a child again. I find having my darling GC 1 day a week exhausting and am only 50.

Get all the help you can from SS and find out if you are entitled to any benefits etc. Sure there’s an allowance you can apply for but wiser gransnetters will know.

to you both

You may feel that you are the only Grandparents who have this problem. I don't know if it will reassure you to know that when I was teaching, there were quite a few pupils whose Grandparents were their main carers. What I hope will reassure you, is that many of those pupils did really well and appreciated what their Grandparents were doing for them. I applaud you for the decision you are making and respect you so much for your love and integrity.

You are doing an amazing thing! Of course it will be hard work, and I can understand your trepidition, but you are keeping that precious little girl out of the Care System and surrounded by love. Well done! And seek any help you can get!

We never know what life will throw at us. But this must be really tough for you. Not what you had planned. But, as you say, there really is no choice for you. I wish you all the best. And hopefully the love you get in return from your GD will make up for sacrifices you will probably have to make.

Oh I feel for you. We are going through troubled times and I wonder if it will ever end. It rips us apart. Feel too old, but know we may have to step up. But granddaughter loves her Mum and wants to be with her

You are what your gd wants and needs. It will be hard for sure , but oh, you will reap such love from her. Good luck and my utmost respect to you both x

It is a possibility that without you stepping in to take care of your DGD she could end up in care eventually. This would cost a considerable amount of money to the local authority involved. Therefore it would make sense for some help from the local authority to be made available to you - childcare and other practical support which would be a lot cheaper and could alleviate you of the day-to-day burden to some extent. I wish you well.

We also care for our granddaughter who is 17, she has stayed long periods since she was a baby.Her mum, our adopted daughter, has mental illness and after a very rocky few years our two granddaughters were removed by social services and police.Younger girl lives with father and stepmum. Fast forward several years and both girls doing well and although at opposite ends of the country keep in touch with social media,and big family get togethers keep our patchwork family together I am now 71 and I do get tired but we have lots of laughs and we have learned all kinds of stuff that we would never have known!
Good luck, it is worth every ....almost...minute.

This happened to a friend of mine, although it was her son who was the father. They had the little girl from birth as the mother, an addict, walked out. For a while the son stayed and parented, but it didn't last. My friend applied to adopt as neither parent wanted this lovely little one. After a huge uphill battle they have been able to adopt her. Luckily Social Services and the Health Visitor supported my friend and her husband in this, as the sticking point was the parents. They wanted the baby adopted out of the family, and got very nasty. She is now a happy 4 year old and bright as a button. If you can manage you can make a big difference to your grand-childs life and future. Good luck, whatever you decide

I hope that you can give this little girl the stability she needs; you have such a close bond with her already and she is used to living in your home too. Since she left her little life appears to have been quite chaotic.
It could be hard and you may occasionally wonder how you'll cope (I don't know how old you both are) but the thought of her being in care somewhere would, I think, be far worse for you, worrying about her wellbeing and her future.

and best wishes.

The way to secure the placement of children with relative carers, is by obtaining a Special Guardianship Order. A google search will bring up the background to SGO and the duties/responsibilities of the local authority.
One of the key things is that an SGO gives the relative carer (often the grandparents) Parental Responsibility. The birth parent maintains their PR but the relative carer has the greater say, so medical/educational issues are in their hands.

There have been various Court Judgements about the duty of l.a.'s to financially support SGO placements. One Judgement directed that l.a.'s should pay SGO's at the same rate as foster placements. This is an area where either legal or advice from a friend who knows the system and can support the people who will become Special Guardians is important. LA's continue to face huge cuts, services are under significant threat so it isn't surprising that not if l.a.'s cn avoid giving financial support to family carers, they may do so.

Your dgd is very lucky that she has you and your dw to care for her. If you could not care for her she would go into care. There is nothing you can do for your dd that is more important than love and care for your dgd. Hopefully your dd will learn in time but if not you have done all you can and more than anyone else to make your dgd life happy and safe.

Thank you very much for all the replies and DMs, we wanted to seek others experiences and some advice and we’ve got some good things that we can consider.

The meeting with the social worker and our daughter was cancelled yesterday for some reason, she FaceTimed us yesterday and spoke to her daughter which was nice; she promised to take her out today needless to say she didn’t which is now 3 times in a week she’s said she’s coming and she hasn’t; we’re getting quite angry now frankly; she hasn’t seen her for ten days now.

She’s been busy working for this escort agency it’s incredulous that’s she just left us to it in that time, sorting nursery, changing our work routines and so on, today we feel quite angry with her in all honesty it’s like she’s just abandoned her, she’s promised to come tomorrow, she thinks spending money is love and makes up for it. The only way I can describe it is like stages of bereavement; we feel like we’ve lost a daughter but we are hitting the anger phase today.

Also The nursery had a fair today, we’ve got a great relationship with them all and apparently there’s a family meeting booked 17/12 there for our entire family which is good as we want this sorting now and if our daughter won’t step up then we will take her on as our own and raise her ourselves.

Sad times.

Nothing to add other than to say I have so much admiration for grandparents such as the op and GrandadGarage who step up to the plate in such cases. Thank God grandchildren such as yours who have difficulties at home are at least blessed in having such good grandparents.

sorry inadvertently added an "and" in my post above.

It is indeed sad times for all concerned GG as yourself and Mrs GG must be physically and mentally shattered as well as heartbroken. It's traumatic for you both as well as for your GD who doesn't fully understand the situation apart from being separated from her mother. This separation alone brings its own problems which can appear as anxiety in a child but at least she's with those who care immensely.

I'm so sorry about the life in which your D has chosen. I can only hope that sometime in the future she can see the error of her ways and re-join you all as a family.
At this stage I wish you all the best at your forthcoming meeting and hope that you get the support you so clearly need.

You need to do this legally to ensure the future safety of your granddaughter. who knows what idiot your daughter may take up with in the future.

GrandadGarage I hope you will take heart from the posts on here and realise what a good and also difficult thing you are taking on. Each situation is very different but I have had 3 DGC living with me for several years, 3 to 4 days or more every week as their Dad (DS) also lives with me for financial reasons. Often I long for the retirement I had hoped for but I remind myself how lucky I am to have such a special, close relationship with them despite the difficulties. Of course they love their Mum but it is heartbreaking to see them upset when they have to go 'home' to her sometimes. Keeping that distance and not involving myself in their parents' arguments is very hard. Good luck to you and that little girl who is so lucky to have you.

Please, please look carefully at what SOCIAL SERVICES are up to as they are very sneaky, I will PM you with a scenario my friend is currently going through, and it is purely a money saving exercise and definitely NOT in the best interests of the children involved. Look into Special Guardianship and Residence Orders, especially if financially it will be a problem taking in your GD. Take care ....

Our daughter missed the social worker visit on Friday, also she had one today which she has missed, probably deliberately.

So I sent her a text this morning asking her to talk or at least tell us whats he wants to do, does she want to make her own plan which we will try and support her with or something else, we've let her know we are not pushing this but that it has come to our door and that we are not trying to take her daughter from her.

She came yesterday and took her little girl out, bless she ran and threw her arms round her mummy kissing her and holding her tight, we we so worried what the reaction would be; I had to leave the room; I cried buckets, how can you not see you child for 11 days.

She says she will get a flat and share the care, never in a million years will that work given what she does, thankfully she seems free of drugs; she sounded really well told is she'd hardly had any weed..proudly declaring she'd got her head together at which point I had to leave again as i wanted to smash it in, not really of course but that's how I felt... doesn't understand and no thought whatsoever that my wife will have to look at her job hours even giving it up possibly etc etc

My wife and I spoke last night and I have been looking through some of the posts and pointers you folks have kindly offered and I think we are leaning towards Guardianship, if we are taking her on whilst I don't want to interfere or remove my daughters PR we want something ourselves for many reasons not in the least at our age if we pass away we can cover off her care in our will.

Best wishes.