Skyblossom
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Your granddaughter needs and deserves financial support. The social security payments will help to feed, shelter and clothe her. How could you possibly find it wrong for her to receive what she deserves.
If her mother felt the need to protect her from your sons being involved in her life then she put the needs of the child ahead of your sons. She did what her daughter needed. Your sons don’t sound like they could have been their either emotionally or financially. If you didn’t know your granddaughter it is because of your sons. Don’t blame the mother of your granddaughter. Also, you don’t really know whether your deceased son knew something about a daughter but kept it a secret. You are saying that both of your sons managed to have sex with a woman and yet neither knew that she gave birth to a daughter and neither considered the timing important or significant. Don’t blame the mother for how badly your own sons have acted. She isn’t perfect but neither are your sons. The child is innocent. Put her needs first. The mother sounds very wary about allowing your family into her child’s life. That is a mother protecting a child from harm. That is her job as a parent.
Please try to talk to someone because it is so much to deal with.
If your son isn’t in a position to pay child support your grandchild is better off being the legal child of a deceased father. The grandchild will get monthly benefits that are much more guaranteed than what your living son can or will provide. The needs of the child should always come first. Your grandchild needs financial support and your deceased son can provide that support through social security benefits. Let your grandchild get what they need.
At some point in the future you could do some DNA testing like Ancestry that wouldn’t go through the courts but would tell you whether your son was the uncle or the father of the child. You need to wait until the child is 18 or until the mother gives permission. To do so without her permission when the child is a minor would be a great way to lose all access to the child.
I think you need to focus on being there for the child and being a safe, supportive place for that child. Provide financial assistance if you can. Babysit if you can. Be a loving presence in the life of this child. Take the long term view. Keeping the child as a member of the family should be a higher priority than determining if your son is the father, especially if that son isn’t in a position to provide the support the child needs.
If he really thinks he could be the father he can petition the court for a paternity test. He hasn’t done that so doesn’t care to the point of finding out for certain.
A child shouldn’t have the job of straightening out the father. Your son will clean up his act because he decides to clean up his act. He can be an involved, loving uncle who stays out of trouble just as much as being an involved, loving dad who stays out of trouble. He can see the child as being a member of his family who could benefit from his living a good life. If that isn’t enough he will get into more trouble anyway.
He has already shown that he made poor choices. Poor choices of friends and activities. It is making better choices that will keep him out of trouble. Fathers can hang out with the wrong crowd just as much as uncles can. At the very least, he needs to prove himself worthy of being in this child’s life, even as an uncle. If I was the mother I wouldn’t let him near my child unless he kept himself out of trouble for a long period of time and didn’t hang out with the wrong sort of people for a long period of time. He would have to prove himself stable to get anywhere near my child. The needs of the child must come first regardless of which son is the father.
The mother of the child can use the test results to get Social Security benefits for the child. Either way, you are the grandmother. I understand that your son is troubled but the results seem pretty conclusive. He is definitely related but he is the uncle.
Again, talk to the testing company. What would an avuncular test say if the genetic testing showed the uncle was actually the father.
Maybe this link will help.
https://www.lbgenetics.com/auntuncle-dna-tests-avuncular-testing/
The 99% relatedness just means that there is a 99 percent chance that your son is the uncle of the child when it is an avuncular DNA test. That is pretty conclusive that your son is the uncle rather than the father.
They would expect the uncle to have 25% of their genes in common with the child. A father would have 50% of their genes in common with the child. We’ve done DNA testing in my family. I have exactly 50.0% DNA in common with each of my parents and each of my kids. By random chance I have 56% of my DNA in common with my sister. I share 25% with my aunt.
If the testing company says there is a 99% chance that your son is the uncle he is probably the uncle rather than the father. Have you asked the company what the report would say if your son was the father rather than the uncle? I’d talk to the company.
I would like to help the LW reconnect with her son. If she was a single mother raising him on a limited budget she almost certainly saw the education as a way to put him beyond the financial restrictions she lived with in her daily life. While trying to free him from that type of daily struggle she has created a different daily struggle in his life.
The sacrifices you made, like no haircuts, were freely made by you and not at his request. He doesn’t owe you for the sacrifices you made for him. We all make sacrifices for our kids, just like our parents made sacrifices for us and our kids will make sacrifices for their kids. You chose how much and what to sacrifice. Don’t hold that against him. It means you love him and wanted the best for him. Sometimes it is hard to know what the best is and sometimes what you want for them may not be what they need. You do the best you can and continue to love them. You gave him the best you could give him and it was a sacrifice but with the ADHD your vision for his future may not work for him. I think it is pretty common for kids who have ADHD to hit a brick wall when they get to college even if they managed high school. It doesn’t mean he is a failure and a loser. It means that college is much more difficult than high school and that ADHD takes a toll. Think about how hard he had to work to be successful in high school in spite of the ADHD. Think about what a fighter he is. The first step in turning this around for yourself is to give yourself a different perspective. He is a good kid. He doesn’t get into trouble. He got himself a job. He persevered through high school and did well. He has a lot of great characteristics.
On the downside he lied to you. If he had told you the truth would your reaction have been any different? Were you ever willing to take a step back and say let’s think about this? Maybe this isn’t working the way I planned.
Did your dreams for him come from wanting him to have prestige and wealth because you thought that those things would make him happy or did they come from a desire for bragging rights? Is your greatest goal for him happiness or wealth or prestige? If you can separate those things and find that happiness is the most important then you will be able to move forward much more easily. You will do a great deal to bridge the gap between you and your son if you can say son I just want you to be happy and I thought the education would bring you the things that would make you happy. Maybe I was wrong.
Your son has to make his own decisions to be a man. If you try to force your vision of his life on him he will have to take a different path just to be an independent man. My mom tried to force religion on my brother and when she made her stand that he wasn’t welcome if he didn’t attend church he just never came by to visit. He was alienated and he still is. He is 58 and has been alienated for about 40 years because my mom wouldn’t accept that he had the right to make his own life choices. Think about whether you want to alienate your son for life.
Your son isn’t a failure or loser for taking a path different than the one you chose for him. He is doing what he needs to do. You need to bridge the gap. Tell him you know that he worked very hard through high school and you are very proud of all he accomplished. Then say you realize he probably needs a break and time to figure out what he wants to do in life. Don’t put an end date on when he needs to decide what works for him.
With his ADHD college may not be the best path for him. A trade school might be better. A job that allows him to be up and moving around might be better. If he decided to do something like HVAC he could be done much more quickly, be gainfully employed rather than running up college debt and could become his own boss. The people in trades around here living in nice houses. There is a huge demand for people who can do things like HVAC, carpentry, electricity and plumbing. You may be embarrassed by his career choice if he does something like that but that says more about you than about him and his value as a person.
To put it all in perspective, my neighbors sent their son to a private prep school and instead of going to college he got into drugs and then got caught making meth. He did most of a five year term in prison and was out less than a year when he got caught making meth again. He is awaiting his second trial and sentencing. You know your kid messed up when they become a felon and that is embarrassing.
The son of another neighbor became an alcoholic and got a bunch of DUIs and then became a heroin addict. Again, he came from a high achieving family. His mom has a PhD and his dad has been a local politician. The kid went through rehab and appeared to be doing well until he was found dead after getting back into heroin. You know your kid messed up when you find them dead.
Your kid is gainfully employed and sounds like a good kid. He could be doing far worse and be an actual embarrassment. If your friends can’t be happy for your son then you’ve picked the wrong friends. Friends should care about the person rather than the outward appearance of that person.
Probably half the kids I know would benefit from taking a year or two off after high school and working a minimum wage job. It lets them see the alternative to going to college. It lets them see what life will be like if they don’t get the education that will give them more income. That’s good for them. I think my son would have benefited greatly from doing this but he needed to go to college to stay on our health insurance. As it was, it took him 6 years to complete college because he changed majors his junior year. His grades improved each year. A few years of maturity and working at the local radio shack gave him the perspective he needed to see that he needed college. He found that his salary gave him enough money to put gas in the car and to do a little maintenance but it would never let him be independent and it would never give him the income to buy the things he wanted. When I told our doctor that I thought our son would benefit from a year or two working a menial job before college he told me about two of his four sons doing terribly in college. One flunked out of his prestigious curriculum and had to come home and go to community college to get his grades up. Many, many college students make a similar error.
Your son’s job at Chilli’s is probably what he needs right now. He needs to see what happens when you have a limited income and he needs time to get over being burned out in high school and time to think about what he wants to do in life.
You are making huge assumptions about other people’s kids. They may be in college but that doesn’t mean they are doing well in college. You assume they are making life-long friends but that may not be true either. College friends usually slowly drop away when you move in different directions and never see each other. Many college students are horribly stressed and depressed. Almost certainly some of the kids you know are and their parents aren’t telling you because they are embarrassed. You can assume that some of them are barely hanging in there with their grades. Their parents just don’t tell you that.
You moving away isn’t so much different than your son dropping out of college. It’s leaving what you know to escape something you dislike.
Give him a few years. He may be ready to go back to school or maybe he won’t but give him a few years to mature.
What were the ADHD drugs doing to your son? My friend’s son was taking them and when he was a senior in high school they made him extremely depressed to the point she was afraid he would become suicidal and she got him off of them. You can’t assume that the drugs were all positive.
“Yes my job and my lifestyle make me a catch, and if they were not insecure jerks looking for validation of their masculinity by “scoring” with their socially conditioned notion of “feminine” they would see that just as my late husband did”
You are the one who is choosing to date these jerks. Why do you miss all the signals that say they aren’t right for you? That is all about you. These guys aren’t looking for validation. They are looking for sex. They may not want long term relationships. They probably like the chase and playing the field. They probably aren’t interested in a catch. I think you may be looking for validation by dating these guys. It makes you feel good that alpha type guys find you sexy and want to have sex with you. You need to realize that is all they want. They aren’t trying to catch you for a long term relationship. They just want sex now.
My daughter just turned 18 and I don’t require her to check in as much as your sister requires you. Your sister sounds like a bully. You need to get a job and move out. Don’t ask her if you can get a job. Just get it and move. If you can stay with someone in the meantime it would be better. Do you have a friend that would let you move in with them temporarily or even for a year with you paying your share of rent and other expenses?
When your sister threatens to have your boyfriend beaten up remind her that she would be committing a crime and she would go to jail for it and she would then be a felon.
