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beridan

Dealing With An Adult Child

beridan
15 years ago

My oldest son is 25 yrs old and the father of at least one precious little girl approaching 5 yrs in age. My wife and I have been the primary caregivers of this child for the last three yrs. The girl's mother is not well-suited but is willing to try to take care of her of her daughter but it is not a safe environment at all for the little one. My son is not willing to make any sacrifices at all for his daughter and is relishing in the fact that his parents have legal guardianship (this, for the time being, relieves him of his obligation to pay child support).

My wife and I are more and more frequently at odds over this situation. I believe that my son has an obligation to assist us in the financial load having a pre-schooler has placed upon us; she states to me words of agreement, but the reality seems quite different because we can never move forward together on legal pursuit of child support.

I consider my son to be a "dead beat dad" since when he does come around, he comes empty handed, and his visits consist more of him catching up on his sleep than developing a meaningful relationship with his daughter. He leaves my home with satchels of food for himself and his live in (prepared by my wife) but he never contributes as much as a can of coke. Now, he has the audacity to leave instruction on what extracurricular activity his daughter should be engaged in (at our expense of course) and, frankly, I am sick of him!

So what's my question? Is it an act of kindness and "christian witness" to continue to accept his activity and respond with what seems to me as a doormat or does this seem like unreasonable and unacceptable behavior on his part?

I feel like an enabler and a sucker. My wife believes we are doing the right thing by setting the example.

What do you think?

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