For two years Brandon & I raised my two nieces. This was a very easy decision for us. One I don't think Brandon or I spent much time discussing. Our nieces needed a home and so we knew that we needed to step up an provide one for them.
At age 26 I had 3 kids of my own. Brandon and I were trying to figure our own life out. Where we ready to raise teenagers??? Absolutely not. Did we make mistakes??? Sure we did.There are many details I may go into during another blog post but the emotion is still to raw.
Both girls didn't come stay with us at the same time. My younger niece came when her dad decided to move to draper to be closer to his girlfriend. My niece at the time was living with him in Tremonton. It was decided she would stay with us so she was still close to family and friends. My oldest niece and her mother decided she would come and stay with us due to some contention in there house. Both girls we would latter get custody of through the courts.
At the time we lived in a cheap little house in Millville. We were waiting to save enough money to build a new home. Our little house had 1 bathroom and 3 bedrooms. We immediately realized this was not going to work so we added on a Bedroom downstairs. We moved Cartson upstairs with Tabitha and Tayson crib was in the front room, although he just ended up staying in our room. Later we would end up buying a bigger house with more bathrooms...
Raising two teenagers wasn't easy. I don't think anyone would say it was easy regardless of the situation. Its tough to be a teenager so by rights its got to be tough raising them. We hadn't ever parented teenagers so at first we were kinda like puppets. We let their parents tell us how to raise them. They would tell us what we should and shouldn't let them do. Finally we hit a breaking point. Why were we letting them try to tell us how to raise these girls when they weren't capable themselves of raising them that way. We knew how these girls were doing in school, in church, at home and socially we decided we should be the one deciding consequence for there actions, whether they should have a sleepover or go on a school outing. That is when things went terribly bad,
Once we weren't puppets we were the enemy. The girls hadn't seen there dad he wouldn't really come visit and this just made things worse. It made the tone of the calls to the girls worse and the tone of the calls to us worse.
We made a decision from the beginning to treated these girls as are own. We felt we had to in order to give them the life & love they deserved. We didn't want to take the place of there parents but for the time we were acting as there parents so that's the role we felt we needed to take. We were still there aunt and uncle but we had to act like parents. We didn't get to be the fun guys anymore. We got robbed of that. We had to look out for them and there future at all costs. We helped them get there first cars, helped them pick out and buy some of there prom dresses and we grounded them. We had ups and downs. We made it work with very little support of any kind.
Unfortunately the court system who had put both of these girls in our care was a joke. They wouldn't keep to there word they certainly told us one thing and the parents another. They seemed to hold my sister on a finer line while letting there dad run free of any emotional or financial obligation to these girls. We were a free resource to them and we got used,abused and pushed around.
My oldest niece graduated high school and moved out a short time later and my younger niece moved back in with her mom at 17. Looking back I never could have imagined some of the ups and downs we faced. I wouldn't have known my relationship with my sister would forever be changed and not in a good way. There were some high of highs while raising them and there was some low of lows, We got to experience first hand some of their accomplishment, achievements and milestones. We got to watch them grow and start to see who they were and who they wanted to be. Those are unforgettable moments. . We never really though about the impact this would have on our little family physically, emotionally, financially or mentally. This experience changed us. It changed my kids. They had there eyes opened up to the world before we were ready for them to. Looking back.... There are a few things I would change but I wouldn't change taking them in. I wouldn't change how we treated them or our expectations of them. Through it all we love them and will always want whats best for them.
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