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Question55 year old man texting my niece
My ex SIL (30s) is in a new relationship with a 55 year old man who has several grown children and multiple grandchildren. They met in March. She went to mandatory drug rehab the past week and I've been keeping my teenage niece for a few days at a time while my brother works nightshift.
I became aware that my niece is spending a lot of time texting someone, and lo and behold, it's my SIL's boyfriend.
I told my brother and he wants to take her phone and beat the shit out of the guy, but so far the texts are "harmless" and the phone is the only way my niece can talk to her mom in rehab.
Niece is desperate to live with her mom and is pissed at her dad all the time. Custody is shared but obviously my brother has the kid most of the time right now.
I'm seeing all of this as a big red flag on top of a dumpster fire, but what the hell can I even do? Any ideas?
My brother does have a temper. He's otherwise a pretty upright guy; no drinking, no vices, hardworking. He is in counseling post-divorce because 18 years with an addict is rough. I think his "beat the shit out of him" comment, made only to me, is because he doesn't know how else to deal with this situation. He has shared custody and doesn't want to press things legally even though his ex is an unrepentant addict. My niece has become her mom's enabler since the divorce. She covers up the drinking and drug abuse, tells us bald lies about where her mom is or what is happening.
She also hasn't been well-raised or socialized. Until recently my brother was pretty checked out from parenting trying to hold everything else together. I never imagined this is how he would raise his children. And while I love her and recognize that so much of this isn't her fault, my niece is sloppy, tremendously overweight for her age and height, lazy, rude, and anti-social. She came out as a lesbian recently but she's actually dating a TIM. I don't trust her judgement at all.
When a girls alarms aren't going off, it means someone has disabled it, or failed to help her set it in the first place.
I have very, very limited influence. She recently went with her mother to a suggestively-themed restaurant bar...think Hooters but more raunchy and classless. She was wearing a shirt from there that I objected to because it was demeaning to women and I didn't want my kids to read it. She declared me silly and said "Mom and I thought it was fun" at which point I explained that I would never have taken my child there no matter what age, because crass sexual humor should not be endorsed or normalized for minors. I tried to he diplomatic, but of course she viewed it as an attack on her mother. I am extremely neutral about my ex SIL when talking to my niece because I know it's her mother and she does love her. But I won't stand for dangerous or degrading things. She needs to know what is and is not respectful to women.
I hate to say it, but I fantasize about just not having to deal with this at all. It is such a mess. I want to help everyone, but it's a minefield.
Damn, that's rough.
Seems like the grooming is only the tip of the iceberg, there. Dating a TIM! (I mean, dating a male is normal for a hetero girl to do, but deluding herself that it means she's a lesbian ... that's serious.)
Your brother having mentally checked out would explain why the girl is more attached to her mother; children need attention and prefer even bad attention over being ignored. Hopefully, it is not too late to repair that.
It is good that you stay firm with her on the topic of keeping your children away from harmful influences. (I'd use things like that t-shirt as starting points for feminist explanations. So, not just "it is sexual and therefore bad for minors" but "I don't want my daughters to think of themselves as sex objects, nor my sons to think of girls like that". Who knows, something might stick.)
I did have a gender ideology discussion with her a few weeks back and it went ok, but because of the TIM I feel like I have to tread lightly. She also has a best friend who is a TIF, so she's soaked in it right now and I'm trying to be gentle about it.
My approach is as woman-first as I can make it (gender ideology is harming women and especially lesbians; porn and sexual crudity harms women; I'm teaching my boys that these are lines we don't cross and therefore that shirt has to go, etc).
My brother is trying to focus as much as he can on his daughter without being overbearing, but I would say he's afraid to parent her as much since she's so angry, and it's coming off as being a buddy. My ex SIL has revealed details of the divorce that my brother isn't proud of (he had an affair years and years ago before any kids) and my niece is understandably weirded out. And my brother is not willing to articulate the substance abuse issues that led to the break up because he doesn't want to talk bad about his daughters mother. Which I understand.
It just feels like a massive, dangerous stalemate.