Glory In Charge (Who's Charles Anyway?)

When Asab got out of the hospital the counselors acted like all his/our problems were solved. I of course had concerns, but those concerns quickly became reality. There are some "problems", that facilities who deal with child behavior have. They have a lot of money to spend on reinforcements for good behavior. Children can earn things such as: bowling, movies, zoo, aquarium, treats, etc. No parent, especially ones on SSI, have money to compete with this! The child comes home from therapy expecting the same kind of rewards, and Asab was no exception.

This caused difficulties at home and at school. All can not be blamed on the facility, because Asab and Courtney had gone through a great trama, and the adaptations to this trama were never ending. The kids soon realized that Merrym did not have the skills to make them do the chores she gave them around the house. I became the main disciplinarian, not by choice, but out of necessity.

One of the most difficult things that happened was, Merrym had a hard time backing me up on any rules or disciplines. She was so lonely during the day, she treated the kids as though she was their friend and not their mother. Then, when she tried to be the mother, they didn't respect her.

When the children acted up or refused to comply, Merrym would call me and want me to take care of the situation. I would either have the kids come over to my house so I could talk to them or I would go over to Merrym's and do the same. Sometimes the result was timeouts, spankings, grounding, etc. Merrym would try to inforce whatever the said discipline was, but the kids would whine and cry until she would say, "Don't tell Aunt Glory and I won't make you do it." This made it much harder to get a grasp on the situation. It got so that the minute I was gone, they went right back to the way they were. When the kids knew mom was going to call Aunt Glory, they would unplug the phone or lay in the way of her wheelchair so she couldn't get to the phone and other things. Merrym and I had many talks about this problem and even sat the kids down with the both of us and told them that this would not happen again!

Then there was the 'dad situation'. He went against many of the rules we had set up for Asab and Courtney. For example: we didn't want the kids watching things on TV that might affect their behavior. When they visited him, he would allow them (at times, even encourage them) to watch things that he knew were on our 'no, no list' such as "The Simpsons", scary movies, etc.

Dad also treated Merrym as though she were one of the children. He told her that the children were to call him every day at a certain time. If something happened where they were not able to call, or heaven forbid, they forget, he would call and rail on Merrym until she was sobbing! There were even times the step-mom called and railed on her. Believe me I had talks with dad and step-mom several times. They seemed to think that they were superior to Merrym and they were better parents. If they were so great why weren't they the ones who were calling the kids (5 and 6 years old) and not expecting the children do the calling?



You might wonder why they didn't try to get custody of the kids. I have several theories:

• They didn't want the responsibility, but wanted the control.


• They didn't have the money to go to court and fight.


• We knew dad had a warrant for his arrest in Washington and his wife didn't know.


• He knew I would call the Washington police without thinking if he made a move to do anything.


• The bottom line is that for some reason he was afraid of me. He knew that I was a woman of action and I wouldn't hesitate to get an attorney, call the newspaper (media) or whatever it would take to keep the kids with Merrym.

He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own folly. Proverbs 5:23

Love, Mother Hen Glory