the girls in the middle

i have two beautiful nieces, and i think the world of them.  just months ago the older one was in beauty pageant and needed to find someone with a convertible to drive her in a parade and she called me to drive her in my beat up old Jeep.  i couldn't have been happier - i was so nervous since the other convertibles were so nice, and my friend Amy even offered to let us do it in her red Audi but she wanted it to be in my '86 CJ.  i actually heard people from the crowd say things about how awesome the old Jeeps were!  she heard it too and loved it, it was great.

the younger one i recently ran into randomly walking to a friend's house after school as i sat outside on my friend's patio.  the two girls joined us for a bit and we hung out and had some laughs and after leaving my friend complimented her in so many ways.  her personality is nothing like her older sister, this one is the brainy one who likes to test people, her grades are awesome and i'm very proud of her.

proud of both really, they are children of divorce and times aren't always easy.  i don't get to see them a lot because they aren't my kids, but my sister lived with my parents for years after the divorce and still regularly unloads them over there so i probably see them more than most uncles.

my father has really been the male role model in their life, with me as a backup.  i take them to the father-daughter events, and at times i've had to be a little hard on them, etc.  i have no kids, but i think i do a good job when i do.

then, about 2 weeks ago, their mother started to lip off on my Facebook page.  i love my sister, but her insecurities drive her need to be heard so much that she doesn't seem to pay attention when she starts to act or rant.  i had made a post about people posting pics of their kids on that site, and how the pictures were not secured and any pervert could see them.  i followed up the post with my own comment stating clearly that my motivations for saying what i said were really to stop the congestive flow of pictures from everyone's kid having yet another first day of school.  my sister didn't bother to read that...

eager to shut down the big brother which always blocks her sun, she replied with rants about my being a hypocrite, then followed it up with more posts about how stupid my thoughts were because of the impossible effort needed to find the pics in question.  somewhere in the middle i tried to point out that people should read everything i said... but she continued.

finally, i'd had enough, and i defriended her.  my sister is notorious for problems on Facebook.  of the 106 friends we have in common there, i can't tell you the number of people who have come to me and apologized for having to block her, or the others who have just let her go.  are they friends or at least friendly to her?  sure, but she rants, and as shown here in this simple example she seems to rant without taking the time to be informed, and often she lets emotion guide her decision making.

and then she did, again...

this morning i was informed by my niece that her mother instructed her to block me on Facebook.  i'm sure she will have some excuse, something about my talking about drinking or some event i had pictures of being too wild... but the timing seems a little perfect that this happened right after i defriended her.

and, she's notorious for playing these games with my mother.  mom loves to see these girls and they are getting older and less likely to spend time with grandma.  when grandma isn't good to my sister, she finds other places to warehouse her kids, or she just leaves them at her boyfriend's house.  klassy huh?  yeah, not surprisingly, their mother is the kinda woman who brings her kids to sleep at the boyfriends house.  now with that option, she has the ability to exercise more controls.

my sister called me a few weeks ago asking me to watch her dog because my mother had complained about something so instead of bringing the girls and the dog over to stay with them while she traveled, she was going to warehouse one girl elsewhere and leave the dog with me.  uh, no.  i'm not going to help you play your game.

and now, i can't be friends with my nieces on Facebook.

i have (or had) someone in my life who lived through things like this after her parent's divorce, but i can't talk to her about it because sadly, she's now playing games with the people in her life as well.  i don't know who else i can get help or advice from.  her stories of the control games bordered on abusive in my mind and often made me wish i had ways to set her mother straight in her defense.  truly the brightest of her siblings, any time she chose her father over her mother in even the slightest way limitations were placed on her in regards to activities or tuition payments that simply weren't placed on her younger and less able sisters.  now she lives in a way where she keeps things a secret so as to not upset those who she wants love from, she tries to make everything appropriate, and cater to people.  she's such a beautiful person in so many ways, and often noticed her similarities to my niece... i now have my concerns that the games will have the same impact on my girls as they did her.

and i have no one to turn to otherwise.  i didnt grow up in a world where this was common place, i heard about it randomly, but to actually use a child as a method of retaliation?  to cause that child to learn that if someone annoys their parent they will get pulled from them?  to teach your children that they have to follow the master plan or be rejected and be forced to remove people and things from their lives which they may love and find important... who does that?  who makes up excuses instead of communicating and doesn't expect the results to be poor?

my friend Adam called my sister 'spineless', but its more than that.  and really, its not a battle i am prepared to fight... but i will fight for those girls.  but how do you fight a parent?  how do you tell your sibling with the insecurity complex that they could be wrong in how they are raising their kids?

ugh, this is killing me.  if it were anything else, i would walk away.