M
Magdalena09
Guest
On December 5th, 2007, I became an aunt to a perfect baby girl. She wasn’t planned… she was an “oopsie” baby. My sister and her then-boyfriend got pregnant the first time they had sex, even though she was on birth control.
She is a single mother and my niece’s father is somewhat in her life but that whole thing is a source of stress for my sister.
I know my sister loves my niece more than anything but sometimes I worry so much about a lot of the things she does. For example, my sister is CONSTANTLY texting. We have unlimited texting and our average phone bill shows she sends and recieves about 21000 texts a month. I did the math and thats 30 texts an hour on average, but she isn’t texting the 7 or so hours she sleeps, so it’s more than that. Now, normally I would say… so she is a little addicted to her phone, so what? But I have witnessed, day after day, her paying so much attention to her phone that she isn’t even paying attention to her daughter a lot of the time. Sometimes my niece will say, “Mama… Mama… Mama” and my sister won’t even notice until I say, “Your daughter is talking to you.” This isn’t a new thing either. When she was just barely learning to stand, we were all sitting around the coffee table as she pulled herself up. My father told my sister to watch her closely because she was pretty unstable and looked like she might fall into the corner of the coffee table. She said, “she’s fine” and continued texting away, not paying attention to her daughter. Sure enough, my niece DID fall and hit her head on the coffee table. My sister never, EVER sets her phone down for more than a few minutes unless she is sleeping. It goes everywhere with her, whether it’s in the bathroom when she bathes her daughter or at the table when we’re all eating dinner. She even texts and drives with my niece in the car, which scares me because I’ve been in the car when she does it and I’ve ridden with drunk people in the past who displayed more control over their vehicle. Also, she runs a child care center and keeps children during the day, all the while texting and paying far more attention to her phone than the kids.
She also dates… a lot… which is her right, I know, but it just worries me that she keeps bringing different men into her daughters life and tries to get her to form a close relationship with them when she has no idea if they will end up staying. I think it wouldn’t bother me so much if it didn’t happen so fast… she jumps into relationships and becomes emotionally intimate with them in less than a month… and that’s when she tries to “take her time”…
My one last major worry, though there are many “minor” ones, and partially what triggered this post, is that she still likes to party. She doesn’t do it excessively, but on average per month she probably goes out and gets drunk at least once a month… even more often than that in the past month with the new guy, who really likes to drink… daily. She stays out till 3 or 4 in the morning, and sometimes she doesn’t come home at all until the next day (because she’s too drunk to drive, I’d assume) and my niece stays at home with Grandma and Grandpa. This maybe wouldn’t bother me so much if alcoholism didn’t run in our family big time.
Moms, please give me advice… am I worrying to much? Is it none of my business? Is this acceptable behavior?
Signed,
The Worried Aunt
She is a single mother and my niece’s father is somewhat in her life but that whole thing is a source of stress for my sister.
I know my sister loves my niece more than anything but sometimes I worry so much about a lot of the things she does. For example, my sister is CONSTANTLY texting. We have unlimited texting and our average phone bill shows she sends and recieves about 21000 texts a month. I did the math and thats 30 texts an hour on average, but she isn’t texting the 7 or so hours she sleeps, so it’s more than that. Now, normally I would say… so she is a little addicted to her phone, so what? But I have witnessed, day after day, her paying so much attention to her phone that she isn’t even paying attention to her daughter a lot of the time. Sometimes my niece will say, “Mama… Mama… Mama” and my sister won’t even notice until I say, “Your daughter is talking to you.” This isn’t a new thing either. When she was just barely learning to stand, we were all sitting around the coffee table as she pulled herself up. My father told my sister to watch her closely because she was pretty unstable and looked like she might fall into the corner of the coffee table. She said, “she’s fine” and continued texting away, not paying attention to her daughter. Sure enough, my niece DID fall and hit her head on the coffee table. My sister never, EVER sets her phone down for more than a few minutes unless she is sleeping. It goes everywhere with her, whether it’s in the bathroom when she bathes her daughter or at the table when we’re all eating dinner. She even texts and drives with my niece in the car, which scares me because I’ve been in the car when she does it and I’ve ridden with drunk people in the past who displayed more control over their vehicle. Also, she runs a child care center and keeps children during the day, all the while texting and paying far more attention to her phone than the kids.
She also dates… a lot… which is her right, I know, but it just worries me that she keeps bringing different men into her daughters life and tries to get her to form a close relationship with them when she has no idea if they will end up staying. I think it wouldn’t bother me so much if it didn’t happen so fast… she jumps into relationships and becomes emotionally intimate with them in less than a month… and that’s when she tries to “take her time”…
My one last major worry, though there are many “minor” ones, and partially what triggered this post, is that she still likes to party. She doesn’t do it excessively, but on average per month she probably goes out and gets drunk at least once a month… even more often than that in the past month with the new guy, who really likes to drink… daily. She stays out till 3 or 4 in the morning, and sometimes she doesn’t come home at all until the next day (because she’s too drunk to drive, I’d assume) and my niece stays at home with Grandma and Grandpa. This maybe wouldn’t bother me so much if alcoholism didn’t run in our family big time.
Moms, please give me advice… am I worrying to much? Is it none of my business? Is this acceptable behavior?
Signed,
The Worried Aunt
. But she is most definitely the greatest gift of life I’ve ever encountered. 