Parents. Not all are the same

Six years ago, yesterday I lost my Mother. She left this world before we could reconcile our relationship. As I watched the clinicians stop administering life-saving functions and call the time of death I wailed out loud how sorry I was to not have been closer to her. If I would have apologized just 5 min earlier maybe she would have heard me. Instead, I carry this guilt with me every day.


Presently we have a situation in our house that I don't think is common, but it's not that rare because I have heard of other people helping others get on their feet. We took in a 17yr old girl that showed up on my porch in April. It was chilly. She didn't have any shoes on. She asked if she could talk to my son, her friend. I won't go into the specifics of her family issues, but I'll try to explain what I am doing, what I am thinking, and how I am planning on getting them at least talking to each other again.


What am I doing? - I will change the names, but the situation is that Jane was kicked out of her house by her Father and Stepmother, the Doe's. Then Jane came to live with me and my family. I am trying to shield this young woman from some of the things I feel are hurtful. When people speak out of frustration or anger often times they spit vile things in an effort to make themselves feel better. I try to be the main contact, but of course, I can't control all of their communication with their daughter. Once, after the girl had been living with us for six months, they threatened to pull her out of our home. After the threat, Jane was super scared and anxious that she might have to leave. It was then that I had to put my foot down and told the Doe's that they will not threaten or hold anything over Jane's head. It wasn't fair to her, and after living with me for so long we had gotten her a bank account in her name. We had the address changed on her ID. For all intents and purposes, Jane's primary safe residence was at my house, with my family. No Sheriff would pull her out of my home without a Judge's court order, and by the time a Judge would do that she would have already turned 18.


What am I thinking? - I carry guilt for never reconciling with my Mother before she died. So in this situation, my goal is to get her talking with her Father and Stepmother in an attempt to save some semblance of a relationship. When my Mother was still alive there were family events where we couldn't avoid each other. Holidays and family get-togethers were awkward, to say the least, however, both of us still made the effort to be cordial to each other. I feel like this is, for lack of a better word, a skill that adults develop. In our adult lives, we are often forced to work or deal with people that we didn't necessarily get along with. So I feel like we have a teaching moment to teach Jane how to deal and work through awkwardness so that she can learn to be an adult. The trouble has been to get the Father and Stepmother on board. 


How to reconcile? - I don't know. I'm asking YOU for help. I only have SMS messages as a form of communication with the parents. This is beneficial as well as detrimental to opening up lines of communication. We can take our time to respond, hopefully without being influenced too much. But the downside is that we can choose not to respond, or not reply to a question. The result is that often the communication is just one-sided. Do you have any suggestions on how to open up lines of communication? Any ideas on how to help this young girl salvage her relationship with her parents?





Thanks for reading
-YonK