Last night, my brother M got into an altercation that ended in him stealing my stepdad's gun and brandishing it at his girlfriend's uncle. He only shot the ground, thank gods, but I came home from work to a house full of cops and M is in jail awaiting trial right now. My mom thinks it's best that he stay there for now (plus his bail is in the tens of thousands of dollars.) I think my mom feels like she's failed as a parent. I don't know how to feel about this. He didn't do anything to me, and I didn't do anything to feel bad about, so why am I upset? Him doing something monumentally stupid isn't even that surprising to me, given past events. He's being charged with: going armed with intent, carrying weapons, domestic assault while displaying a weapon and intimidation with a deadly weapon. According to the newspaper article about it.
It's not wrong to feel upset. You came home to a house full of cops, as you mentioned, and even if the police were still seen by everyone as the good guys...well, there's really no circumstances where coming home to that is a good thing. (Okay, barring "everyone in the family is in law enforcement", but that's a distinctly different feel from "and the house is full of uniformed people with guns".) Your brother's in jail and isn't coming out for a while, if ever (depending on how his trial goes). Your mom's distressed. And also, your brother stole someone's gun, waved it around, and got lucky with not shooting someone, so - that's definitely A Thing to be upset about, where I'm sitting! There's a pretty big difference between "my brother did a stupid thing, again" and "so my brother stole a gun and might've nearly shot someone, and now might never come home again". So there's possibly some grief going on there. Plus, you're going to be picking up the stress from everyone else, and you don't have all the details (judging from the fact that you got the list of charges from a newspaper article). Basically: everything about this is Distressing and Upsetting, and you're not weird for feeling upset. (You also wouldn't be weird for not feeling upset or not feeling anything. Emotional processing can be weird.)
I'm worried about M's two-month-old daughter. Right now she's with girlfriend, but it's become clear the girlfriend isn't equipped to raise the baby either (she was recently charged with child abuse. She admitted to using methamphetamine during the pregnancy. My brother is still dating this woman.) The girlfriend said she was going to stay with her stepmother (two years sober, says she) but her last known location is with her tweaker uncle and drunk grandmother. That's a recipe for her getting back on drugs. My mom and stepfather could care for the baby, there's space and lord knows there's enough baby stuff scattered around the house already, but I've just about fucking had it with M's bad decisions becoming Mom's problems. Again, none of these things are technically my problem. I keep coming back to this point in my head: Why am I worrying about things that aren't my responsibility? It'd be so much easier if I could just emotionally disconnect myself from M's stupid life. It's been so long since I felt anything besides anger, irritation, and fear towards him, why am I so stressed out about him getting in trouble for a crime he committed? Fucking emotions- how do they work?
Because at this point? Your brother's left a mess and your family is looking like it's going to have to pick up some of the pieces, for the sake of your niece. It's understandable that you'd be worrying about it - sure, making sure your niece is properly cared for and in a safe home isn't actually your responsibility. But what happens about it is going to affect your life! Either your niece is going to move in, or your mom's going to be dealing with your brother's girlfriend, or - who knows. And him getting arrested means that he can't be regarded as the one to look after that anymore - he's not going to be in a situation to look after it, and he's going to have a hard time getting custody when he's facing charges like that and he's still in jail.
My brother went to prison for stealing a car. It's honestly not that big of a deal tbh. If he can straighten himself out he'll be okay, he can get the felony expunged after about five years. If he's not going to straighten out, you might just have to accept that he's a dumbass and there's no hope for him. It's a horrible thing to do, but sometimes you have no choice.
Erm. I think there's a bit of a scaling difference here, between what your brother did and what's being discussed here. I mean, yes, once you've served your time, that should be it. But there's a lot of "ifs" relying on that whole "he'll be fine if he straightens out, he can get the felony expunged after x amount of time". Because first of all, getting it expunged relies on (afaik) the courts being willing to expunge it. How willing they are is going to vary wildly, depending on where the court is located and what the crime was (along with a whole array of other factors, some of which are not going to be in Paintcat's brother's control). Second, "straightening himself out" is going to require that he do things which he might not be able to do any more if he's convicted - it's notoriously hard for someone with a felony on their record to get a job, for example, and it's going to make getting custody more difficult if he ever tries to fight for it. And third, none of that really addresses the fact that even if Paintcat's at the point where they're willing to just write their brother off and go no-contact, that might not be possible. There's the niece to think of, and it sounds like mom is feeling incredibly guilty about this having happened - which means that mom might try to get the brother a lawyer, instead of waiting on a court-appointed one to show up.
Oh, I know he's a dumbass and probably always will be. It's just that now he's stupid and crazy and his girlfriend's starting to lose it too (she refused to see her son for a few days this week and my mom was stuck driving him to Head Start and fielding his questions about when he could see Mama again) and we still don't know what's going to happen to my niece. Mason's a smart little guy. Even at three years old he can tell that his mom's treating him like a chore to shrug off on somebody else when she'd rather be getting high. The kids in this situation are getting screwed over big time and I can't stand to see it but I can't do anything about it and it's driving me nuts. Thankfully I don't think my mom's gonna let M live in her home ever again, and I don't think she's going to hire a lawyer either. She won't pay his bail, and she's discouraging my dad from doing so as well. Hey, maybe he'll go to prison and things will settle down and I'll get my own place and won't become a permanent on-call babysitter, and when he eventually gets released I'll have moved on in life and won't have to interact with the post-prison version of M except on holidays.
M still in jail, still no court date yet. No bail, no parent-funded lawyer. Mom's been to see him a few times, says he doesn't seem to get that he did a violent goddamn crime and this fact may have consequences for his life going forward. For instance, he's not gonna get to live at Mom's place no mo'. M's girlfriend F is a flake. I mean, she's more than a flake, she's a dangerously incompetent parent. She's been spending enough time doing her own thing- drinking, covertly feeding her meth habit, meanwhile leaving her kids in Someone Else's care- that Mason's dad's family decided not to leave the kid with her anymore. He's staying with his dad now. She's upset about that. Anyway, the shorter and less gossipy version is she's probably not going to keep custody of little Malia or Mason, and Malia is probably going to be raised by my mom. So yeah, permanent part-time babysitter might become a thing. Not because Mom would push that responsibility on me, but because I can't stand the sight of her juggling a fussy infant while baking a quiche at the same time, having already raised five shitty kids to adulthood. I still hate it. I know shoulds and woulds are pointless, but Mom shouldn't have to do any of this and I'm still bitter about it.
Witnessed, and I'm sorry that this is so awful for your family. Would focusing on the bright spots, like "hey, you get to show your niece Cool New Things and be one of the people who gets to see her firsts", help at all? Or is venting / knowing someone's witnessing the frustration more helpful? (It's okay if the answer is "yes, both of these help". There's not really any wrong answer here.) Not a lawyer, just someone who did paralegal training a while back, but it'll probably be a while before there's a court date; if there's no paid-for lawyer, the state needs to appoint one. And in order for one to be appointed, someone needs to tell the folks in charge of arranging that stuff that he needs a lawyer. (That would be his job, btw; he's only got himself to blame if there isn't a lawyer to represent him, and the judge is likely to grab one and stick them with him if he shows up to court without one.) The court system tends to have a lot of stuff to deal with, though, and I think something like this usually takes a few months at least before anyone's discussing court dates.
Both, honestly. Getting to be a part of Malia's early life helps, but also I think I'm gonna keep having times when I gotta go "Look at this nonsense! This SUCKS!!" and have somebody go "Yeah, that does suck" for a while. I want to teach her stuff and see what kind of personality she develops. It's pretty early for that, but I can help her get there as smoothly as possible in the meantime.
Witnessed. My partner is going through a similar experience (brother went to jail for a few years and only recently got out, his child's mother has drug addiction issues and the child ended up being adopted by my partner's mom who is now raising her). if you want any specific advice or even just somebody to chat with she might be open to me handing some contact info over it if you want somebody who went through something extremely similar to talk to.
Update on M, girlfriend F, and Malia situation: F failed a drug test and finally lost custody of Malia and Mason. Mom is in the process of legally becoming Malia's foster parent and Mason is with his dad. F is feeling very resentful of Mom, and the fact that Mason still loves his "Ya-Ya" (Mom's not ready for "grandma") doesn't help. There have been two supervised visits so far. I got to move back to my quiet room in the basement. Things are settling. It's just me, Mom, Stepdad, and the animals in the house again. Anecdote: while moving into the basement, I found a tiny Wonder Woman costume meant to be worn by a cat or small dog. None of us are the pet costume type, so I showed it to Mom and she said "So that's why it didn't fit on Malia! F was so mad that she couldn't get it on her..." We figure she shoplifted it and assumed it would be close enough.
Update: My dad bailed M out after being advised that both his criminal and child custody cases will be better if he's observed not being a fuckup outside of jail. He's staying with Dad and Stepmom now. Mom and Stepdad will have a foster license soon; Malia's staying with us and has weekly visits with both M and F (Separately. There's still a no-contact order in effect between them.) Visitation details were decided at a hearing at the end of November. I attended it. First time I'd seen M in almost two months; first time I'd seen Stepmom in several years. It was weird. Malia's in day care. Mom and I have settled into a routine of getting her ready to go in the mornings together. I'm awake at ass o'clock thanks to my strange sleep habits so it's no problem for me. She turned two months old on I think the 8th. She's a pretty cool baby and seems happy despite all the time she spends in a carseat.
Baby update: She's ~5 months old now and occasionally eating rice-based Gerber cereal stuff. Mom took pictures the first time she tried to give it to her, they're pretty funny. She rolls over and she can't sit up under her own power, but she likes being held in a sitting position. Also, still cute. Malia's mother, F, has been paying child support to help pay for day care bills. However, at some point recently she decided she doesn't want to do that anymore and is contesting it, meaning my mom has to go to court in order to get help paying for day care. F has also been skipping out on visits and failed a drug test recently. So, she's not gonna get custody and I gotta wonder why she even tried to get it in the first place, since it doesn't seem like she gives a shit about Malia anymore. ETA: have renamed thread to reflect current status
Totally forgot to mention! M is on... parole? Probation? The thing where you're a grownup who got convicted of a crime and you didn't have to go to prison but you do have to check in with an officer of the law to make sure you're meeting certain expectations. He was living with Stepdad and Stepmom for a while, but he's got work and his own place now. And also dating again, I think. I haven't seen him much at all.
That would be probation, yeah. Parole is "you went to prison, but you're out so long as you check in with an officer of the law and meet certain expectations".
