The children were destroying every home that their mother was able to find to rent, which were few and far between,once the landlord heard the last name they usually refused to rent even a run down shack to them. They moved six different times in one school year, all because they were evicted from each place.

These children would break windows, rip thedecks right off the homes and smash very large holes in the walls. The damage these children could do in a very short time was unreal. They refused to attend school resulting in fines the mother could not afford to pay.

Their father and I tried to gain full custody of all the children, we fought in court for nearly three years, we finally gained full custody of four of the children (three boys and one girl), the girl was expecting at the time. (we told the court that this would happen if they didn’t get her out of there) The court battle was very costly and there were still four children left with their mother, still not listening to her and still destroying everything in site.

The last straw came when!

They were once again served with an eviction notice, they had to be out of yet another home, it was January. (This time the landlord planed to press charges on the mother) Why none of the landlords had neverpressed chargesbefore I will never know! l Anyway my husband and I had all we could take. We decided that fighting in court was getting us no where! So we moved the mother and the rest of the children in with us, we had added onto our home through the years of fighting for the children, so we had room. “BUT” would it work? At the time the mother couldn’t stand the father, the father had pretty much the same feeling. “I was usually the mediator”- they would let me know what they wanted from the other one, I would relay the message. Now we would all be living together along with my two girls, my mother, as well as another small baby boy belonging to one of my daughters. (that gave us two babies only three weeks apart in age) Some how a six bedroom home suddenly seemed very small now!

We all lived together for almost a year, the children went to school every day, they seemed much more settled. Theyhad the best of both worlds! a mother and a father that are together as friends, now talking to each other nicely for the first time in years. They alsohad a step mother that loved them very much, a grandmother they never had before, as well as two step sisters and a grown out of the house step brother. The children were now going to school every day. Nothing had gotten broken “at least not on purpose anyway”! Each child had their own task to do daily as well as doing their own laundry with help from one of us parents, there were bed times that they had to follow. We had rules and regulations which is something these children did not have when they were living alone with just their mother.