My Nephew

Hello,

Hope everyone is having a great week. I have been griping at my nephew... Sometimes I think he will never learn. My nephew, Jason, is 19 - he will be 20 in December. He has a 7 month old son named CJ. CJ lives with his maternal grandparents. When CJ's mother became pregnant she informed Jason that he was going to be a daddy and things seemed alright (with the exception that they are pretty young). By the time CJ was born however Jason and CJ's mommy were no longer on the best terms and were not a couple anymore. After she gave birth though it seemed like things may work themselves out with the two of them - or three. Things were going fine for a few days but soon started to get bad again. She (mommy) was having a hard time adjusting to being a parent. Jason stepped in and took care of CJ until he was told to leave from the mommy. She was, I am going to assume, mad that he was coping better than her. She told him to go that he probably wasn't the real father anyway... Paternity test time. In the meantime custody was temporary handed over to the grandparents through the court due to some issues that the mommy was having. Paternity test in... Jason is daddy - we already knew that - they look to much alike! Anyway, now Jason is trying to get custody. They had kept him from him for about 4 months. Just about a month ago he started being able to see him again. We took him to the court and the child services offices and got it all set up. He would like to get custody if at all possible however he has to re-establish the relationship according to the courts and child services. That irritates me as had the grandparents not kept them from him in the first place, there would be nothing to re-establish as Jason was the one taking care of him for the first 2 1/2 months or so... but whatever. Anyway I cannot seem to get it through his head to follow the child serviced instructions to make this a smoother journey to custody or at least regular visitations. He does see CJ twice per week but at the grandparents house. He would like to be able to bring him places or have him stay the night with him. Well anyway, Jason is doing as they asked but when he sees fit to do it. I keep telling him if you really want this then stop dragging your feet about things. He says he is not but I tend to disagree. They want him to take a parenting class. He said he would do this and told me he was going to check into where he can take it. They had given him a few ideas as to whom to call. I asked him about this today and he asked if I thought they may have the numbers for him to call... OMG phonebook - and they gave him the names like 2 weeks ago. It is just little things like this that irritate me so bad I want to hit him with a big tree over the head. The woman we deal with as child services said she wanted Jason to do this and make this effort on his own - she wants him doing the footwork and making the calls. I agree with her - I cannot hold his hand forever and either can his mother. He is an intelligent kid, heck he made honors in highschool. He looks so forward to his visits withhis little man and is so happy and always smiling and truely thankful to be with him. But when he is not visiting CJ he seems to be off track and not thinking about the big picture. I just do not know what else to do for him. I will stand by him of course but he is going to have to go the length and show that he can be an adult and do what needs to be done on his own. Well - he goes to court tomorrow to get the figures on the child support that he will pay... lets hope that after that he pulls it all together and gets started on building his life and realizing that he is no longer a child but a father and needs to start acting the part.

Erika