Hi moms,

I have two kids - a 3 year old and an 8 month old. I live out of state from my family, so we don't see them often. There's also a lot of drama in my family, so we are not super close with them anymore.

Anyway, my mom never came to visit after I had my second babe. She hasn't come to visit in almost a year. She doesn't have a job, she smokes marijuana all day long, and she drinks to excess several times a week. She has been arrested for disorderly conduct several times in the last two years - there are a lot of factors there, but the charges ended up being dropped. Every time she was arrested, she was drunk.

Fast forward: she randomly decided to come down here and visit my family last weekend. The couple of times she was here, she smoked marijuana in my house (trying to hide it with perfume) and we asked her to leave. She knows that we do not condone the use of marijuana around our kids, and we ask that she not drink to excess while visiting us (one or two drinks with dinner is acceptable). She got here fine, spent the evening with my kids, had dinner, and helped me put the kids to bed. We played games after dinner and had a nice visit. She went out to her car to smoke marijuana before bed, came in smelling like it, but neither my husband nor I cared because she didn't do it while she was hanging out with us and our kids (kids were already in bed) and she didn't do it in our house..

The next day, she spent the morning playing with my 3 year old. We had plans to go over to my in-laws' pool in the afternoon. My husband left to run some errands before we had to go over there. Around lunch time, my mom went outside (I assumed to get her bathing suit to change). Come to find out she was smoking marijuana in her car. My husband happened to come home as she was finishing up. He confronted her about it, and her response was, "Yeah, I'm smoking, you got a problem with that?" Obviously we do, so they had a conversation about it and she ended up getting upset, came inside and grabbed all of her stuff, and went back out to her car to leave. I went out and talked to her about what was happening and basically explained to her that it's not OK to get high and then expect to spend time with our kids and extended family at the pool while under the influence. Her feeling is that she smokes marijuana all the time and we just need to learn to be OK with it. So she left and has cancelled her plans to come to our 3 year old's birthday next week and our 8 month old's christening next month.

I'm at a loss. On one hand, I want my kids to know their Grandma. I feel terrible that they have almost no relationship with her because we live so far away. But, I also feel that if my kids were important to her, she would make an effort to limit her smoking when she is visiting us. I know it is part of her lifestyle, which is why I didn't say anything when I knew she smoked right before bed. But I am absolutely not OK letting her be with my kids while she is high.

I really don't know how to navigate this. Do I just let it go and accept the fact that she will never have a relationship with my kids? We do travel back home once a year, so I may attempt to do short daytime activities with my mom during those trips, but there is no way for me to guarantee she won't be high when we meet up with her. I hate that this is ruining our relationship, but my kids come first.

Anyone been in a situation like this? What would you do?