So my cousin has a son, and she’s not good at taking care of him at all. It’s like she has no maternal instinct at all. She’ll go weeks without reaching out or even knowing where he is (he gets bounced around family members often). His dad loves him but he works a lot and leaves him alone in an apartment with no furniture and junk food for 12+ hours a day. The kid is 11 years old and 185 pounds and has really bad abandonment issues and anger issues. His mom, my cousin, has issues with alcoholism and hangs out with shady people who steal his things (phone, gaming system, etc). My grandma (who’s had him for 3 weeks with no knowledge of when he’ll be leaving) has had to buy him clothes and take care of him. After the first two weeks, my cousin texted her “hey, this is my new number” and her son said don’t even reply to that. At this point, my grandma is ready to call CPS on my cousin, but it’s hard for her because she knows the child loves his parents very much despite everything they’ve put him through. He’s sweet but he really needs help working through all of these issues with abandonment and seeing as how his parents struggle to keep him fed, I doubt they’ll ever make that happen.

I’m not in a position to do anything really but it was sad seeing him this week when I went to visit. I guess I’m wondering what you’d do if you were a family member watching this happen.