I'm the oldest of three, with one brother & one sister. My brother was the first one to go sideways. Being the middle child, he rebelled early and often. There were times that it seemed like he was getting his act together, graduated college, got married, had a couple of kids, then came the divorce, and he basically decided he hated his ex more than he loved his kids. His kids are still suffering mentally for that rejection. Their mother is no saint either, but at least she was willing to feed and clothe them. If there was any talk of him taking care of the kids, like when his son was upset and was talking about moving in with his dad, the first thing out of his mouth was that the child support would have to be changed. He even went to jail for a few days for not paying child support. He also turned around and married a complete narcissist of a woman. She had three kids of her own and for a while it looked like there might be some family blending, but she basically chased off his kids and then later, her own. She even faked brain cancer for a couple years, and my brother is still with her! After the point when he basically gave up his parental rights, our parents stepped in to provide his kids, and then later his step-kids, some level of emotional and mental support. They had to fight tooth and nail with his ex-wife for grandparent time. And while they are doing that, my brother varied from wanting to reach out to our folks or completely shutting them out. We were still encouraged to keep lines open with him, but I've basically shut him out. Until he apologizes to his kids, and then to our parents, I have nothing to say to him.My sister, meantime, used to be reasonable. But she started going downhill, and I should have seen it coming. She met and married a seemingly nice guy. I really can't say too much against him, he's a firefighter, he's kinda quiet and low key. But he's also 'old-fashioned' as the euphemism goes. He's got dreams of going back home and farming (which is why, I'm sure, my sister married him. My parents were both raised on farms, and we spent a lot of time with our farming extended family). His parents are farmers and very conservative. They changed churches when their own decided to support gay marriage. A lot of his family is tied to the military. He listens to Rush Limbaugh over lunch. I think you can see where this is going. My sister lived in LA for a while. She had gay & trans and different races of friends. She used to cosplay. Now she's living in a small town with her three kids, her friends group are all tied to the local evangelical church and they are all wine mommies. She's put up FB posts questioning COVID, she's homeschooling not out of COVID, but because she doesn't like how the public school messing with the schedule attempting to limit COVID exposure. She's currently volunteering to get signatures to try to get our governor recalled (I wish I had that much time to waste). I just saw her encouraging her friends to vote out any judge installed by a Democratic governor.Now, this just blows my mind because this was not how we were raised. Our parents were moderate Republicans, but recently switched their affiliation to Independent because of the current GOP. Dad & I have talked politics more in the past year than we have in the nearly 50 before it and we're in agreement far more than I thought. They are also engaged Christians, volunteering at every church they've attended. But they are the type of Christian who are the centered on forgiveness and good works. They kinda eye-roll their trans step-grandkids, but still love and support them.So I'm just beside myself. I can't just ignore my sister, nor can I challenge her too much because that would lead to a blow-up and seeing her children fighting breaks our mother's heart. She's still hurting over my brother's actions, even at the same time that she hears from him, her first thought it "OK, so what do you want?". So I'm kinda stuck. Plus I'm getting this feeling that my sister's kids are eventually going to need some mental & emotional support from their 'weird uncle'. Just a hunch. via /r/JUSTNOFAMILY https://ift.tt/3jcmCK6
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