This thirty-year-old woman currently has custody of her brother’s children– her Niece, who is nine, and her nephew, who is eight. And her finally getting custody of the kids was a win that came after a lot of turmoil.

Apparently, her brother’s ex– the children’s mother– died when her nephew was born. And after the tragedy, her brother remained single for about two years before he met a new woman and got married just one year later.

That woman, her brother’s current wife, also had two older children. However, the older kids absolutely despised the fact that their mom got remarried. Moreover, they did not want her brother’s children to be a part of their family.

“They treated [my niece and nephew] horribly. They were cruel bullies, and my brother’s wife was more focused on pretending that she could mother all of the children and ignored the fact her kids hated my niece and nephew,” she explained.

Then, at one point, her niece and nephew even asked her brother if he would leave his wife. That way, the other kids would not be so mean.

But, according to her, her brother refused. It was also at that moment that her brother’s wife changed.

“[My brother’s wife] thought they saw her as their mom. But, I suppose hearing over and over from her kids that they were not, alongside knowing they were in their lives because she was, made it hard for a true bond to form given the extent of the bullying,” she said.

So, she tried to step in and help her niece and nephew. She claims to have spoken with her brother, as well as her brother’s wife, on numerous occasions.

She did everything she could to get them to open their eyes and see that her niece and nephew’s lives were unbearable due to their older stepsiblings.

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After no resolution came, though, she felt forced to turn to her last resort. She called Child Protective Services (CPS).

And at first, nothing happened. But, once her niece and nephew were in school, that changed. Apparently, her nephew started begging to stay at school and claimed he did not want to go home.

So, that rang alarm bells among staff at her nephew’s school, and the situation was ultimately reported to CPS again.

Then, the agency finally intervened.

The children ended up going to therapy afterward. But again, the bullying at home still had not ceased.

In turn, her brother’s case worker ultimately requested that her niece and nephew be separated from their stepsiblings for a period of time until the older children learned how to treat them better.

However, her brother actually refused to move out of the house with her niece and nephew and did not want his wife to leave, either.

Instead, he claimed that saving his marriage was equally as important and opted to find another family member who the kids could stay with.

That was essentially when she and her husband stepped in and took custody of her niece and nephew.

She does want to make it clear, though, that “kids simply being kids” and not getting along at home is not what led to this drastic action being taken by CPS.

“But the level of this paired with the negative impact on my niece and nephew is why this came to be,” she noted.

Anyway, she and her husband still have custody of the kids to this day– because apparently, absolutely nothing has changed with her brother’s family.

In fact, her brother actually no longer sees his children at all, and the kids do not want to see his wife– their stepmom– either.

And at first, her parents understood that having no contact between the kids and her brother outside of court was the best way to go.

Her parents even stopped talking to her brother for a short period of time as well.

All of a sudden, though, she claims that her parents are trying to act super friendly with her brother. Moreover, they recently invited him to celebrate Christmas with the family– and she is pissed.

Apparently, she only found out that her brother was invited through her sister. And after learning that, she immediately called up her parents and told them that she and the kids simply would not be going.

Her parents, however, did not understand why and tried to claim that reunification was important for the family.

They also said that moving forward, Christmas invitations would be sent to everyone– including her brother.

Honestly, though, she completely disagreed with her parents’ perspective and underscored that she, her husband, and her niece and nephew would not be spending Christmas with them ever again if that was the case.

But if you could not have guessed it, her parents were furious. First, they accused her of “being too aggressive” in handling the situation.

Then, they even told her that she was throwing away her niece and nephew’s chance at having a family “when they need family the most.”

So now, despite believing that she is doing what’s best for her niece and nephew by keeping them away from bullying, she has still been left wondering if refusing to spend Christmas with her family makes her a jerk.

Why do you think her brother refused to see how his biological children were being treated? Do you believe that she truly is being “too aggressive,” or is she just trying to protect the kids? Was it right of her parents to invite her brother without even telling her? If you were in her shoes, would you go to the Christmas celebration or not? 

You can read the original post on Reddit here.

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