Abusive bio mom

[K_Bmomma]

So my step son is 5 yrs old, i have been apart of his life since right before his third birthday. And since the first day I met him, hes been apart of me. Shortly after his dad and I got married we decided to get a new apartment (closer to kobes moms place) that way we could all try to be a family. Its really important to me that he has an opportunity to have a relationship with his bio mom, as mine was never around and I always had a hard time not knowing her growing up, although I i love and appreciate my step mom a ton, just something about her not wanting me was rough.
So anyways during that first year she only asked to see him 4 times, only once overnight (even though they have 50/50 custody) We decided to wait to tell her we had married as we assumed she would flip, but once we met and I explained to her that im not taking her place with kobe, then she was ok with the new relationship. she had her second child in october and we had our baby two weeks before her. So kobe came from being the only child to having two siblings in a very short time, also at that time his mom decided she wanted her half of the parenting time. obviously we wanted to make the transition easy and she had just moved back to where we had lived before getting married, so we decided it was best to move to be closer AGAIN.
Lets just say its been rough. our relationship has been good with her although communication lacks sometimes, she feels like she doesnt need to tell us what goes on when she has kobe, because its her time, but for kobe he needs consistency. Now im not a bad mouther but this woman has ZERO patience and doesnt care about what she says or does with him. theres a HUGE list of stuff she has done in the last year but ill only give a few examples.
1. she met and dated a man for 3 weeks, got engaged and moved into a house with him, got his name tattooed on her wrist, had kobe start calling him step-daddy and then they break up after only max of 4 months together.. now this "step-daddy is nowhere to be found"
2.she goes out only on days she has him, has her dad watch him even though i offer time and time again to watch all the kids.
3. she doesnt read, play outside, or really even talk to him ( hes very smart, loves to be active and reads at leat 3 hours a day at our house by choice) all of his favorite things, she will only let him play if its with his 6 yr old cousin and only puts on movies to entertain him
4. shes verbally abusive, constantly saying that things are his fault (ie: he didnt have time to put on his shoes before a practice so she made him walk in the rocks barefoot telling him its his fault for not putting them on), she leave him in the care and supervision of his 6yr old cousin ( to walk the block to friends house alone, at the parks ALONE together)
5. Like i said there is SO many more things but this last was the last straw!
At kobes last t-ball game he had to sit out as he gets too agressive and kept tackling his team for the ball, so i had him sit out with his mom ( me and my husband are coaches and were out in the field and did not see this happen ourselves but the entire stands/parents saw this)
He went over to his Grandpa to get water out in the grass way in the outfield, she told him to come back and sit down, but he didnt want to so she went over grabbed his arm, and began pulling him. He didnt want to go so he layed down and she DRAGGED him on his side laying down by his arm for at least 100 ft in the gravel, he was kicking and crying and at least 3 people inlcuding her own dad told her to stop and all she said is he wasnt listening.
this is not the first time we have thought that he was being abused there has always been some excuse or cover up for everything else ( that burn is from him touching the fries in the hot oil, but kobes wrist was burned not his fingers for example) nothing we could prove was not an accident until now
we decided to file for emergency protection order... got denied the immediate one but have a hearing for the expedited trial on MONDAY, if granted it could be in order for at least 90 days, we did put on there supervised visits would be okay and would want to work out a parenting plan but only after she gets whatever parenting classes or counsels she needs. we are not ok with kobe being hurt, and if that means he cant see her very often then so be it, his safety and well-being should come first. i guess this isnt much of a question , but more of a rant, we have to take kobe to his moms for this weekend before the trial, and stressing it.
What would you do in our situation? Do you feel the emergency order was necessary? any input would be nice.  Ive posed in a few forums about this to get different peoples input, not looking forward to dealing with her reaction and worried how she will treat kobe now as well, even though its not his fault.

[K_Bmomma]

another frustrating tid bit that she put in there is that, she said she supports him financially... im sorry but not paying half his tution, US giving her clothes for him at her house, paying for half his shoes so he has some to wear there and i cant tell you how many toys and books weve sent over there (because he never has any) is definitely not supporting him financially. we pay for his insurance, anything he wants to be apart of (tball and other activities) she gets food stamps and lives with her family ( nothing wrong with that, just i know she doesnt put kobe first with any of that)
for example, shes had him half time for a year now and only last month has he had his own bed ( which her mom bought) he used to sleep in his cousins bed with his female cousin...
just little things like that.. more of a vent.

[K_Bmomma]

thank you! i really do love him and would do anything for him just like i would with my kids.
we just got a response from her about what was in our papers, all of it is bent just a twist to make her look better. she pput her family in to "verify" that what she saying is true. but its all lies. and instead of explaining why she was dragging kobe she put in the WE ( my husband and i) had been pulling him off the fence and into position for his game ( we do that with any of the tball kids its not rough at all) she even tried to say a date that she and her sister saw something like that but we have txts from her before that game saying she wont make it to that game . and she wasnt at that game,..
isnt it illegal to say false things in a verified court document??
we didnt want this to be a battle , we just wanted her to get help so that kobe is safe.. obviously its not going to be that way. :/

[rockland45]

Well, first of all, your stepson is so fortunately to have you in his life. You sound like you really love him and have his best interests at heart. As far as what you should do here, since you and your husband are the ones seeing what's going on, I think it's ultimately what's in your heart and what will keep your SS safe. You certainly don't want to play around with concerns about abuse. So, I'll definitely be praying that your SS is in the best environment possible and that you and your husband will know what steps to take. Keep us posted on how things are going, OK?

[K_Bmomma]

thanks guys, kobe  turned 5 this past december.
hes a wild one which is my concern about him being in he care of the 6 yr old, it takes alot to watch out for him and i know this girl she is not mature enough or had experience with this. Her mom in fact has a CPS case on her for leaving her with a 4 yr old when she was only 2, in a hotel. they ended up getting locked out of the room and  in the middle of summer here in Arizona had burned feet from the concrete. Im concerned with them running around the neighborhood unsupervised is an issue because there has been a van in the area following kids, kobe has NO stranger danger sensor, so its just scary, his mom is aware of the can as well.

Our brother in law is the one who told us about the dragging incident. he works with child abuse cases all the time as he is a child physiologist and goes to court with cases on a regular basis. He is the one who recommend that we do do the protection order and go to court.
all we want is kobe safe and happy.

My issues with what i put are issues that kobe has been unhappy, told me hes hurting and crying.. i can tell when he is just being a baby and when he actually hurts so thats why i have concern for those things. Im just worry about him sometimes.

I wasnt sure that it was grounds for a court issue or not because kobe still acts fine with is mom ( NOT SCARED) and still enjoys going to her house.

A little background info for their relationship is that they had dated for a year before getting pregnant. tried to work it out for kobe but she was cheating and did not want kobe in their apt  ( he stayed with my husbands mom and he went to see him everyday after work and any chance he got ). she had a hard time with kobe as he was a fussy baby and then obviously developed a strong connection with grandma and wanted her most. they were broken up for a year before we dated and got married. She may have resentment toward us for being able to start a family but was he supposed to stay single forever because they didnt work out?
I know she wants to be a good mom and we want to give her chance to be, just hard when we see all these things happen to him.

[Londres70]

Totally agree with SM.  She made very valid points.

[Life360_Dave]

Did your husband divorce her for you? Knowing more about would shed some light on this as  I sense terrible resentment on her part towards you and him.  Its like youve taken her home, husband and child and she taking out this on the child and its like your husband has given all her things to you.

[specialmom]

Hii there.  Sounds complex and I admire how much you love this little boy and want to help him.  I can tell you that child protective services though does not want to separate a parent from a child unless absolutely necessary.  It is a sad thing when a statement is made by the state that a parent isn't fit to be with their kids.  

While you describe a troubled woman and no one that I'd want around my kids, you really didn't give a clear example of true abuse---  or at least I am not sure if you did.  How old is Kobe, by the way?  I am not sure what the laws are on very young children left at a park alone.  That is concerning and something I would try to work on solving.  That sounds a bit dangerous.  And again, not knowing the age . . . .  I'm not sure if walking down the street of one's neighborhood to another house with a 6 year old cousin is dangerous or not.  I live in the suburbs and at 6, my kids would run over to a friend's house down our street.  But there are no cars and it's like that suburban neighborhood situation, so it happened and it wasn't scary when my kids were 6 ish.  If they were 3, that would probably be different but if they were walking with someone a few years older down our own street, I'm  not sure I'd consider that neglect, abuse or anything like that.  I don't know the situation or the circumstances of the neighborhood.  We have kids riding bikes, running around here all the time without parents right behind them but it's kind of the nature of our neighborhood situation built for that.  

It is in poor taste to hook up with a man so quickly and involve your child but that is not abuse.  If she did this every few months or even once a year, it would definitely be damaging.  But if she quickly fell in love (and people do do this . . .   even though *I* try to tell them not to.  ha ha, as if my advice is so important . . .  but you know what I mean, I very much agree with you that it's crazy to be that into a guy in such a short time and terrible to involve your children!!) but still her prerogative as an adult.   A hard thing to watch for sure and I totally get how you would hate for Kobe to be exposed to this!  I would too.

Okay, again----  don't know how old Kobe is and that sure would help.  I've had my sons go the care barefoot or gone and gotten in the car while they try to put their shoes on or told them they had to give me a dollar to wait for them or not taken them to wherever they are going for not being ready to go.  My KIDS would claim they didn't have enough time to get ready . . .  but I know that I reminded them to get their shoes on for a full 5 to 10 minutes before we were to leave and they were distracted.  There is a well known book and parenting style called "love and logic" that has natural consequences for things like this.  Our school district endorses this parenting program and I've been through the training on it and that is what they tell you to do!  I don't know what kind of rocks  but I've walked out the door while they are still working on getting ready (as it is a common kid problem to doddle when there is a schedule to keep) and had them run out after me.  I started this type of thing when my kids started elementary school so age 5 to 6.  When you say he doesn't have enough time to get his shoes on, what does that mean?  (keeping in mind that when my kids were tiny, I helped with shoes . . .   again, not sure of Kobe's age).  

She's not leaving him alone when she goes out, she has someone to watch him so that's not neglect.  

And finally, the biggest accusation that she physically abuses him.  I'm just picturing that he was PUT OUT of the game for being aggressive.  So he is already in trouble.  MY way of handling things like that was that I'd leave the game with him----  if he is hurting, tackling his teammates and has been warned . . .   he'd have to go home.  And he might throw a tantrum when we were trying to leave and I'd pick him up and get him to the car as I had to.  I would see HIM as the one that was doing wrong.  Right?  Now I don't know how rough she was pulling him through the gravel and it sounds like quite the scene and hard to watch . . .   but was she hitting him or just trying to get him to the car for disobeying her after getting in trouble on the ball field?  See what I mean?  There are things that aren't good parenting and there is all out physical abuse and this doesn't sound like that to me.  ???  I wasn't there and only have your account of what happened to go on.  If you have seen marks and burns on him, that IS concerning (although my young kids and even still to this day have all sorts of marks on them as they are active)---  and should be watched.  If you called CPS about it which it sounds like you have, they will investigate.  

But do I think a protective order was too much?  Yes

Based on just what you've written here, yes.  She certainly sounds like a less than desirable parent . . .  but I'm not really reading abuse in the true sense.  (again, not knowing enough about how old he is and being alone at parks or seeing how she pulled him to the car or wherever he was to sit in time out or if the marks/burns are really caused by her).

But now she will be very mad at you and your husband.  I wouldn't care about that if I thought I was protecting a child but I would expect things to get worse in terms of her and you guys.  She now sees you both as a threat to her probably.  

So, I do want you to know that I hear where you are coming from and think your heart is in the right place and that yes, this is a bad mom.  But I am not sure the courts will see it that way.  

I'm glad you came here to share and am sure other members will be able to give you their thoughts that could be different than mine.  You are a great mama to Kobe and I very much admire you for that!  peace