I agree with your feelings on this stuff Phil.
I don't understand how parents get detached from their kids but I have seen
it.
With my brother, who is a drug addict, it was that he learned how to use the
kids to feed his own needs.  Look everybody, what a wonderful father I am
for 3 minutes at a stretch while I have my kid show me attention!
Or, to my mom or such people, look how poor my child looks, he's hungrey or
needs you to look after him and so on.
On my mom's part, she is one of these people who needs to be in control of a
situation to feel good about herself and she needs the same sort of approval
from people.
My brother is at a point in life now, I think, where he could take his
daughter back but my mom insists on keeping her and raising her and she's 61
now I think.
We offered to raise the girl, but we wanted support from the family as far
as having them stand up and admit that my brother was unable to care for her
and that our home was safe and a good place for her.  My mother was not
willing to admit that her son was not fit to courts and the like and she
flip flopped as usual.
One week we were the best place for the child and the next week she wanted
to take her back and raise her because we were honest about the child's
father.
Finally, we decided that it was time to get on with our own lives and we
realized the strain put upon us by my family was too much and was affecting
our own atempts at having a baby and finding peace so we told my mom to take
the child and keep her.
Looking back I wonder if it would not have been better to just let the child
go with her father as it was his responsibility rather he did right by her
or not.
My mother has a hard time now because of the choice she made and she likes
to complain about how hard her life is to others and expects others to show
her attention because of it.
WE will not do this because although she chooses to act as if we did not
offer to raise the child, we know that we did and we know that she would
have been better off with us.  I do not know if I would feel the same about
her going back to her father now if we had kept her though.  I probably
would have become attached and would now be more critical of my brother's
situation than I am from the outside looking in.  I still know that we could
provide better for the girl but I think it would be better for her to go
without and be with her parents than to be with us or my mom.
My mom is spoiling and teaching her bad manners and low value for others
because of course, my mom is the best thing which ever happened to her and
the only one she can truely depend on in her mind and we hate for the girl
to visit because she is so rude or so in need of attention that she will try
and get it negatively instead of positively.
I know that it is possible for grandparents to raise their grandchildren but
I do not believe that it is in the best interest of the child as a whole.
I am sorry that your daughter does not treat her child right but if she is
allowed to come and go as she pleases and to act, somewhat as a child with
limited responsibilities while you pick up the slack, how will she ever
truely feel the weight of her true responsibilities?
I know it is hard to watch children go through hardship when you could
provide comfort but if they are not your children, and they are truely a
child, the parents are forced to see them go through the hardship they are
providing for them when the responsibility is dropped where it belongs.
I pray for god's will in this situation as I do in my own.

Take Care,

Matt