Q&A: What Can I Do to Help My Friend?

Question by Environaut: What can I do to help my friend?
My friend, who has a 3 year old, has been on a downward spiral since she “got together” with her “latest” boyfriend. He uses drugs daily, not to mention several different kind of drugs. I no longer go around her, because her boyfriend is always around, and I refuse to bring my daughter around drugs and/or drug users. My friend has had troubles controlling her anger with her daughter, i.e. yelling, spankings for things that do not deserve spankings, etc. I have never seen her “beat or abuse” her child, but I fear that it will happen. She asks for my advice all the time, but whenever I give her my advice she screams at me and says I’m putting her down or making her feel small or stupid. I have never called her stupid, but her recent behavior is just that. My friend was recently arrested for possession of marijuana and moved out of her mother’s house into her boyfriends house. I told her I can not come see her, because I don’t want to bring my daughter around him. Any advice?
Child services may become involved due to her arrest, she had her daughter in the car with her when she was arrested.

The issue with her yelling and spanking has been going on for a while, more than a year now.
My friend has clearly stated that she does not like taking care of her daughter during her toddler stage, she likes babies and older children. She is also considering having a child with her new boyfriend, which I am TOTALLY against, but I can not stop her from that. She can barely take care of the one child she has now, I don’t see how she could take care of another one.
I’d also like to say that she has only been dating her current boyfriend for 4 months. She also is a “serial” dater. She swears each man/boy she’s with is the one, then ditches him later on. She tries to compare my relationship with my husband to her relationship with her boyfriend. I have been with my huband 7 years. In the past 7 years, she’s had too many boyfriends to count.
Also, she is moving into a unstable atmosphere. It is a 2 bedroom “dump”, i.e. holes in the walls and floor, flith and trash everywhere… The two bedrooms are filled with junk, you can not even go 1 foot into the room. They are more like nasty storage rooms than bedrooms. The child will be forced to either sleep in the bed with my friend and her boyfriend or on a couch, that is falling apart.
I do not approve of such conditions, I am a neat freak, and since my daughter was premature I have never exposed her to such filth. Her daughter is 4 months older than mine, and my daughter weighed 3lb2oz, while her daughter weighed close to 9 pounds. If you were to stand them side by side today, my daughter is taller, and just seems generally healthier. All my friend feeds her daughter is McDonalds or other forms of junk food. My daughter eats mainly organic/natural healthy food (and actually enjoys it ;) ).

Best answer:

Answer by Ann
Sounds like you’re doing the best thing you can.

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