Through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program I was introduced to my little brother Isaiah. He was eight years old when we met - he was being raised by a single mother and has never met his father. For the last seven years (with a brief gap for 1 year when they moved out of state) I have seen Isaiah 2-4 times a month for 4-8 hours a time. During the summers he will come stay with my family for the weekend or on holidays.
His personal situation has become worse over time. His mother (I hate to use that term) is living a life that is not conducive to raising a 15 year old boy. His 18 year old sister (different father) moved out the second she graduated from high school. He is under-nourished, depressed and just sits in his house during the hours that he is not at school. He doesn't have clean clothes and their house looks like a bad episode of Hoarders and it is in a very unsafe neighborhood (I am 6'3" 250lbs and I am scared to get out of the car). We have tried all of the sports and after school activities but his mom (and often public transportation) makes it impossible. There are so many details that I am not sharing for the sake of simplicity but there is a laundry list of things that only support my case for him coming to live with us. It is fair to say that Isaiah and his mother DO NOT have a productive relationship and after seven years of experience I clearly view the mother as 95% of the issue.
After dropping him off each time I have this huge sense of guilt. I know that he is bright, emotionally mature and could live a better life if he was to live with my family (wife and 5 month old baby with likely another one around the corner). We also have a massive extended family that would enable him to have an immediate and loving ecosystem in which I believe he would thrive.
More than once his mother has essentially invited us to take Isaiah. She did it again yesterday. Although it is likely not as easy as she seems to think it is I am confident that we could get through the legal aspects of a guardianship. I know that I will regret it if I don't do something to fix this situation. I know that this is a financial forum but this has nothing to do with money. We could easily support Isaiah including college which was part of my plan before we started going down this path.
Has anyone on here had experience with a legal guardianship? My wife and I are just now exploring the details.
