[Leo656]

Unless you get all that money you spent raising 'em back, plus interest, I think most people have a much different version of "worth it" than I do.

I already have a niece who used to be a great kid, who turned out disrespectful and nasty, got into drugs, had a "boyfriend" who she willingly let cheat on her with other girls because "That's just the way relationships work nowadays", and started cutting herself. All the way, over a period of several years, any advice or guidance I offered was rejected for not being what she wanted to hear (although it was what she needed to hear, considering her parents couldn't be bothered to even try and keep her straight). Once she started getting nasty with my wife, that was the end and now we just don't talk.

As my niece, it's "just" supremely disappointing. If she was my KID and said/did any of that stuff... forget about it. I do empathize, because her parents (and her Dad dying of an overdose) are mostly why she turned out the way she is, but the truth is, we had almost the exact same upbringing (to the point where we both lost a parent to drugs, at the exact same age), BUT I got through it without completely losing my way. Thus, I did my absolute best to keep her head on straight while her parents were too busy digging a deeper hole. Didn't work. She decided at 14 that she was a "grown up" and started telling me and everyone else that we couldn't tell her anything. When I found out she was cutting herself, I told her Mom/my sister and they both flipped out on ME and told me to stay the f*ck out of everything, and that's about where we left it. My niece called me a couple times after that, when her Mom was being a bitch to her and she needed someone to vent to, but not long after that she cursed out my wife and called her a "retard", and that was the last time we had any contact at all.

I truly wish the best for her, but I can't be involved anymore. They don't want me there, and I refuse to just sit there and watch someone willingly self-destruct because "You can't tell me what to do" when it's easily preventable. She turned into her Mom/my sister, who ALSO turned into our Mom, who terrorized us. The cycle is disgusting, and I refuse to perpetuate it, or even be involved in it if I'm expected to just sit there helplessly while people kill themselves.

People say, "Well, that's all part of it," and you know what? No. I already went through a phase where I did the best I could for someone, every day, for no reason other than I loved them, only to (sometimes literally) have it thrown in my face while they lied to me, stole from me, and said they hated me; it was called "Birth" through "...And then my Dad died", and almost all of it sucked.

I've raised a cat since her moment of birth, for 19 years. To this day, if she smells me at all, she'll jerk herself out of a sound sleep just so she can get some petting, even if I'm all the way across the room. And when I tickle her, she latches onto my hand with her little claws and gives me a hundred kisses until she gets bored of it. I never have to worry about her getting into trouble, hanging with the wrong crowd, or telling me she hates me. I'm her entire world, and I know that, because she tells me constantly.

Every second of that, has been worth it. People should just get cats.