I faced a similar situation with my mother.I had very little contact with her from the age of 16 to 24, when I had my daughter. When my daughter was 12,my mother apologized for the way she had treated me growing up and asked for a chance to foster a relationship with her granddaughter (my daughter) as a way to "make up" for her lack as a mother to me. I agreed this would be a good idea, and started sending my daughter for weekend visits to "gramma's house", despite my daughter's unwillingness to get to know this woman who had pretty much ignored her since birth. About a year into these visits, my mother's new husband raped my daughter. My mother decided to stay with him, and claimed my daughter made it up. Needless to say, my daughter and I went through hell due to this, and we have had no contact with ANY family members since this happened, as everyone seemed to think if they ignored what happened, it would just go away. I am happy to report my daughter is a beautiful, talented college graduate now, and the ONLY thing I regret was ever giving my mother, a woman whom I KNEW was a lousy maternal figure, the chance to ruin my daughter's life, the way she tried to ruin mine. I applaud your choice, it seems to me to be the best way to ensure this person can't hurt your child like she hurt you.

seriously - what's to keep him from doing it to someone else?

For both mordechai and Motherless Mother-to-Be, I suggest you check out the book, "Understanding the Borderline Mother." Pay particular attention to the section on the witch mother.

I've struggled with a mother and grandmother who have borderline personality disorder, and I suffered much abuse growing up. The scary part is that borderline mothers train their children (particularly daughters) borderline behaviors. This book has been a godsend - helped me to understand my mother and break the cycle in my own life. An abusive family is the last thing I want to impose upon my children.

Even if your moms aren't borderline, I think the book will help you understand reasons why some mothers hurt their children instead of nurture them.

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I did press charges - my daughter was too traumatized to testify in front of the grand jury, so he was never indicted, despite having failed a lie detector test and strong evidence that he had molested his own daughter when she was a young teen. I told everyone in the family who would listen about what happened, and was able to convince most of them to at least keep their children away from him if they were not there to provide supervision. He died a couple of years ago, so he is no longer a threat to children. Ironically, a few weeks after he died, my mother tried to contact me AGAIN - mailed me a note saying she wished we could move on and develop a closer relationship - needless to say, i didn't take her up on the offer.

I am glad things ultimately worked out for you and your daughter. I just don't know what is wrong with some people. My sister also has a penchant for marrying losers-one of which raped her daughter. Thank God that creep is out of the picture now, but how my niece can still call my sister "mom" is beyond me.

At the time none of us knew exactly what was going on, but it was obvious something was wrong. Social services was called a number of times, but they were useless. One caseworker thought there was merit in taking the children out of the home, but her insane supervisor thought a bad father was better than none at all. And it didn't help that my crazy sister covered for this freak.

I don't know about the "Borderline Mother" book that someone mentioned. My sister is nothing like my mother who would never have allowed one of her children to be abused by a pedophile. Nor would I. Neither of my nieces with children show their own mother's lack of judgement/parenting skills either.

It took years before my niece told us what happened. Trust me, my mom did not just pretend nothing had happened as my sister wanted to do. What is so ironic about the whole thing is that my parents would have gladly raised my niece. In the end, she was dumped on them at 16 when my sister married yet another loser.

Well, my sister is out of the baby making biz now and her kids are grown so marry all the losers you want!