I’ve never met my mum AMA

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I have, of course technically met her as that would be a biological impossibility. But she left when I was six months old and I haven’t seen her since. Nobody has any idea where she is, even her parents didn’t up until they died! AMA

Your dad sounds like a lovely guy to take on such a painful situation at such a young age and create a home in which you were able to grow and to foster your relationship with your brother and grandparents.

No, she didn’t pay anything. There isn’t a CMS service in Ireland, it’s all organised either privately or via courts. He didn’t have any contacts details for her or know where she was to organise privately, and I think because he was so young he didn’t really like the idea of court so he never bothered. We lived with my paternal grandparents until I was 4ish and then moved out together once he was earning enough money

He’s the best! I’m very proud of him and grateful for all he’s given me. I still live less than a 5 minute walk from
him and see him everyday!

My eldest knows, he did a family tree school project when he was about 8/9 and I explained that my stepmum wasn’t my real mum. I don’t think he really understood at the time, but now he’s older we’ve talked about it properly. My two youngest don’t know yet because they’re only wee, I call my stepmum ‘mum’ so they dont know any different, neither did my son when he was little.

When I told him, he had a few friends who didn’t have dads so that helped me explain but interestingly he couldn’t really understand the concept of a mother leaving so he wasn’t ever scared of me leaving

She’d be 74/75 now. He was devastated, based on what other people and him have said she was a really good mum to him and they were really close. When my mum and dad and first discussed separating, she always talked about him living with her so nobody understands what had changed for her to go without him.

He went through periods of anger and sadness about it but he did reach a sort of acceptance of it in the end. I know he still missed her and he had lots of happy memories, whereas I didn’t have any memory at all so it was much easier. If she’d have reached out he would absolutely have wanted to see her, even after 30 years.

It sounds incredibly painful for you and very difficult to make sense of, although even when you make sense out of it, it would still probably hurt as much. It is quite unusual but Ireland that time was extremely unusual and women had few options and heaps of social pressure. I’m sorry for the pain you experienced. I glad you have made progress healing through the experience and have had good family experiences as well as the loss of your mother.

How did you go about finding her on Facebook?

Thanks for answering. It's rather sweet that your eldest wasn't scared because he just couldn't imagine you ever leaving. That's exactly as it should be!

It is also nice to read about the obviously positive relationship that you have with your stepmum. We read so many awful stories on here about difficult relationships between stepparents and their stepchildren, but it sounds like she has tried hard to be a mum to you, and that you've had a great relationship.

Your dad sounds ace! I love the fact that he worked so effectively with your mum's parents to ensure that you and your brother were able to maintain a relationship.

Totally agree about the pressures on women in Ireland at the time (and still now to some extent). I do wonder if she’d have had the option, would I even exist? We lived in a very small village just outside of Cork where everybody knew each other and I personally experienced just how crushing it was to exist as a female there. If she did have postnatal depression, which I suspect she did, there wouldn’t have been any official help at all. People relied on each other, and people didn’t really like her much anyway because she was much older than my dad so she didn’t have any support at all apart from her parents and my dad.

Literally just searched her name, couldn’t find anything, then searched the anglicised version of her first name then the same surname she had when she was with my dad and there she was. I’d seen a couple of photos of her, but obviously she was about 19 years older by the time I found her. Knew it was her from the second I saw her because I look SO much like her, but got my dad to confirm

@blankcanvas3 what a wonderful dad and stepmum you have.
Not all women are natural mothers. Yours clearly wasn't and it's so good to know that you still had great parenting.

She’s a very patient woman, I was horrible to her for years and she still loved me unconditionally. I’m very lucky, thanks for your lovely comment x

I know exactly what you mean, fellow rural Ireland upbringing here. The judgement and pressure women faced would make anything any woman did explainable on some level but not necessarily ok and that doesn’t make what you experienced ok in any way.

I am so pleased you had a great Dad, one good adult in a child’s life is enough even when bad things happen. You sound like you also had lovely relationships with your grandparents, brother and stepmum too which you truly deserved.

Op I’m so sorry to hear you were put in this situation but it’s great to hear you have a wonderful dad and a lovely stepmum and your own lovely family.

It sounds as though your mother was maybe in a very troubled state when she left, as potentially a sexual violence survivor, with a disabled child when we know parent carers suffer high rates of burnout and mental ill health and then a small baby, with likely postnatal depression and having had that baby in a relationship which had a huge age gap and she may perhaps have felt was unlikely to stand the test of time.

None of this justifies what happened to you of course. A close family member experienced bereavement of a parent and was then effectively neglected by the other parent. It has been so hard for them. I am really glad you had your dad and step mother.

So interesting OP. This is prob because you risk the chance of being rejected again. Your instinct is telling you not to put yourself through it.

Slightly diff but I’m adopted (also Ireland) and this is one of the reasons I have never tried to trace my mother.

Thank you for sharing your story with us. Does your stepmum have any other children? Is she a similar age to your Dad?

Gosh OP
Very interesting thread.
Please don’t take the following up wrongly :
Initially I was going to question your acceptance that she was/is alive but thankfully that seems to be the case and it wasn’t like so many others, sadly, where dc were told their Mums just upped and left but actually they were murdered and by someone close to them too.

The 20 year age gap would be a big thing in a small village in rural Ireland.
The female being 20 years older. Not so much if it was the male.
How did your paternal grandparents view your mother ?
The relationship she had with their son ?
The fact she had a disabled son and your Dad was so young ?
Thankfully you had a great Dad and step Mum and loving grandparents too.
There was a case very recently here in Ireland where a man had disappeared 30 odd years ago from near Killarney, everyone thought he had died but his family were relentless in looking for answers.
The carer of a man in the UK realised the man they were looking for had been her patient but he had died.
He had left his home town and moved to England because it was very tough for a gay man living in small community in Ireland at the time as homosexuality was banned. He had a loving partner and a nice life in the UK.
His family in Ireland were glad.

She doesn’t have any other children, she’s a year younger than my dad

At the time I totally didn’t consider that something could have happened like that to her, but the older you get and the more you learn about Irish history regarding mothers and babies the more you do think about it! That’s part of what compelled me to have a search for her in the first place - albeit just by Facebook. I think if I hadn’t have found anything back then, by now I would have probably hired a private investigator for those exact reasons.

My dad’s dad is still alive and he still calls her the devil to this day. My brother was very much loved in the village so my paternal grandparents were fond of him, she was of course unmarried when she had my brother which people didn’t like so she didn’t have many friends left, then when she began her relationship with my da that’s when she lost everybody apart from her parents. My paternal grandparents were more bothered about the fact that she was having a second child by a second man she wasn’t married to, rather than the age gap and the fact her son was disabled. Nobody knew she was pregnant (including my dad) until she was about 7 months gone and you can understand why she hid it

Yes completely agree with you. The thought of her choosing not to reply to me does make me quite angry actually

It's lovely that you got a Stepmum who loves you and your DC. It does sound as if your biological Mum may have had post natal depression. The fact you had after 1 pregnancy points to this because it can run in families from Mother to Daughter. I'm a foster Mum and I see a Mum as a person who cares about us and brings us up. My 2 foster sons thinks this way too. I've brought up the eldest since he was 5 and he's over 20 now. I couldn't love him more if I'd given birth to him.

Totally agree with you on all points. We’ve actually just signed up to be foster carers after reading about the shortage at the moment!

You sound like an amazing family. I wish you every future happiness.

What prompted you to start this thread? I don't mean "I think this might be useful for x, y, z person"etc. I mean, what was the incident or cognitive event that made you think, I've never known my mum and I'm going to start an AMA thread about this on Mumsnet?

That I’d read a million threads about dads leaving and not being seen again for years, and it is, fundamentally unusual for a mum to leave the way my mum did. Your comment feels slightly harsh, but I suppose for anybody who is experiencing the same thing (ie, mum leaving without explanation), it might be useful to know that sometimes dads are alright and I was alright too, despite being sans mum.

No, it's not harsh at all. I was curious about the spark that made you decide to start the thread (you've replied instead with your rationale about why it's useful to share the info). I'm in no way disputing the idea that it's useful to share the info, I'm asking about what sparked you to do it. e.g. I saw a post on here and thought... or... my colleague said x,y,z and I thought...

That I had a million friends without a dad but I remain, all these years later, the only one without a mum. I have a friend who’s husband has just left her and doesn’t have any intention of seeing his children anymore (same as my ma), and I know my experience is relatively interesting because of the Irish experience/ the thought that she probably had post natal depression/ my upbringing i’m general so I thought people might want to hear. I wouldn’t have been bothered if nobody replied!