Re mother leaving children?

[Gimmesomemore]

Not a close friend, but more of an acquaintance, has left her husband and 2 young children.

Apparently she left out of the blue to live with a new man she met, and is currently living over a couple of hours away.

There has been no contact with the children, and their father has taken a step back from his business to provide full time care of the children.

Well everyone who knows the family are extremely shocked, but mainly as it was the mother who left the children.

Aibu to ask whether this is normal for people to consider this as somewhat worse than if it was the father who had cheated and left, breaking all contact. Or is it down to the fact that this is less common?

I left my children with their father's. I am disabled, was struggling with my daughter's care needs as she has behavioural issues, and was about to be made homeless. I didn't want to drag them with me and make them suffer when the had a viable option of living with their other parent.

People have judged, it's definitely harder as a mother to not have full care of your children, but I felt that I was doing the best thing for them. I was, and am, too ill to care for them full time, even with carers. Now the time I spend with them is focused on them, not them caring for me and not being able to do normal family stuff.

It hurts, like something that is a part of me has been ripped away. I have nightmares about losing my children all the time, but I see them as much as I can manage and I know they are doing well.

I am working towards being able to have them back, but if it doesn't happen, I won't feel hard done by, my ultimate priority is the kids doing well, and if I can't do that for them, I know that with my support, their dad's can.

My DHs ex left him with their children when they were very small. OM didn't want the kids. I don't think it's worse but I know that any time I've mentioned the DH is the RP on MN someone has queried why. Normally followed by a query as to what DH had done to drive her out or does she have MH problems etc. it's like society doesn't want to accept that some women just don't want their children FT. Some women want to be the NRP and some women can be the worst kind of NRP (I.e sporadic contact, no maintenance, etc) because they choose to be so, not for any other reason.

FanFuckingTastic, It sounds like you did the right thing for your children, no one should judge you. If they are safe and happy with their dad that is what matters most.

Fanfic king tastic as long as you are still in regular contact you did not abandon your children. You are the non resident parent which is definitely not remotely the same thing.

When people say 'I wonder what went on' etc as they attempt to understand, it just highlights the double standard. We don't think the same things as frequently when a man leaves. Women are supposed to be selfless and forgiving. As the rhyme goes 'that's what little girls are made off'. Only we're not.

My mum left when I was 7 and friends and family ooh and ahhed about how marvellous it was for a man to be child rearing solo. (He wasn't very good at it but that's not because he was a man)

My dh's ex left him and their 3 teenage children. She immediately set up home with her much younger lover and had another baby. That was 25 years ago. I think it took 20 of those years for her dc to let her fully into their lives. I have never understood fully, she tells me she knew the dc would be better off with him. Her loss was my gain ...

Brattingham what do you mean by 'a mother is not a father and should not try to be'?

A mother is a female parent who cares for and attends to her child's physical and emotional needs. A father is a male parent who cares for and attends to his child's physical and emotional needs.

As you can see there are no differences in the two descriptions. Until you elaborate on your quote I'm not sure how offensive I find what you're suggesting.

Well apparently 91% of single parents are women, and women are more likely to have RP even if both partners remarry so I presume it's the unusualness of it that causes more people to be shocked.

But why does that shock translate into more negative terminology, and a tendency to demonise mothers who choose not to be the RP? I understand it's more unusual (because of socialisation/economics etc) but it doesn't follow that the woman should be judged any more severely.

Only 8% of single parents are men. They are unusual. There are many reasons for this, some cultural (childcare being a female cultural norm, the dearth of paternity rights, etc) and some biological (the inability of men to gestate, labour and lactate means that women get their foot in the door first when it comes to establishing parenting roles).

As a result of this, the automatic assumption is that the woman is the primary caregiver. The one who kisses bruised knees, reads stories and tucks a child in bed every night. This is the reason women are treated with much more disdain when they walk away from their children. Everyone wonders how you could abandon a child with whom you've established that bond. We still tend to assume that men aren't that involved - particularly with younger children - so we are more matter of fact about it because it doesn't seem to be quite as big a betrayal.

It's all based on stereotype, but like a lot of stereotypes it is based on some truth - by far the majority of young children are cared for by women.

When women do walk away from children MH issues (including PND) seem to feature more significantly than average, so it's a logical response to ask what is going on at home rather than just assume a motive of pure selfishness.

I would always want to know the circumstances behind someone abandoning their family before judging because life is a complex thing that is often very different to outward appearances. However, in cases where parents of either gender abandon children for no reason other than to pursue their own selfish agenda, I judge harshly. Children come with responsibilities, and while I don't advocate self-sacrifice, a certain duty is to be expected. Abandonment is one thing, however. I have no interest in whether a mother or a father leaves as long as regular, positive contact is maintained, and I would assume that the parent left with the children was the primary caregiver before the split.

All that said, I think it's a fallacy to think that abandoning children is abnormal human behaviour. Worldwide and throughout history it is depressingly common. 1 in 5 children grow up losing contact with their father. In addition to that, right now, here in the UK, 1 child a week will be murdered, More than 50,000 are on child protection registers, 1 in 4 children will be abused, and 1 in 20 sexually assaulted. Mistreatment of children by their parents, including abandonment, is very, very common by both genders.

It's not unusual but shocking because we expect all mothers to have the same bonds with their children as we have with our own.

I know a mum who did this. ExP now has sole custody. He thinks she had undiagnosed PND. He's a mental health nurse.

My mum keft

My mum

My mum l

My mum left

My mum left myself and my sister with our grandparents to move in with her new boyfriend when I was 10. There was also a period when they disappeared and we had no contact with her for 3 months. This has permanently damaged my relationship with my mum.I don't have much of a relationship with my dad either as my parents divorced and he made no effort to keep contact but I still feel what my mum did was worse and hurt me far more.

HappyMummy what utter tripe.

This has happened in our family - the working mother left for another man and the stay-at-home father was left with 3 children under 5 - there was a lot of 'poor man, how could she?' - mainly from the elder females of the family, it's fair to say. But they had already done plenty of clucking about how good the father was to 'let' his wife go out to work and have the high-flying career while he stayed at home - in fact it suited both their personalities ideally, she'd have been miserable at home and he wasn't interested in a career at all.

Interestingly, though, the reaction was one of horrified bewilderment rather than the righteous anger that was rained down in the case of the male relative who left his wife in much the same position. It's still rare enough that it will be remarked upon.

And again not 'all mothers have the same bond with their mothers as we did with our own' because not all mothers had mothers that they were involved with regularly or at all. It's that assumption again of what is and isn't 'normal'. And that's harmful when normal isn't necessarily best or the only way for children to have their needs met.

Stereotypes may have a nugget of truth as in what the old 'normal' was but not as in what is best or the only way. That's why stereotypes are harmful. Because those that don't have the stereotype have to deal with others viewing their situation as inherently deviant. That helps no one and holds us back from progress.

so sad reading this,my mother abandoned me before I was even born! she didn't want another child, but her love for her first born knew no bounds,was all consuming. I was something she "put up" with. sadly her first born died at 14, a year older than myself, basically after that, my mother died of a broken heart. where did that leave me? a child runaway, homeless and feral. great childhood. thanks mum!

I completely understand that parenting can be horribly tough in all sorts of ways. I would also never want to judge an individual, male or female, who was simply at the end of themselves and temporarily incapable of shouldering their responsibilities to their children. Sounds trite but I recall watching Kramer vs Kramer as a teenager and fully understanding why Mrs Kramer left. Her life was hell and she didn't believe she had anything to give her child. That can happen and I believe it is almost certainly a mental health issue.

What I don't understand is when a parent walks away, sorts themselves out and then doesn't return for their kids at the first possible opportunity. No matter how unpleasant a shock parenting turns out to be, surely we have a responsibility, as adults who have walked into it, to take the consequences and make sure we're the ones who suffer, rather than our children? If I reached rock bottom for some reason and ended up leaving, I could never put myself back together again for any reason other than to come back and be my little girl's mother. I have an inbuilt hotline to her suffering and her needs. Voluntarily ignoring that awareness or severing that connection - i.e., putting the pain of abandonment my DD's shoulders because I found life with her too yucky to put up with - that's inhumane and I would go so far as to say, wicked. Children are dependents for only a small proportion of our lives, yet they will live out of their childhood for the rest of their lives.

For women in such a difficult place that they must acknowledge their children will benefit more from being apart from them (and surely it must be a last resort) I have only the deepest sympathy.

I don't know if men have the same intuitive connection with their child's needs. It looks like they usually don't but I just don't know.

For me it isn't the fact that's it's the mother, the female that's shocking, it's when the main care giver leaves. The main care giver is usually the woman. I think this is why I find it more shocking.

But dittanvonity could you see that the evaluation system you have used to judge your mother more harshly was instilled in you via socialisation and the constant transmitting of the idea that a mother should be selfless and sacrificial and that's it's not as bad as when a father fails to parent adequately?