How can some parents just up and leave their kids and forget about them ?

[reformer29]

I look at DD and wonder how her father can just leave her (never seeing her again) and just seem to get on with his life and forget about her. I cannot imagine leaving DD, I would always wonder "how is she", "What is she doing now".

This of course is not new. But I wonder how some parents could leave their kids behind (never seeing them again) and getting on with their lives ?

I suggest you all keep your opinions and replies to yourselves....no one is perfect...absolutely no one...each and everyone has a ghost or two in the cupboard so to speak....never say never....you can never know what will happen and when......unfortunately things happen and often due to circumstances completely out of a parents control....children also leave the home......quite often the child leaves the parent and therefore it is very often the parent who is abandoned by the child....so as I began to say.....KEEP YOUR UNHELPFUL, HURTFUL COMMENTS TO YOURSELVES!!!!

Another sad but different story. A school friend got pregnant at 18. When she married the father, her own mother dumped her. Mother stopped my friend's dad and sister from keeping in touch with her as they'd been visiting in secret till the mother found out. She moved her family (husband and other two daughters) to a new area. Friend went to her GM's funeral years later and her mother still refused to acknowledge her. After all those years - now in our 50s - I can't understand how a mother could behave like that.

I wonder this too. I haven't had any contact with my father since I was 3 following parents divorce.

I have recently found where he lives and have been procrastinating for months about sending him a letter. I have my own kids now and I just don't understand how you go from crying with joy at a childs birth to never seeing them again.

foreverandalways are you ops ex? How many children have you abandoned then?

Sometimes I think people can't cope and just walk out and leave their whole life and family behind.

"children also leave the home......quite often the child leaves the parent and therefore it is very often the parent who is abandoned by the child....so as I began to say"

And that situation, and those in it, is not at all what is being talked about here...

Sorry but you aren't the forum police.

I can't even imagine shared access DH and I split up. I am not a natural mum and crave adult time regularly but some days it feels like my DD is as much a part of my day as breathing and I can't imagine not being in her life all the time while she's still so little.

Yanbu op, this is something I will never understand. How can you create a life, walk away from that person and then continue as normal. How do these people then go on to have other children without feeling anything towards the ones they created. I think these people are just filth worth nothing.

winter But forever surely if a child leaves the parent that's a different situation all together.

I think many, maybe most (but certainly not all) form the deepest attachment with the woman they are shagging.

When that falls apart, the extraneous baggage ie children simply don't register very much.

Consider how many men struggle to simply play with their children and do 50% of the childcare even when they're in a stable committed relationship. Then if they're no longer with the mum ... well, the child support agency was set up for a reason. And that's just for money, not involvement.

Exh is apparently upset that he's missing out on his children, who he has contacted the grand total of 4 times this year, and has excelled himself this evening by sending his daughter a WhatsApp message saying "who is this" first contact since September... She's devastated of course - with him its very much of it sight out of mind, I can't understand it at all

Same my sons Dad not allowed contact SS involvement with subsequent children, had very little to do with him beforehand , controlling and abusive to me, 12 years older than me, not seen him for 8 years it's hard to know what to tell son (13 now)..... I'm glad he's not been around though he's a real loser I'm married now to the most wonderful man on earth and have a new baby and he loves my son so much and my son loves him... the ex used to tell me I should stay at home and claim benefits and why am I bothering going to work, stop getting ideas above my station, I'll never be able to raise a child on my own... I would love to tell him now that I have a successful career in finance and own three houses, two cars and a caravan tell them UP YOURS and be the best that u can be xxxxxxxxxxxx

men, that is.

Women who walk away from their children ... well, that's a whole other thing and very, very complex ranging from what a PP said, that they may have genuinely believed it was best for the children, to ill health, to selfishness.

My nephew is 13 and his Mum left him with my brother at 3 days old and she's never seen him again!
My nephew has started to question why his mum wasn't around more lately and my brother really stuggles with what to say. I mean how do you tell a 13 year old that There own mother simply didn't want them

If your brother were not the natural parent and had adopted a 3 day old baby he and you would presumably say that the baby's real mother could not cope and giving him up was what she thought was for the best. In this particular situation I don't honestly see that there is any difference between giving up her baby to a stranger and giving her baby up to your brother and you would not , I assume, criticise a mother who gave her child up for adoption.

My father did a vanishing act when I was two. I don't remember any of it but it obviously was hugely traumatic for a young child (and one who was at an important stage of emotional development) especially as he had been the main caregiver while my mum worked. I have never shaken the feeling of rejection and of not being good enough and I don't think I ever will. Quite possibly he was a damaged man himself, but his actions were cowardly and selfish and the damage he did to the family is still ongoing over twenty five years later.
Apart from very extreme circumstances, a parent being cut out/disappearing like that is not in any way beneficial to the child, it is hugely damaging.

My exes dad had two families on the go at the same time (both women knew of the other) long complicated story and I don't know the ins and outs of it,
anyway,
after a few years of this
The dad chose the first family and never spoke to his youngest family ever again, would look right past them in the street (they all lived in the same town) - I'm not sure if the first woman had any influence over this

Ex hurt and angry at this his whole life vowed never to be like his father...
...My kids haven't seen/heard from him for 6 months now :(

errr there's a very big difference.

If you really really can't cope, you ask for help. You engage.

if you reach the end of the road you disengage carefully and with least pain possible.

Someone just disappearing is the cruellest thing you can do to a child. Even death of a parent is better.

Adoption is a very difficult and utterly committed process. To just walk away is worlds apart.

Would you just shrug if a man did this when his baby was 3 days old?

My sons dad walked away when i was 4 months pregnant as i wouldnt get an abortion like he wanted and i havent seen or heard from him since. That was 2yrs ago on the 14th of this month and he hasnt bothered to ask about or meet his son. It breaks my heart that he walked away from such an amazing wee boy and that his 2 older brothers dont know about him :( i dread the day i have to have the conversation with my son about him. My worst fear is that my son hates me for it

Yes sea I think that's apart of it!!! But how can you tell if your with someone who you have kids with and the relationship dies, that he would stay and play a role in the child life. There must be some clues during the relationship that the father is not really bothered about the child.

My 'D'M walked out when I was 10. She said she would send for DB and I. She never did. We saw her for a short holiday once a year, during which she made me feel like baggage. She sent Christmas/birthday presents.

She left us with a violent, abusive alcoholic father. Her excuse was that she thought he'd be ok with us. He wasn't. I try to maintain some kind of relationship with her, but it's bloody hard. She refuses to acknowledge what we went through (despite him being jailed for it) and constantly rewrites history so she's mother of the year.

I will never understand her. When my children were born I knew i could never, ever leave them and I would do anything to protect them. I wonder if she had PND, I understand she was in a very bad situation, but you don't run away and leave your children to deal with it. You run away with your children.

Please hold in mind that some of them never forget.
My friend's mum left her first baby behind when she fled a violent, abusive husband. Her MIL told her to go and leave the baby behind as he would eventually kill her if she stayed and would track her down and kill her if she took the baby. Her MIL helped her escape and she went a very long way away. My friend and her siblings used to walk in on her mum crying and they never found out why until they were adults.
My friend's mum only saw ever saw her child about twice more in her life and only ever in the distance, watching out of windows where no one in the child's family would see her. Fear of her ex kept her out of her child's life forever.

Yeah Squoosh, very harsh.

forever: I will not keep my opinion to myself. I was 2 and my sister 8 weeks when our dad left. He was having an affair, then when my mother and him inevitably split, he chose to scale back contact to zero. Not even cards at xmas/birthday. Then chose to send his step child to the same school as the children he left behind....then chose to blatantly ignore one of them. He knew where we lived (we never moved), he knew where all my family lived (nobody moved), he chose to cut us off. That's not "out of their control", they were all choices.
But hey, nobody's perfect

hot I believe that the parents who left their kids behind never forget them (but do move on) with your friend, I've always believed that abusive men don't really care about the kids, they have some warped obsession with the mother.

My mum did this to me and my DCs two years ago. She was awful to me for a long time and when I refused to play the game any more, she left the country rather than aplogise.
There have been a few manipluative e mails and now nothing since February. She hasn't seen her grandchildren since they were 3 and 6, they're now nearly 9 and 6. I really really can't get my head round that, she'd rather never see us again than say sorry.

Adoption is a very difficult and utterly committed process. To just walk away is worlds apart

The process of giving a child up for adoption by its natural parent is competent but unusual.

You are assuming the mother in question wanted to be pregnant. I can imagine any number of situations where an unwanted pregnancy is continued but where the woman did not want to be pregnant. You are assuming that an unwanted pregnancy will magically be converted to a wanted baby and that mother love will kick in.

The father can tell his son his mother thought it was for the best or that she is a cold-hearted, unnatural bitch devoid of all maternal feelings.

Women who walk away from their children ... well, that's a whole other thing and very, very complex ranging from what a PP said, that they may have genuinely believed it was best for the children, to ill health, to selfishness

Agreed.