To not want contact?

[SilverStripeyTabby]

So NC for this one and bear with me cos this sounds like the plot of a crap novel....

My mum has three children from a previous marriage - he was a highly respected professional man but massive issues with DV, raped her within their marriage, many, many dreadful things happened to her. She met my dad and they fell in love.
His parents (he was still living at home) loved her, but didn't want and didn't have the room for, three children who weren't their grandchildren in their little rented terrace with outside toiler. This being the suburban 1960s, what the neighbours thought was very much a thing. When the divorce came through mum and ex were offered 50/50 custody and mum considered it best and least disruptive for her children to leave them with their father in the family home full time.

So fast forward 60 years, and her first family would like to be be in contact with her. Mum is in her 80s, frail, early stages of dementia, and in sheltered accomodation, and she doesn't think she could cope with the emotional upheaval that it would cause her to resume contact - not to mention the possible disappointment for all parties after so long.

Seems they also want to have contact with me. Obviously we have the same mother but other than that we were brought up in different worlds, different backgrounds, different lifestyles. I'm not curious about them: I've grown up knowing about them but I don't feel that I'm missing a piece of my life. From what I hear of them we have nothing in common more than a shared biology. (That sounds snobby but that's not what I mean - let's say from what mum has been told they would not approve of my lifestyle.)

AIBU to want to leave sleeping dogs lie and to decline contact?

This is incredibly sad.

Had a quick read over the latter part of this thread. A PP mentioned: I’m not surprised the Op has stopped responding. Nor I. It's disappointing to see recent threads posted by people asking for help, including this one, have been dominated by such sheer unpleasantness and disingenuousness. In OP's shoes I wouldn't bother to respond to speculation, over-reach and on occasion outright dishonesty about the contents of her post or parameters of her questions, either.

It is sad for the elder siblings. No one is refuting this. They want answers, a stance that is understandable. They are not responsible for the fact that their mother abandoned them. Children are not responsible, ever, for the wrongdoing of their parents.

Many PPs have acknowledged this whilst failing to see that the OP isn't responsible for her mother's actions either. The thread was about her decision to meet with these siblings (or not). Her mother's decision is already taken.

OP is not in a position to answer to or justify anything their mother did or didn't do. She shouldn't have to be forced into such a position. People talk of being 'kind', but is it really kind to go through these motions if it's painfully obvious the end result will be of no discernible benefit to anyone? (And the OP, not internet strangers, is best-placed to judge that).

What it boils down to is simple. Either you believe children bear responsibility for the actions of their parents, or you don't. I personally see the mantra of tainting people by association as parochial, myopic and unjust. Others, like those attempting to 'cancel' Jodie Comer for having the temerity to date some persona non grata, clearly don't.

People talk of being 'kind', but is it really kind to go through these motions if it's painfully obvious the end result will be of no discernible benefit to anyone? (And the OP, not internet strangers, is best-placed to judge that).

Yes, it's very telling that barely any of the posters who've suggested OP has a moral duty to meet the siblings or just that it would be a nice thing to do have even considered the possibility that it won't be helpful to them at all.

Oh those poor children

@Isthisfinallyit...It's not OP's place or business to.send the elder siblings anything about her mother's life. It's also not up to OP.to.answer questions. These people really just need to let it go and get on with it

have even considered the possibility that it won't be helpful to them at all.

It is surely the siblings who get to decide what might be helpful to them not the OP? They won’t get the answers they might like but they will have asked and answered those questions a thousand different ways in their own heads. Facts are what they are looking for, and perhaps a deep rooted need to hear from the mother who raised them as babies.

@Alongcameacat

have even considered the possibility that it won't be helpful to them at all.

It is surely the siblings who get to decide what might be helpful to them not the OP? They won’t get the answers they might like but they will have asked and answered those questions a thousand different ways in their own heads. Facts are what they are looking for, and perhaps a deep rooted need to hear from the mother who raised them as babies.

They are the ones who'd get to make that assessment, yes, but that's a separate point to the one I made. Posters are simply assuming that it will be beneficial, when actually we've no way of knowing how they would assess a meeting with OP after it actually took place. Them thinking it would be helpful now and thinking it was helpful after it happened are not the same thing, and if a person is going to berate OP for not seeing them, they need to give some thought to the distinction.

The thing is, I don't think the OP could care less about what benefits her siblings. I think a lot of posters responded, knee-jerk style (myself included, I'll admit) to her clear disdain for them.

And I agree that the siblings may not "benefit" from speaking to the OP, in that it won't erase the pain of the past 60 years, but having some questions answered may lay some ghosts to rest. Unfortunately for them, their mother refuses to see them, and their sister's attitude seems to be "Well, we have nothing in common, and you won't like me anyway, so tough." It's this attitude that has earned OP the replies she's received.

A mother abandoning her children is a hugely emotive topic, it's not surprising to me at all that the responses have gone this way.

they need to give some thought to the distinction

I think you are underestimating posters. Everyone knows that things aren’t always rosey.

Hard not to judge her harshly. She left her children and made no contact for 60 years. Worse than that she left them with an abusive rapist. She owes it to them to try and answer their questions. It's not about you or her it's about the 3 children she walked out on getting answers at least to some degree.

Yes, it's very telling that barely any of the posters who've suggested OP has a moral duty to meet the siblings or just that it would be a nice thing to do have even considered the possibility that it won't be helpful to them at all

I should think the adult children should be given the choice as to whether this experience will be helpful to them or not, it will be entirely a matter for them to cut their losses with a family that abandoned them many decades before, or to continue some form of contact.

It seems they will not even have the opportunity to find out. I hope they are getting plenty of RL support, I can not imagine how painful it must have been for them.

@Alongcameacat

they need to give some thought to the distinction

I think you are underestimating posters. Everyone knows that things aren’t always rosey.

It's not underestimating, it's basing a view on what has actually been written. Which in some cases, gives zero indication that they've given any thought to the matter.

The problem is that people throughout this discussion have prioritised their own anger with OPs mother's behaviour and to a lesser extent hers over the actual question being asked. That continues to be on display in the last few posts. If you (general) are critical of OP for not valuing their welfare, the onus is on you to demonstrate you've thought critically about whether the course of action you advocate is actually going to benefit them and to engage with the possibility that it won't.

So the OP has disappeared. It’s not surprising, she and her mother are getting a pasting...although I’m not sure what she thought would happen describing a scenario such as this on a parenting forum. It’s a given that her mother’s conduct wouldn’t be well received.

Who knows how it was...it was the 60s, women weren’t typically encouraged or supported to end unhappy and abusive marriages or initiate divorce. I don’t know how intense societal pressure was back then and I don’t know why the OP’s mum’s thought processes led to her effectively abandoning her children with no further contact.
It reads like she just had a better offer frankly...and without any further detail, I feel quite shocked by that.

Thing is the OP’s attitude has very much been one of disdain towards these siblings, saying that they obviously have nothing in common/wouldn’t like her etc.

If she had purely stated that she didn’t feel able to even have any contact with them based on the fact that she was the chosen child whereas the others were thrown to the wolves that might be understandable. But clearly she also thinks nothing of these people who were abandoned by her mother without a backward glance.

As PP said, someone coming on here and casually talking about how their mother walked away from three children and leaving them with an abusive rapist while she went on to rebuild her own life and have another child while never contacting the other ones again was never going to be well received. Anyone who thinks that kind of tale would be met with nothing but support is naive.

Again though, it's perfectly possible to be critical of the OPs attitude, smileys etc whilst simultaneously giving some thought to whether the thing you're telling her to do for someone else's benefit is ultimately going to be.

My father's parents split during the 1950s. He and his (full) brothers lived with their mother, no more contact was had between them/their father (years later, after my Gran died, and they found out that the divorce didn't go through until 1965... well; they were shocked!). My father asked me to trace his father/that side of the family 20 years ago - which I did. Turned out my father is the oldest of 8 - from 3 relationships after my grandparents separation. His father had died years earlier (which upsept me, quite frankly, because I'd always wondered about him), and one brother has died since - but the rest of them? My father isn't in touch with any of them any more. I think there's too much hurt there on his side. His full-brothers both met the others and behaved appallingly (telling them that they weren't my grandfather's "real children" because they - who didn't grow up with him - were older). But I now have a wider family than before - I and they are all still in touch, I get on better with my half-cousins than I do my full-... and weirdly, one uncle and I have the same sense of perspective, my aunt and I studied the same degree course (albeit a few years apart), and not one of them - not even my grandfather's overprotective older sisters (sadly now departed) - blamed my grandmother for the fact that she left (she fell in love with someone else, too).

My Gran's life-partner, on the other hand, left behind 3 children - 2 boys and a girl - whom they never saw/spoke to or of again. I only know about them because of something my grandmother said when I'd recently had my oldest child (so 24 years ago). I often think about those 3 abandoned children, left motherless because of an affair, and wonder if they were okay, if they suffered, if their own adult relationships prospered.

On my grandfather's side, then - a happy ending. On my Gran's life-partner (who essentially filled that role)'s side... not so much. My Gran's life-partner's children/grandchildren (presuming there are any) don't even know that they're dead.

Maybe, OP, it's grandchildren pushing the issue of wanting contact? Perhaps, even, it could be a case of trying to figure out where a genetic disease came from (my mother's biological father was only ever on the peripheral of her life - and we didn't know for certain that he was her father until I developed a genetic disease, that he had shared). I'd not rule out meeting with them, until you know why.

But I'd also be prepared for your mother not to have told you the whole truth (and, actually, what sort of mother tells her child that their ex-husband - who is no biological relation to the child - raped and beat them?). I suspect, having untangled a lot of murky family history, that you don't yet have the full picture.

And nor do your half-siblings.