Can you love your baby or child but not want to live with them

[CheerfulOddity]

I'm wondering if perhaps there was some pnd involved for a mum, could you love your baby and then the child they grow into, but really feel smothered by them and not want them to live with you?

Even if you then go on to have more children who you do live with?

Can and manifest in a subtle way where one doesn't feel depressed in an obvious sense, but just wants to leave the baby?

Can pnd manifest, that should be

If there’s no mental illness involved then I find it quite unlikely that a loving parent is one who doesn’t want to live with their child.

But the sort of people who abandon one brood of children, then go elsewhere and have another different brood and forget about the first children are usually not capable of loving anyone in the true sense. And are incredibly selfish. This applies to men as well as women.

Definitely not excusing the man for abandoning...he's an arsehole. Under no illusion.

I'm just confused by how someone can love their child, but actively do things to not be with them. So wondered if pnd could cause that.

sorry a mother, not someone

No. Unless it’s for some reason in the child’s best interest - but even then, that wouldn’t be because you ‘want’ that. You would have little choice. I can understand needing a break, surely everyone can, but not happily living away from them and it being an easy option.

So do you think that, deep down, some mums just don't love the baby enough?

Post natal depression can manifest as loving your child but not wanting to be around them.

It sounds like there's a bigger backstory here however. I don't think anyone could say either way whether this was part of an illness or not.

@CheerfulOddity

So do you think that, deep down, some mums just don't love the baby enough?

I think this.

I don't know who you are in this scenario but I spent years excusing my 'mother' for her failing me. She didn't have PND, she wasn't mentally ill, she carried on with her life as I had never existed. She is a cunt. I'm sorry but there are women out there who just are not interested.

I'm in therapy now, in my 40s, to try and deal with the effects of her actions. She is posting pictures on Facebook every week showing off her wonderful retirement

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by being a parent. I don't want to live away from my child but I do need regular breaks to do other things to keep my identity a bit.

Wanting to be physically away from a baby and wanting to be away from the 24-hour responsibility are different things.

I think that everyone is different. Lots of people manage to get pregnant when they dont have the emotional resources to care for a child long term. I think ideally the question here would be how to make sure the child doesnt feel abandoned and damaged by it, which would generally mean keeping regular contact. Judging her too much on whether she loves her child enough is unhelpful

Post natal depression can manifest as loving your child but not wanting to be around them.

This is maybe my gut feeling. But I'll probably never know.

I was the baby and my mum does love me, but like I say has always wanted to not have me living with her.

It's mostly fine and just life, but then sometimes something else happens that makes it hard.

There are lots of ways that PND can manifest and this could be one of them I’d have thought. When I had PND I wanted to escape my life and the baby. It’s so hard to remember why I felt like that now. I can’t believe I wished DS away when he’s everything to me now.

Men seem to be able to live apart from their children or not bother with them at all without much thought or anguish. No idea if that’s biological in some way or if it’s cultural.

@Branleuse

I think that everyone is different. Lots of people manage to get pregnant when they dont have the emotional resources to care for a child long term. I think ideally the question here would be how to make sure the child doesnt feel abandoned and damaged by it, which would generally mean keeping regular contact. Judging her too much on whether she loves her child enough is unhelpful

I didn't feel abandoned as a child, no. But there were things then that made me sad that I could not articulate.

As an adult, like I say it's mostly completely fine, but then sometimes life gets awkward and very unforgiving and it gets a bit hard.

For example.... I live abroad now, and feel a little guilty because my mum is frail and would benefit if I was the type of daughter who lived close by.

But, that was never how our relationship was. I never lived with her, she was off doing her thing. She did visit very regularly. We have a good relationship in many ways and I'm glad.

But I still feel a bit guilty and like I should be there, doing better for her.

I used to work with very vulnerable women, often class a drug auctions, significant mental health problems, chaotic lifestyle, victims of male violence, often also selling sex. Often there were either not allowed to keep their babies -social care, or gave them up pregnancies were often discovered too late for terminations or their lives were so tumultuous they would not be around for consultations etc even if people were there to pick them up and take them. Some of these women went on over a period of years to completely change their lives, a few had other children they managed to keep. Almost all have not sought relationships with the first lot of children for complex reasons, thinking of what's best for the child but also because that child is so intrinsically linked to a time of extreme trauma for them they're not able to. I have seen similar if the child was the product of rape, including within a marriage, but the children usually won't be aware of the context of their birth

@RewildingAmbridge thank you for your reply too.

My mum and I have a good relationship in lots of ways and I did ask her once if I was the result of rape, and she said no.

I believe her. But of course it crosses my mind that maybe she was trying to protect me.

@ididntevennotice I am so sorry to read about your experience. I hope your therapy helps you.

Did you ever have contact in person with your mum?

Looking after a baby is the most draining experience I have ever been through.
Physically, emotionally and psychologically.

We have these hormones that are supposed the name it easier and make us obsess about the tiny thing that needs us but for some women that doesn’t work to counter balance the extreme thankless drudgery that looking after a baby can be

A difficult start can really fuck with the whole process as can existing mental health issues, partners mental health issues, even your parents mental health can affect your baby because you don’t necessarily know instinctively to hold your baby close and soothe them effectively if it wasn’t done to you

If you are struggling with the baby they often become very anxious and needy because their needs aren’t being met and they don’t feel secure.
The more the poor thing tries to bond with its care giver them more anxious an attachment it develops and the more the struggling parent wants them to back off.

I’ve seen it a couple of times irl and it’s deeply sad and 100% not the baby’s fault.

Not sure how much it’s fair to ‘blame’ the mothers either, although they’re the only one that could do anything about it, I don’t think a mothers love is something you can fake, certainly not enough to fool your own baby

In the cases I’ve seen it was the mother own neglect as a baby that meant she didn’t know how to bind with or soothe her child and so every moment was painful and there was no joy in motherhood.

In one case the kid was taken and placed with family and turned out not too bad. In the other they did stay living together until the daughter moved in with a much older man at 14 and the mother didn’t do anything about it. They weren’t ok in the longer term either

Op it’s not your fault, how much blame you place with your mother is up to you to decide but I would urge you to forgive her for your own peace.
Im deeply sorry that was your experience, you deserved better ❤️

Just seen your update

You don’t owe her ❤️

Be kind to yourself. It’s a rough ride to be on. I’m also going to gently suggest that Mother’s Day might have contributed to this being a difficult week.
My mother made a string of life choices/career decisions that had horrible repercussions for the rest of the family, including splitting up siblings and massively disrupting our education. It was undeniably awful as a child and many of the decisions my siblings and I have made as adults have been shaped by that experience. Relationships with my mother were strained for a very long time, but we did eventually get to a kind of friendship.
It’s so hard to shake off the shadow of the feeling that you didn’t matter enough to the people who are meant to love you most, and it’s doubly hard when you feel pressured to sacrifice the life you’ve made now for their care needs.

[quote CheerfulOddity]@ididntevennotice I am so sorry to read about your experience. I hope your therapy helps you.

Did you ever have contact in person with your mum?[/quote]

Yes, I was with grandparents who spent years trying to 'heal' the situation so I did have on/off contact over the years. It took me until I was mid 30s before I was strong enough to say no more. I am programmed to want my mother. It's the most natural instinct and I haven't managed to stop wanting her. I am able to recognise she will never be who I want (need?) her to be and she can't replace the crucial parts that caused the damage so I don't have any contact now.

I had a breakdown on Mother's Day, despite having amazing DC of my own. It just never leaves me. It's like living with an internal enemy.

I think you can need and want long breaks from them but to not want to live with them, I don’t know. I’ve never felt that myself.

Parent/child relationships are never easy, as they say “you can’t pick your family”. There could be a multitude of reasons why your Mum is the way she is with you. As a PP said, if you were born at a time she was going through trauma of any kind it can have a massive impact on your future relationship.
I can only speak from my experiences, but I’d say that yes some women are just selfish horrors. However there are others who aren’t and PND can for sure cause you to love your child but want to be away from them. I love the bones of my DD, she is an absolute joy and the one thing I am most proud of in my life. However our bonding when she was born was shattered because she spent 2 weeks in neonatal. I was kept away from her for more of the day than I was with her, couldn’t breastfeed, when she came home she had reflux and colic so cried constantly until she only slept from exhaustion. Then I went back to work and the stress piled on even more negotiating all of that on top of the other daily baby demands. My mental health was so bad when she was around 2 that I often thought about walking away just to get some quiet. Ultimately I never could have left her, but I did make some choices during that time that have had a major impact on her life and if I could change that I would. I don’t think you will ever really know the reasons your Mum made the choices she has if she doesn’t want to tell you. Some people just can’t bring themselves to. I know I will have to tell my daughter in the future so I’m building the blocks just now for our relationship so that I can be honest with her when the time comes. It’s taken me a lot of counselling to get to that point though rather than just wanting to hide it from her forever.

I think when someone gives up a baby it's rarely because they don't love them. It's about knowing you can't. Things change tho, so a few years and a different partner might make it doable or harder to give up a child again.

What is/was her relationship with her mother like? What was her experience of childhood and being parented?

Your answers will probably be here.

I was listening to the actress, Sheila Hancock's autobiography on BBC audio books, The Two Of Us. She describes how her husband, John Thaw, inspector Morse, was left by his mother. She left him and his little brother to live with another man and start a new family. John Thaw as a five year old, dressed his little brother in his best clothes and went to see his mother at her new address. She told them to go away, not to come back and shut the door in their faces. I don't think it was that uncommon at the time.
Luckily, his father was a good Dad and brought them up.
Heart breaking to listen to though.