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Original poster

To think parents don't honestly behave like this...

169 replies

DumplingsAreRank · 05/04/2022 21:57

... ahead of the new serious of Waterloo Road (yes, I am that retro) I am rewatching some old series.

One of the kids, Scout, has witnessed her mother walk out with a new bloke for some "alone time" destroying her opportunity to get an education and leaving a 3 year old without a mum.

Parents wouldn't actually do this would they? It's make believe surely

OP posts:
Nothappyatwork · 06/04/2022 11:00

@DumplingsAreRank

No actually it really is that parents do this. As I say, so much is said about the right of people to have children and nothing said about the character. Just the horror of the high profile cases…

I don’t think everyone gets it right as the perfect parent but surely it can’t be too wrong to say that people should take responsibility and give thought to the lives they affect. Instead, as one PP poster says the cycle just continues with men allowed to leave children and/or batter women and women - unable to cope for whatever reason - taking it out on the kids or leaving at the end of their tether. It’s wank.

You wonder then whether it really is the right thing to put in so much support to force people who don’t actually want to be parents and have no interest in it to remain with the children as long as they do. Where do those pressures and rewards come from, benefits and societies expectations placed solely on the shoulders of the mother.
WingingItSince1973 · 06/04/2022 18:55

@mycatisannoying

It surely is make believe that someone would name their child Scout Grin
Oh there's some great names on that show. My fave is Barry Barry and that whole family shenanigans 🤣
Solocup · 06/04/2022 23:38

Fostering experience:
Exhausted child = home visit found their bed crawling with maggots.
Very young siblings found wandering the streets = mother at home prostituting
Toddler = unable to walk as not been taken out of pushchair
7 year old = never had a mealtime or used cutlery
6 year old = mum told could keep child, she chose to stay with dangerous new boyfriend instead.

Reality is worse than tv.
I struggle to believe anyone is so sheltered to not realise this.

steff13 · 07/04/2022 00:44

@dottydodah

MyCatisannoying Well she was called Scout as a nickname I think .Real name Jodie I think
Scout was also a nickname in To Kill a Mockingbird. Her real name was Jean Louise.
carefullycourageous · 07/04/2022 07:42

@Solocup

Fostering experience: Exhausted child = home visit found their bed crawling with maggots. Very young siblings found wandering the streets = mother at home prostituting Toddler = unable to walk as not been taken out of pushchair 7 year old = never had a mealtime or used cutlery 6 year old = mum told could keep child, she chose to stay with dangerous new boyfriend instead.

Reality is worse than tv.
I struggle to believe anyone is so sheltered to not realise this.

Yes I agree. Family experience of fostering has shown me similar.

I find it amazing people claim not to know what the lives of many people in our country are like. I think it is a shielding mechanism.

carefullycourageous · 07/04/2022 07:47

@DumplingsAreRank

No actually it really is that parents do this. As I say, so much is said about the right of people to have children and nothing said about the character. Just the horror of the high profile cases…

I don’t think everyone gets it right as the perfect parent but surely it can’t be too wrong to say that people should take responsibility and give thought to the lives they affect. Instead, as one PP poster says the cycle just continues with men allowed to leave children and/or batter women and women - unable to cope for whatever reason - taking it out on the kids or leaving at the end of their tether. It’s wank.

surely it can’t be too wrong to say that people should take responsibility and give thought to the lives they affect

This is so naive. Do you really not understand how gruesome the world is? Look at Ukraine. Look at what happens to trafficked women and children. Look at what happened with Jimmy Savile. Look at the numbers of children on protection plans.

It is not 'wrong' to say that but it is astonishingly naive and childlike to be surprised by this stuff.

People are complicated. Humans exposed to horrific things as young people sometimes do go on to be horrific adults. What amazes me is the people who don't repeat what happened to them - most victims of child abuse do not become abusers.

phishy · 07/04/2022 07:51

@DumplingsAreRank

No actually it really is that parents do this. As I say, so much is said about the right of people to have children and nothing said about the character. Just the horror of the high profile cases…

I don’t think everyone gets it right as the perfect parent but surely it can’t be too wrong to say that people should take responsibility and give thought to the lives they affect. Instead, as one PP poster says the cycle just continues with men allowed to leave children and/or batter women and women - unable to cope for whatever reason - taking it out on the kids or leaving at the end of their tether. It’s wank.

So if you know some people ‘honestly behave’ like this, then why the faux naïveté?
Bleachmycloths · 07/04/2022 18:29

This is drama so fair enough. It does happen in real life of course. I knew a woman who I got along with pretty well until she told me she left her 3 year old son with her parents to go to Australia to pursue her career. I hated her as soon as she told me and I cut her off ASAP.

Member869894 · 07/04/2022 18:48

I work in child protection and this is really the least of it. People do horrible things to their children

moomoo1967 · 07/04/2022 19:03

I found this out years later but DD's friends Mum used to leave her on her own to go out, under the age of 10

Bignanny30 · 07/04/2022 19:08

Most of us can’t imagine this but believe me I know it happens - my husband’s mother did the exact thing.

Zaylok · 07/04/2022 19:20

My mum left when I was 6 - said she was going on holiday and never came home. She had moved with her future husband and went on to have two more children but never particularly wanted me back. Spent much of my childhood watching out the window of my grandparents house wondering if she would come home for me.

tedgran · 07/04/2022 19:41

@Zaylock, so sad foryou

Psychofortruth · 07/04/2022 19:48

Try “Shameless” it’s a good one too and ask the same questions yes it’s all very real for too many children and families…

WishIwasElsa · 07/04/2022 19:49

I was admitted to hospital from A&E they asked if I had children when I said yes they asked if someone was caring for them. Aparantly occasionally someone says no to that question 😔

Littlereddog10 · 07/04/2022 19:53

Yes they do it. My ex husband’s mum walked out on them and they heard no word for six months. It has affected the rest of his life. We’re no longer married because of intimacy issues caused by her leaving. She’s a total narcissist.

WhereHasSpringSprungTo · 07/04/2022 19:55

My best mate growing up had a brother when she was 12.
Her df wasnt around her dm used to go out till like 12am and leave her with a few month old baby 6 nights a week.

When she was 14 and baby was 2 her dm went away for a weekend leaving her with the toddler

Mangogogogo · 07/04/2022 20:00

My sons birth mum fucked clean off!

Zaylok · 07/04/2022 20:07

[quote tedgran]**@Zaylock, so sad foryou[/quote]
luckily had lovely grandparents who brought me up as their own :) I always say everyone has a part to play in life and my mum just played her part. Without it having happened I wouldn't have the life I do now so have come to accept it to an extent.

Livelovebehappy · 07/04/2022 20:39

I have a family member who walked out on her dc to follow a man, and has nothing to do with them 5 years down the line. Never sees them, never speaks to them. Her own mother did the same to her.

Gynaesaur · 07/04/2022 20:50

If parents "honestly don't believe like this" then I was brought up by my Grandparents for 15 years for nothing.
Of course people do this. Fathers doing it is especially common. People do all sorts of things which are anathema to the instincts and nature of the majority.

Gynaesaur · 07/04/2022 20:56

*behave, not believe

Mamanyt · 08/04/2022 00:10

I read a news story within the last two weeks about a mother who left her FIVE children at home in the care of the 11-year-old for two weeks. That's when it was discovered. She was off with a boyfriend. So, yes, some "parents" do that.

Madein1995 · 08/04/2022 06:30

Yep and it's horrible. One of my school friends had a sister born when she was 11. Her mum and stepdad were too busy getting pissed up that my friend did all of the night feeds etc, herself at age 11. Even aged 15 she knew her sister better than their mum - she could for example tell when molly was going to wake up from a nap, and she'd be right. My Friend lived with other family from 16 on and even then her mother would call her asking for money and then lay the guilt on because 'it's for electric' and otherwise 'the baby will be cold'. Awful.

orangeisthenewpuce · 08/04/2022 07:06

I'd seriously love to know what reasons or excuses mothers give for abandoning their children. I cannot understand why they do it, it's so cruel and callous. Yes, I know fathers do it too, but because I'm a mum I'm interested in what mothers say.