AIBU to be horrified by this story of child abandonment?

[Bullseyebutnotthenineties]

Has anyone seen this story? Sorry, struggling to link it.
A french mother and stepfather in Portugal abandoned their/her 3 year old and 5 year old in the woods.
Apparently they blindfolded them and told them they were playing a treasure hunt game and to wait, then take the blindfold off when they’d hidden the toy/prize.
They then left them there 😢
The boys were found on the side of the road by a lovely Portuguese man, who cried during his interview when talking about the boys. They were crying for their real dad apparently
The real dad, resident in France, had informed the authorities that the boys had been kidnapped by the mother (who has custody of them) and taken out of the country. She also left her other 16 year old son at home in France.
The couple were apparently found two hours away sitting on a terrace having a coffee and pastry.
The boys had little backpacks on with a bottle of water, change of clothes, sandwich and piece of fruit in.

There are no words, those poor poor boys
What on earth could make a mother do this?

When he's calm and safe.

Mine could too at 4/5. We even go over what does Mommy look like if you lose me (hair like mine, fat, not very tall, glasses), what does Daddy look like (long brown hair, tall) but having taken off blindfolds in a word, not been able to find us, got upset and tired any scared? I honestly never want to find out but it's reasonable the answer is no.

Of course he should. I'm just glad we're not reading about two boys left dead there, that's all. Still, I hope they rot in jail

Why on earth is this in AIBU? Do you genuinely think anyone would think this was OK behaviour??

There is a lot of research on it. It has been studied by psychologists, particularly those working with female prisoners. Google is a bit sanitised these days,, but if you really want to you can find out the mechanisms involved in maternal child abandonment and also the phenomenon of women betraying and even colluding in the abuse of their own child when a new man appears.

I saw a programme where a female prisoner helped to beat her daughter to death after getting a new partner. She appeared very remorseful and it appeared that she and her daughter had been close and loving previous to the new man's arrival on the scene. She said she remembered her daughter's last words being 'mommy I love you' as she beat her mercilessly.

Another recent but slightly different case is that of Kristel Candelario, who left her baby daughter alone for 10 days whilst she holidayed in two different countries abroad.

I read a book based on her case. It talked about factors in neglect. It starts with the mother having very poor self-esteem and then prioritising the things that give the sense of esteem, over that of the child, because children rearing often doesn't engender self esteem, in many cases it challenges the sense of competency, it doesn't add to it. The book said even ultra professional successful people neglect their children equally, but the money bridges the gap. They get dubbed the parents who are always too busy, or the parents who prefer work to family life, which is a positive spin on neglect if you think about it.

But there's even more to it. It's fascinating. You have to have a thick skin to capable of researching it and interviewing such women without judgement. I think that's why we don't seem to hear much about it.

Oh jesus @TightlyLacedCorset Ive seen the results of severe child cruelty but that just pierces to the core, those little girl's words.

Needs a Stacey Dooley investigation

The money think is interesting. How easy it is to just walk away from your kids whoever you want if there's a Nanny picking up the slack or you can afford boarding school. No need to leave them in the flat or a forest when you can literally just put course it all.

I have no words she is not a mother she is a monster the trauma those little boys must feel.
So thankful a kind person found them and kept them safe and secure .
I hope the monster and whoever she was having a pastry with gets locked up for a long time and isn't allowed anymore children.

Totally agree people like that should never be released from prison totally evil. Those children will probably never get over this.

Interesting the dad has come out and said he won’t condemn her and he doesn’t want a witch hunt because the boys will see it all in the future

i I think that’s the hardest thing - they will be able to see all sorts online and that can’t be helpful

Yes, it's much easier if you enough funds to have them board, and then just say yes if they choose to spend the summer hols with friends or pay for a ton of supplemental activities.

I hear it's similar with domestic abuse. Abused wives of the rich check into hotels or clinics or go on holiday till the physical signs disappear, rather than go to a women's refuge.

That father seems to be capable of putting his children first, unlike the mother.

But didn't he have supervised contact only?

It's all strange.

He's right though. Perhaps we should close the thread.

All they had to do was walk into a hospital and leave DC with a nurse and leave. They would have been taken into emergency care. Leaving them in a wood blindfolded probably meant they thought they would not be found, so attempted murder.

You can't actually do this. If you try to abandon children the police are called. There is no way a nurse in a hospital would accept two children being handed over like that.

It's literally the plot of Hansel and Gretel

You can’t just walk into a hospital give your kids to a nurse and walk out, they’d stop you.

I suppose you could drop them at the hospital and just leave.

anyway, they were found and hopefully they will have a bright future now

You walk into hospital, tell kids to sit somewhere and walk out. Nobody would realise to stop you.

Yes, but you are not permitted to do that. The hospital will call the police, the police will check CCTV and you will be arrested. You made it sound like an approved scheme such as some American Fire Services run where you can abandon a new born baby (which is only a specific thing due to their anti-abortion laws leading to infants being dumped at birth.)

Bearing in mind what happened maybe the dad only had supervised contact because the mum was abusive and manipulative and lied to get custody and limit his contact.

That's what l was thinking, nobody the circumstances and in some cases women lie to get the partner banned from having his children. There was a recent case in a newspaper where a woman admitted lying to stop her husband seeing his children.

And Germany, and Czechia, and Poland, and Malaysia, and Italy, and S Korea, and Hungary and probably others.

which is only a specific thing due to their anti-abortion laws leading to infants being dumped at birth.

I don’t want to derail the thread, but this isn’t true at all.

Safe Haven laws were first implemented in 1999, and by 2008, all states had implemented some variation of them.

They have absolutely nothing to do with anti-abortion laws.