Women who leave their children

[sandyballs]

I'm interested in your views on this article.
Sorry, fail constantly with links

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=391876&in_page_id=1879

It's a subject close to my heart as my sister in law has left her 4 children, and although I try not to judge her, I just cannot get my head around what she has done, and how she can bear to live separately from them.

No parping because it's in the Daily Mail

Very sad stories here, both MNers and the original one.

Just wondering, does your mother leaving have an effect on your adult relationships? It's common for people to their relationship with their fathers affected their relationships with men. Wonder what that means for people whose mothers leave them?

My DH's mum ran off and left 5 kids behind (my DH being the youngest at 5yo) with an alcoholic father, to be with her fancy man, if anything it has only made DH love/want her more, even 30 odd years down the line he will still do anything to get a bit of aknowledgment or acceptance from his mother, but apart from me wondering why the hell he puts up with her (but keeping it to myself!) it has never affected our relationship.

I have worked with some very disturbed children who's mothers left them. Small sample, granted, and not a scientific survay, but in my experience children can cope better with a father that leaves them than a mother. I realise this is not PC, but it seems to be the case.

And I am specificaly talking about a mother walking out, not being prevented from being with the kids by an outside agency IYSWIM

and obviously some kids cope amazingly well....didn't mean for one second to insult any fine MNetters

I am struggling to understand, still, at the ripe old age of 36 how my mother could have left me as an 11 month old baby and my 3 year old brother. Her story is very similar to one of the women in the article. No matter how bad things were, I just fail to see how any mother would put their own feelings over those of their children. (Mental illness the exception).

I can understand why you might let your dp or dh have custody, somethimes men are the better parent and the mother feels she is doing the right thing especially if she is feeling low and worthless. I am not talking about walking away because you have met a new man but pehaps the kids have been at home with dad and you have been working so it makes sense that way, perhaps the man just finds parenting easier or perhaps for health reasons you know that your children would be better of with their dad most of the week. It is quite brave to walk away if you think that is genuinely right as you will be attacked and stigmatised for your decision.

I can also understand why some women may choose to move away completely as the stigma and pain woud be very hard to live with, not saying it is right but i can understand.

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edam my grandma ean off with another man leaving my mum at home and it has certainly affected her.

I also know from my own experience that dd would rather live with me than her dad, but maybe that is because she has always lived with me, perhaps if she had always lived with her dad she would think that is normal.

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edam it has affected my ability to trust people. i feel like if my mother doesnt want me then who does . if she can leave me then so can dp etc etc

I had a nervous breakdown and my children went to live with their dad. DD is back with me now but ds is still there. It's heartbreaking but I let them go because at that time it was better for them (they were 13 and 11 at that time, I wouldn't have considered it if they had been little).

the double standards annoy me: men do not get stigmatised for abandoning their children at all, yet when women do it - and it's a much rarer occurrence - they are treated as if they are monsters

Some of them are monsters, I'm sure, but are they any more monstrous than absent fathers?

There can be very real reasons behind a mothers actions lisalisa, like the ones you talk about.

However I will judge my cousin, she left her husband because she was shagging a younger man. He didn't want to take on her kids, so she left them. She then went on to have a second family with the new bloke. so she wasn't overwhelmed by motherhood 9hich can be understood), she just wanted a shag

SF, fo what it is worth I do feel that blokes who just walk out are also bastards. Dhs 'father' left them, ignored them for 3 years, never made real contact. spoke to dh three times in the year when dh was diagnosed with cancer. The guy was a wart on the backside of humanity. A total toss pot

forgot to say my father wasnt around either he was a drunk and i think it all left me feeling quite rejected tbh fine now and it made me a better parent

muma3....funily enough dh says the same time. His father regected him and this has made him a better parent, he is sure he never wants to do the same to his kids

Interesting to read all these experiences. What makes me even more confused regarding SIL is that her mother left her and her two brother when they were tiny. I'd have thought that experience would have made her even more determined not to put her boys through that. They were all under 12 when she left, the youngest was 5. She left them all for my brother, who was willing to take them all on, but she decided to leave them.

I am trying hard to get on with her and to understand her but I just can't and it's been 3 years now, they're getting married this year.

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A dad leaving is different in my eyes. I know it shouldn't be, but I feel it is.

Still awful, but not quite as awful.

and from what I have seen it doesn't seem to mess with the kids heads as much

Somedays I think that I could just walk away and let dh bring them up, when im tired or stressed or have cleaned up sick for the 5th time in as many minutes. But it passes, and I start to wonder how I could have though it... and then it comes back... but because you love your children and deep down you know that you couldnt walk away, you stay and you work at it and hope that it gets easier.

I can understand how someone might snap and walk away and then find it too difficult to go back. I can understand that if someone is depressed how they would think it was their only option, what I struggle to understand is how they could leave their children for a man, or because they want to try and turn back time to when they were free of the struggle of being a parent.

Sometimes I can emphasise with these parents after knowing what was behind thier decision. After all, why is it acceptable for a father to walk away if they are not happy, but not a mother?

but men do it allthe time & it's barely given a 2nd thought. how mny single mothers on mumsnet? How many of us have grown up without a dad around?

my aunt left her 2 sons with their step dad to move in with female partner. that didn't go down too well either

also i went to relate when my marraige was failing with dd2 father and they boiled our probs down to the way i see relationships and the reasons for a lot of things in my life are due to mother
how much of that is true or maybe he just thought that was an easy option to resolve our problems, was to blame it on me and chuck us out the door i dont know

dp mum split with dp father when he was around 5 . he is 1 of 4 , the youngest and oldest sibling went to live with their father and the 2 middle C stayed with their mum dp being one of them . i find this hard to understand too . i know things may of been hard for dp mum but the youngest was the only daughter and she was 3 at the time. i wonder how it affects them ?

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