"Drink binge mother left children "

[VengefulSinner]

Story from BBC news site tonight.

I just do not understand people like this

The poor children, left alone while she gets off her face on drink and drugs.

I hope she loses the kids for good.

some people just really dont have a bloody clue, and they dont deserve to have children. why do they just keep on popping them out?

i was 19 when i had my first child, and i would never ever have behaved like this. if you have kids you have responsibility, so tough tits. shame there is no deterrent. she got away with it and those childrens grandparents now bear a responsibility that should have been that 'mothers'.
some mothers are shite. (i had one of those and i cant be arsed to even try to reconcile. she will grow old on her own.)

hope the grandparents can do a better job. shame for them though that they have to.

This kind of situation will continue as long as there are people who are willing to come up with excuses for this wretch of a woman.

I agree with all those who are outraged at the amount of people trying to preach understanding here.

This woman is a disgusting excuse for a human being. There is no excusing what she did.

And ahundredtimes:

'What outcome do we want - we want her to grow up, sort out her problems, become a fit mother (don't we? All you who have compassion for her children want this, yes?)'

NO. She had her chance as a mother. She blew it. It is because of my compassion for her children that I hope they have a loving home with their grandparents and never see her again.

I actually don't give a flying fuck what becomes of her, as long as she never gets to look after children again.

The 4-year-old, at least, is old enough to have awareness of who her mother is and to love her mother. Banning the mother from ever seeing her DC again is punishing the DC too - no matter how much counselling they are given, if they never see their mother again they will miss her terribly and internalise the idea that it's because they were bad and unloveable, therefore allowing her at least supervised contact with the DC is best for them.
Bearing in mind that there is no indication of her being violent or pyschologically manipulative with them (the only grounds on which contact should be forcibly prevented).

Only read the first 2 pages so apologies if I am saying what has already been said...

This woman clearly needs help, yes she made a huge mistake and as much as she disgusts me for the sake of the kids she needs to get herself sorted, whether she gets custody of them again is a different matter but the kids need to see their mum for an explanation atleast!

She has pretty much been let away with it and that I think is shocking, she should have been put away on serious neglect charges (although luckily nothing else), such a sad story but the exact same thing happened to my dad and his 3 brothers for 2 days (the eldest being 7 and youngest 6 months along with a partially sighted 4YO) and his mohter got away with it because it was a decision made whilst under the influence rather than just for the sake of it

As for the dads being on the scene well I don't think there was any mention either way so how can we judge that situation? My step dad lives about an hour away and sees his kids 3 days a week, he wouldn't think to randomly appear incase my mum had pissed off out for a binge session, surely any normal person would not even think of this?!

So sad about the 4 year old feeling responsible for the baby

Such a sad, fucked up story. Not excusing her, but God, can you imagine the pressure of 4 tiny children, no reliable partner, poor, shit upbringing, just had a break-up, grandparents are crap and cause more trouble than they're worth (actually I can imagine that: my mother contributed to my depression and mental health problems. I cut her out of my life and now I am much more stable. If she was still in my life, God knows where I'D be now), alcohol problem, bad friends... etc,etc.

TSH: Well the parenting skills and the behaviour of the fathers is clearly NOT GOOD given that this particular incident didn't arise out of nowhere ie the mother would almost certainly have been displaying signs of drug/alcohool abuse and general not-coping.
Whether the fathers are lazy and selfish (eg can't be arsed to check that the mother of their DC is looking after them and herself because they 'don't love the bitch') or thick, depressed and having substance abuse problems themselves is not known.

Do people think that if she'd had someone to help her she'd have chosen not to accept that help and gone off anyway?
In the country where I live, there are "over-night nurseries" where women who have to work nights can leave their kids. They are used by anyone from nurses, to prostitutes and bar staff, to "bad mothers" who just want to go out on the lash. Do you think perhaps the long-term answer is more support for mothers rather than punishment? OBviously this particular mother needs to realise how wrong it was, and perhaps punishment is the best way to show her this, but I don't think punishment works as a deterrent (otherwise our jails wouldn't be as full as they are), but help and support for mothers is the way to go.

But Sakura, she CHOOSE to have 4 children. I have chosen to only have 2 because I don't have the finances or capacity to care for more. It is called behaving responsibly. All this "poor mother, having 4 children, imagine the stress" - well, nobody MADE her have them did they? After the first couple surely she should have realised how hard it was and made sure it didn't happen again. And yes, I know it takes two to make a baby but she should either have been in charge of her contraception or made bloody sure her partner was.

I am sorry, but I normally have liberal lefty leanings but in these case I have limited capacity for sympathy. My sympathy lies purely with the children.

"what might stop people doing this in the 1st place is knowing that they will be judged and punished according to the law

IMO, this has not happened in this case

she will soon get her kids back

if she doesn't get those back,she will have some more

to these very stupid lowlives who we know already do this, on a regular basis, what does this tell them ?

excuses will be made for their cruelty and neglect, just look a bit sad and some bleeding heart will tell you that you are suffering from PND and "its not really our place to blame you..."

a judge will make vapid comments about "Home Alone", you will have to be a good girl and stay indoors for 8 wks

then, back to business, baby

fucking sickening

I agree with someguy, if a bloke did this he would be banged up"

Anyfucker, you've completely missed out of your summary the fact that people will be working to help her to get herself sorted and to make her a better parent.

I can certainly say that if my mum had been this neglectful to me as a child I would still have wanted someone to have at least tried to help us, to have helped me to continue a relationship with her rather than stop all contact or any chance of creating a better situation for us as a family. Hopefully this is what will happen.

am just wondering, beanieb, why you felt the need to directly quote my post

there are enough others on here that completely agree

no need to repeat it, really, your last 2 paragraphs would still have made sense and followed the context of the thread...

I'm not sure about the 'one chance' and she blew it thing, there are consequences, she must take responsibility for that and understand she fucked up and ruined her life for ever, and never be allowed to see her children again.

How does this work in reality? It doesn't. All this laying down of black and white lines - which society does, necessarily - doesn't actually attend to the fact that people's lives are messy and wrong and full of mistakes.

That is actually how humanity works. It isn't how society works - so I do understand the need for justice to be done and more importantly for you all to see justice being done. It creates a sense of a moral universe, of good and bad, of everyone understanding the laws we live by.

I am persuaded though by the idea that society forces people to take responsibility for their mistakes by punishing them.

I suppose all I wonder, and continue to wonder, is whether that is actually the most helpful way to ask this woman to take responsibility. It really, really might not be. Though again, I do see that everyone wants to see her punished because what she did, what she represents is something that excites moral disgust in people, and they want her to pay for it.

Well it isn't about 'exciting moral disgust' ahundredtimes, it's about breaking the law isn't it? And isn't the law there to protect children?

At what point should she be punished? If she leaves the children a week? If one of them is badly injured or dies? Or is that still okay? I'm really struggling to see your POV here.

FWIW, I don't want her to lose her children, or be locked away for ever or any of the other draconian measures some people are keen on. But I do think that, as a society, we have to punish those who have got responsibility for children and who fail in that duty of care.

exciting moral disgust?

ahundredtimes, do you think that all of us on this thread who feel she has been inadequately dealt with, are slavering Daily Mail readers who rather enjoy our outrage and get a kick out of the whole drama of it ?

because I can assure you, there is nothing further from the truth

I am offended by your comment

No, I'm not sure why you should take such exception to that term. Is it because I said 'excite'? I didn't mean it as in excited or enthusiastic/ slavering /illogical but as in producing a strong reaction, which it has done, rightly so. Your taking offense is quite unwarranted.

This is a thread full of moral disgust - hence disgusting, toe rag, excuse for humanity etc.

< shrugs >

Sadly there are many families living like this. My niece was best friends with someone just like her, she would go days without feeding the children they lived in squalor. My niece helped as much as she could but eventually it sickened her so much to see how little regard she had for her children that she cut all ties with the woman. Social Services were involved they bent over backwards to help the family, the sad reality was that she didn't want the children but she wanted the money that came with each child. The awful thing is that she was raised in similar circumstances herself - it is a vicious circle.

It is because she has produced moral disgust that you want to see her punished, brought into line etc, forced to take responsibility though punishment. It's how society works - that's bad, punish it. It works quite well.

All I'm saying, and have been saying, is that I wonder whether punishment - as in a prison sentence - will work.

Though really the larger question is: given how as a society we do have neglectful parents, cruel parents, fucked up mothers etc - and always have done - what's the best way to deal with that?

I suppose I come down on the education, support, rehabilitation side - though I also do see how that infuriates people because they think they're 'getting away with it'.

And I do also see how as thedollshouse has said, a lot of the time that doesn't work, and people can't or won't be helped.

So. There we are. I'm sitting in the grey area, seeing both sides of the argument, quite unsure of what to do.

well sadly, hundred, we are all confused today about where we stand with our arguments, not sure what to do etc

but...

this time next week, this will be old news

just fish-and-chip wrappings

until the next time, when we all get our moral outrage excited by the next example of deadbeat parenting, another set of kids lives given no chance right from the beginning...

how thoroughly depressing