Can you think of any situation where you would voluntarily leave your children?

[rickman]

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can you?

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Why do you ask?

x post!

no, not permanently

when i read the thread title i thought...yeah when they have just plastered their tea all over the front room.

but now i see you mean seriously, so No i can't.

Unless the relationship broke down because of something i had done that would be of harm to my children.

No I can't imagine it. I wouldn't like to think of me leaving ds. If it was a situation where ds was old enough to say he wanted to live with dh, I would allow him to make his own mind up.

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No way. Absolutely no chance would I have them in anyone's care other than mine.

If I died, dh would have to have my Mum move in

ah yesterday in the DM (I can hear you groaning ) well anyway there was this story of this mother who has gone to Spain and left her 2 eldest children with their dad (from whom she is divorced) I forget their ages but around 9ish I think. She has taken her younger dd from a second marriage but only because the father wouldn't have her! She doesn't care what people think and she is a lot happier now. She said she fetched and carried for them when they were little but now its her time

I can see that if a woman was very seriously depressed, she might.

I couldn't even though some days when things are so bleeding hectic and they're all playing up, I have fantasised about it. But only for a fleeting moment - I could never see that I would actually do it.

Having said that, my mother did just that when I was 11 months old and my brother was 3. I could never forgive her for that.

• at only 9!?!?!!?

Changed my name as don't want to be identifiable.
My cousin did. She and her dh split up. Case of domestic violence. Oldest dd was a daddy's girl and despite witnessing some of the hitting, believed her dad when he said mum deserved it. So she at age 11 chose to stay with dad. Dd2 (8) hated dad for it so chose to stay with mum. Ds was only 5 so stayed with mum.
After a while dd2 missed her sister so much, she decided to go and live with them. Dad said ds needed a man's input to stop him becoming a wimp, so got him too.
To start with their was regular access. But gradually, the younger 2 were poisoned against their mum. She was so worn down by it all, had all confidence knocked out of her, she believed they were better off without her.
She has now not seen them for about 13 years and because they are all adults now, she doesn't legally have to know where they are.
I cannot begin to imagine how she has coped.

sorry - just checked - 11 and 13

'it meant leaving the children with their father, but I felt I had done my bit. After all, I'd been there throughout their younger years - I had changed the nappies, wiped their noses and tended to them during the night. I had been the perfect mother and I had run myelf ragged.'

'I was forced to take Olivia with me because her own father, Tom, refused to have her - much to my annoyance'.

When she told the kids

'they were pretty taken aback and I'm not sure if it really sunk in. In fact, they went very quiet.'

'I didn't let the children see me off because I knew it would be too emotional for them. It was only as I got on the plance that my own tears started to flow. As the plane took off, I thought: "What am I doing? I am leving my children I must be a terrible mother: But once I got to the hotel I felt much better, telling myself we would be keeping in regular contact.'

Odd beyond odd

But it's the DM so I'm sure they've totally 'sensationalised' it

full article

what a selfish person she is.
does she not care that her children will read this? that poor Olivia will grow up knowing that neither of her parents actually wanted her?

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I think she thinks it was but I'm not sure her children do!

it doesn't sound like she was dong what was best for her kids, only herself.

If sheleft the kids with dad because it was better for themt o stay thats one thig but to say she didn't want them and that she HAD to take the other is just plain selfish.

I think you are being very judgemental we all know newspapers misquote. She obviously wasn't cut out for motherhood as some would say so perhaps the children are better with their father

Can't imagine any situation in which I'd leave ds - over my dead body! But a family friend of ours did leave her children. Domestic violence, had nowhere to go with them, council could only offer her a bedsit. Father had never been violent with anyone but the mother, adored the kids, and had close family in the same block of flats. Not a decision I'd have made but I respect her right to make it. She'd also been a victim of sexual abuse in her own childhood - think that affected her self-confidence and belief in her ability as a mother.

She was right, as far as the father never lifted a finger to his children. But it devastated her relationship with them. She didn't tell them about the abuse so they blamed her for leaving, even though she was holding down three jobs and scrubbing floors of an evening to send her dd to stage school.

Her dd worked out why her mother had left years later and came to her terribly shocked saying 'why didn't you tell me?' Maybe if she'd been less ruddy self-absorbed she'd have realised long before her late 30s.

Sadly my friend died suddenly a few years ago, but at least the relationship with her children had been mended by then.

It has crossed my mind on more than one occasion, but i'd never do it, just couldn't.