to be a teenager lurking?

[BerryNice]

I have been lurking on mumsnet for a while now, even though I am a teenage girl. My mum left when I was younger, and I like reading things on here about how much you all love your children, and even though it does upset me, it reassures me that not many children will have to experience what I did.

I do genuinely have one question though, and I feel like you are the right people to ask. Would you ever be able to leave your children? I ask this because I still, years later, can't wrap my head around how my mum could just GO. Do you have unconditional love for your children? Does every mother? I'm scared that I will make a bad mum now because of what mine did.

Sorry, if this is in the wrong place, but I would really appreciate some responses. Thank you.

I think it is, worral- being for parents. What's wrong with suggesting the OP access some pastoral support through college?

Probably AIBU wasn't the best choice of boards though to be fair.

There's nothing wrong with that LeBOF and I make you right

But to tell her this site isn't particularly for teenagers isn't right because it's not particularly for any age group.

Sorry, if it's possible to move it to a better board then that's great, I wasn't sure which was best.

Perhaps if you could explain to your mum that you can't move on until you have some answers?

If you report your post and ask for it to be moved to Relationships, that might be better. But I would still encourage you to talk to someone at college.

How about if I report your message,Berry,and see if Mumsnet can move it to a more appropriate place where you might get more support?

oops, cross post!

To be fair, OPs peers are going to give her teenage views and OP wants the views of women who are her mums age, or could have been in her mums position, which I think is a bloody sensible and reasonable thing to ask.

Yes please, teesch, that would be great.

Sorry for posting in the wrong section, but thank you to all of the lovely people who did offer advice! :)

Will do that then! Off to bed now but will look out for your thread once it's moved! Goodnight!

Just because your mum left when you were young doesn't mean you'll be a bad mum. Same thing happened to my niece-not a blood relative btw-but still my niece. She is absolutely the most fab young mum I know. Her real mum walked out on her and her brother when they were 3 & 18months respectively leaving them with their dad. Fortunately he met my SIL who bought them up & loved them as her own. I think you'll be a brilliant mum when you're old enough because of your experience. Is a mothers love unconditional? Sadly not always, as we read in the newspapers, but I'd like to think that these 'mums' are in the minority.

Late post as usual......

Hello Berrynice, I think you were right to ask here; not everyone will agree but quite a lot do, such as myself. It's good that you stated honestly why. First of all, so sorry to hear what you went through. It's hard for anyone growing up without a mum (speaking as someone who had two good friends whose mum passed away from cancer). Also when parents split up and one leaves it is hard to get all the actual facts as once. So be patient, and don't take everything at face value. I suppose a mum who leaves her child or children with her ex husband might think that materially they will be much better off, especially if the husband has vowed to get a good nanny or private/boarding school or whatever, whereas a mum on her own might only be able to envisage a tiny council flat and not being able to afford childcare while scraping together a job - that's the commonest reason, I believe, for mothers not wanting custody of their child/ren. Others might feel pressurised by a boyfriend (maybe the one that they left an unhappy marriage for) not to bring children along to the new relationship (which I myself find hard to reconcile but am told it happens). And others might have mental health problems at the time and dared not risk having a child in the home during a relapse (included in this list of problems would be addiction, such as alcoholism). I know of one mum who did not 9and still does not) want to seek help for her alcoholism - and neither does/did her husband for his - and their oldest child effectively became their therapist and - more frequently - their punching bag.....she has overdosed several times, even though she is trying her hardest to make as normal a life for herself as possible. In that situation, I would say that the parents' kindest act should have been to relinquish the children's care to the responsible hands of relatives, but they failed to do that.
Conventionally, I'd say 99% of the time, mums feel an overwhelming love and bond with the baby they gave birth to - and yes, many of us here would rather cut off our hands than abandon our children. But mothers in those situations often don't have conventional circumstances. So I hope one day you'll find out the full truth of what those circumstances were. It won't replace the loss you felt, but getting more information will help you come to terms with it more easily. So I'd encourage to try to see her. You don't have to like her, but talking to her may put to rest a lot of questions and unease you've been burdened with for a long time. Be strong, and remember you are now your own person. Best of luck!

*at once
*(and still does not)

(Sorry, typos!)

I am glad you have posted here, Berrynice and that some people have offered you support from having been through it themselves and come out the other side, which I think is what you wanted to know - good place to find the answers then on a parenting site and not something you'd be likely to find in RL.

Personally I couldn't leave my DS when I'm feeling ok; but there have been periods when I've felt really really low and have considered that it might be better if I wasn't around because I'm so snappy and irritable, who needs that in their life? But then I stop and think of all the nice things we have together and couldn't deprive him of that, nor of just having his mummy around.

Some women just have more care for their own feelings than their children's - luckily not that many! - take the ones who stay with men who abuse their children, either because they don't want to believe it or because they'd rather be with an abusive man than on their own. There is no reason to believe that you will follow your mum's behaviour patterns - I don't think there is a hardwired gene for "selfishness"! The fact that you recognise it could be a problem suggests you are less likely to do the same.

There is a possibility of post-natal depression causing mothers to leave their young children - and there is a possibility of that running in families - but it doesn't sound like the case with your mother.

Hope you can have the conversation with your mother at some point, whatever the outcome - but be prepared to not get a definitive answer. She may not be prepared to face her reasons herself.

I would never leave my children berrynice.

My mum left when I was 2. I never saw her again until I was 13 by which time I had been raised to believe my step mum was my mother. It was a huge messy thing and it turned my whole world upside down. She had her reasons, but now I have had kids myself, they are not valid. A mother does not leave her children, unless her life is at risk say.

What I will say BerryNice, is that you deserve answers and if she is any sort of mum, she will give you them. Pick your questions carefully. My mum and I, despite the fact she left, now have an alright relationship. You only get one mum.

oh and I have four children. I am a good mum. But I will tell you, the worry has always been there, that I am not good enough. That someone might think I am not. That I will lose my children. Its an irrational fear and it does relate to my childhood. I am going through separation just now and if it was ever to come to a custody case, i sometimes worry the judge would think, well her mother couldnt look after her kids, so neither can she. Again irrational. So I understand your worries, but you wont be a bad mum.

As others have said there are countless reasons why people do things. Your Mother may think that by continually pushing contact she is hurting you more, maybe she thinks that you will come to her when you are ready. Or she could be a heartless witch! No one can tell you why she did what she did.

What we can tell you is that a person doesn't always follow parenting form. DH had some horrible stuff happen in his childhood. Like you he was worried that it would mean he wouldn't be able to be a good parent himself. He was very wrong! He is the worlds best Dad and he is made all the better for knowing how NOT to do some things.

When the time comes, and it is important to not rush in to being a parent so that you re ready to give it your all, I am sure you will be a very good one. You will know how important it is that your own children feel safe and secure and to never let them feel abandoned. Hth xx

No I could never leave my child, Berry. The bond is strong and I love her deeply. However, her father also loved her and has left his family and like you, I am struggling to understand that anyone could do that. He has tried to be in contact with her but she has now decided that she really wants nothing to do with him. It is very sad.

Years ago I had a young girl who used to leave her bike at my house to catch the school bus. I knew the family and watched with horror as the mother decided to have an affair and leave five children, one of whom was very young. Poor girl was always distressed and even more so when her mother took out an injunction against any of the children visiting or contacting her. Also, children at school were very very cruel - a mother leaving seems to stranger to most than a father, as the latter is more common.

I hope that you will get some answers. But it sounds to me as if your life is wonderfully on track, that you are wise and very mature for 17. Your mother should be proud of you and you should also be proud of yourself. I am sorry that you had to go through this but please do not think that you in turn will not be a good parent. My OH's stepmother left her children and two of them are the most wonderful loving parents. The third - a man - is currently trying for a baby with his partner.

Thank you all so much for your lovely responses, I posted here because I don't really like talking to my friends about it, but when I have the response is usually 'I'm sure she does love you though'.

I genuinely doubt that though. That sounds awful, but it's true. It seems like she wanted to completely run away from everything, but I'm struggling to want to let her back into my life.

The main issue for me (irrational though it is), is that she is still with the man she left us for. To me, that seems like every single day she is making the conscious decision to pick him over us. Does that make sense? Or is that a totally silly way of looking at it?

No, that seems a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it, tbh. And may be at least partly true - you won't know until/unless you ask her.

As some other posters have mentioned, sometimes a new "man" won't want the "baggage" of existing children in his new relationship and the mother then has to choose between her children and her new lover. But you don't know whether or not this man has made those kinds of demands on your mother - and I wouldn't offer it to her as a suggestion either, just ask her straight questions that she has to answer herself (if you decide to have The Chat - and I can quite see why you might not want to).

However - you say she does periodically contact you so that's a few steps up from the woman who took out an injunction against her 5 DC to stop them contacting her !

Perhaps next time, agree to meet her if you're feeling strong enough. You need some answers and she is the only one who can give them to you.

But whatever they are, they bear no relationship to how you would behave in a similar situation - you are NOT her.