A parenting question - what would you do?

[Pages]

You are the single mother of 3 dc ages 6, 5 and 4. You need to get away for a few hours and ask a neighbour to watch your DC. You go to a friend's house. The neighbour doesn't actually come into your house.

It is dark. Your 3 dc are on their own in the house. Your DS1 (age 6) hits DD (age 5) with a screwdriver. DD runs out crying and makes her way along the road in the dark to try and find her mummy. She falls over and grazes her knee. The police come by in a patrol car and pick DD up and DD tells the police where mummy's friend lives. The police arrive at your friend's house with DD in the back of the car and take you and DD home.

Who should be punished, DD or DS1?

Gotcha!
Pages I just found your other post and I remember some of it in septembber. Made me very sad.

You have to somehow learn to let go. I can't begin to imagine what life as a single mum is. Must have been really tough. I'm not finding any excuses for her, but you are a grown woman now and she is an old woman now.
She has as much bitterness in her heart as you.
You have to stop hurting eachother.

You don't want her part of your life, fine. Move on, don't let it fester. Trying to score points will only bring you more heartache.

Be strong and be compassionate and concenntrate on your own children now.

Take care

XXX, you have made me laugh so much - I am going to bed with a smile on my face after all this!!!

It's all on the other thread, no point repeating, if you can face it look in. May sound like a bitter old mare, but it's all a process and I will be fine.

When you have been told black is white all your life, sometimes you still just have to ask for a general concensus.

Thanks Slim.

This is just today.

I will be fine tomorrow.

pages sorry to abandon you but am wrecked must sleep!hope you get a good nights sleep catch up on your thread tomoro hope the mother thing works out for you if not try throwing a glass of water over her to see if she disolves worked in wizzard of oz

night night

You for leaving your children alone.

Your mother for leaving you alone. And don't let her try to make you think otherwise!!

Thanks guys. Oh - and we were punished, btw. She still stands by that. Where I would have told my dc that I was so sorry, that it was my fault not theirs, cuddled them and said how frightened they must have been and reassured them that I would never leave them again - instead she punished us.

I haven't spent all these years feeling bitter. Something happened over a year ago, whereby she let me take the blame for something she had done, and I raised this in a letter to her a year ago and said it was just an example of how she had always let me take the blame for something she had done.

The fact that she is now upset with me (as are my siblings) for suggesting she was a bad mother tells you all you need to know about how my family operates. And why I have finally accepted that she is never going to change and I may as well give up now....

obv hitting with a screwdriver is far from ideal, but kids aren't known for their reason and diplomacy, hense the need for caring adults around. Absolutely clearly the children are neither to blame, dd least of all. So neither child punished.

The fault lies with the adults. Mother for going off without ensuring someone therewith the kids - asking neighbour to keep an eye on them isn't good enough. And neighbour for not keeping the 'eye' but this seems so ropey, unless she was expressly asked to be in the house, how do you keep an eye on a child when you're not in the same building??

Your Mother was at fault here. She seeks to blame everyone else but her own self. You know as well as I do she's toxic.

Shows also how much she thinks of your brother by blaming him. I think its only been your good self and your brother who have taken a stand against her.

regards

Attila

Exactly. And ernest, when I made that very point to her yesterday (she said, yet again, that I had twisted things and we weren't left alone, a nieghbour was watching us, I said then how did DS1 manage to hit me with a screwdriver and how did I manage to leave and walk off up the road?) she creeched at me "I've had enough of this" and stomped off.

Attila, thanks, I know, I know. Got that book out again last night. She came back after she stomped off and told me she thought she was having a heart attack (she wasn't) and that she was too old and frail for all of this (she isn't either old or frail - in fact she has spent all summer travelling to Europe and America) so she has now officially gone through every single toxic parent reaction to confrontation in the book.

screeched, not creeched!

she was totally in the wrong, and the fact that she stomped off and pulled out every excuse in the book shows she's guilty, guilty, guilty.

i am that you got punished. unbelievable.

i think perhaps you need another year of seperation. she hasn't taken on board anything.

pages, stop wasting breath, time and emotional energy on her because it is only getting at you.

A lot of us don't have ideal relationships with our parents. Hell some of us would not want to have anything to do with them if it wasn't for the guilt.

Work on overcoming this guilt rather than hoping for anything else.
Then maybe when you really are past caring and hurting, when she does not get to you anymore, you can have some sort of relationship.

Take care

The mother who left 3 alone at this age.

Have only read OP, will read thread now.

OK, have read thread, it's BLINDINGLY obvious that your mother was completely bloody irresponsible for leaving children that age alone.

Haven#t read your other thread but honestly, anyone who does this is stupid and irresponsible in the extreme.

I hope you're ok.

Pages, if it helps to get more opinions; your mother was at fault. She did not leave her children being supervised by an adult and at those ages they were too young to be left alone.

Children of those ages were in no way responsible and in no way should they have been punished.

But I'd say that you know this already. Have faith in your own views and opinions. You are in a strange position of being a much better mother than your own was, it must be hard to accept; but take it as a massive, huge compliment to your strength of character. So many people wouldn't have it in them to do better than the way in which they were raised, but you have broken through that, and your kids are lucky

sorry, I sound very harsh.......did not mean to.
hugs

No worries Slim - not offended. Yesterday dragged stuff up again, but honestly I really have moved on so much since this whole thing started last year. I am fine today. I know now that my mother will never change and I accept that.

The last few posts have moved me to tears though. Thank you so much for your kind words. I hope my boys do feel they have been lucky in years to come, but I know that whatever mistakes I make I will apologise for them and that they won't be anything on the same scale as my mother's.

I can't imagine what it teaches a child of 5 to punish him or her for your mistakes in this way. I can't imagine wanting to let my little DS2 live with the burden and blame for something he hasn't done, it breaks my heart to even think about it.

Or DS1 of course! (he has special needs though so wouldn't understand)

Answer to OP - er, the mother, actually. You can't leave small children unattended then punish them when they don't behave like adults.

Oh it was your mother!

she would be facing the wrath of mumsnet, taht's for sure!

take good care of your little family.
Maybe one day her heart will open up and you can make peace.