Parents who abandon children

[Roseredwine]

I am struggling to understand what has happened to a family in the last few weeks.
Dad leaves without notice and moves abroad. Mum scams an old lady to pay for air fare and follows her husband. Grandma is now looking after the children, probably forever. How does that happen? What is going on in their heads that they can do this?
Does this happen and I just didn’t know?

They dumped them back on the other parents after spending 2 years fighting them for weekend visits etc. Looking back they were crazy they all moved in together all 7 of them in a tiny house, they moved house several times in 18 months disrupting all the kids. They finally bought a house then 12mths later after she had her baby moved to New Zealand, they've since moved to Australia. I'm not in touch with them anymore.

I knew a woman who had a son with her then boyfriend. She found another, richer, boyfriend. She went to stay with him for a weekend and never went back, leaving the baby.

She got married to another man, had another baby, and left that one with the grandparents because she "fell in love" with a different man and moved to live with him abroad.
Last I heard she'd had another baby with him.

I know two people raising their grandchildren, one at the request of social services (drugs) and they do see their mother if she is sober (the mother is welcome at her mothers house at any time and a bedroom is kept ready for her but only if she isn't on drugs, she goes in phases of getting clean than relapsing, when relapsed it can be months she doesn't see the kids). The other person I know raising grandchildren is as completely unsuspected, 30 something mother so not young, husband left her kids 2&4, moved back into her mothers supposed to be a stop gap whilst house was sold etc. day after divorce settlement etc was finalised they were all meant to be going out, the mother bought tickets for a theme park, the mother said she felt a bit unwell but grandparents take grandchildren as looking forward to it - by the time they returned she had gone, was 6 months before even an email, she was in Thailand working in a bar, it's 3 years on, social services were just happy for kinship care but poor kids, mother does video call now but only every 6 weeks or so

It happened in my wider Family. Dad had married and moved abroad, oldest just started uni and 13 year old went to stay at GP's for a weekend. GP's went to drop 13yo off on the Sunday evening and the house was abandoned. So 2 75 year olds raised a teenager, it was a brutal situation.

Dad did send money but refused to have 13yo with him , mum eventually reappeared after 6 months or so but understandably 13yo had lost all trust in her, so stayed with GP until it was time to go to Uni then older sibling took over as GP's health was failing.

My DH mother died when he was a child. His father gave him to his own mother & his brother to an auntie who had no kids. It was far more common back then (70s). FIL re-married & had another family, who are favoured more than his two sons. Which makes sense... (not saying it’s okay). DH has had therapy related to abandonment issues. His brother hasn’t had any help.

Hi,
If I suspect parents are leaving a child behind with no one to look after her, and I call social services before they leave the country: can social services or the police stop parents from leaving the country? Do they act immediately?

They can’t stop them from leaving the country, but at least children will be taken into care temporarily if they can’t be taken in by other family members.

Thank you for the reply. I suspect perhaps the thought of their child being left to foster care might scare parents enough to make them change their mind before they travel. They are relying on the assumption that a friend of the family will step in last minute and look after their child for them. But us, friends, already have too much on our plates and we are not responsible for fixing the parents' mistakes. If social services talk to them before they leave, they might see the seriousness of the situation and change their minds.

A relative many years ago fostered a young teenager, he was the oldest of 5. He and all his siblings were in care as their Mum had left the country with her new man. Bizarrely it turnout I went to primary school with the mum, I found out when I called at my relatives and she was visiting the boy. In the end SS tracked down the boys dad, who the mum wouldn't allow access to previously, and the younger two were adopted, the others remained in care. Their maternal GP were dead. Quite some years later I heard that the Mum had returned to UK alone and basically drank herself to death, awful all round.

Awful. It is so sad. But from reading the posts here, I can see that it happens more often than we imagine it.