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really bothered right nowAn old neighbor of mine moved away from our town, leaving her son and husband. No custody battle, she didn't want to take her eight year old with her.
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Kramer vs. Kramer
have you ever seen that movie? the mom left her son because she felt she had no other choice; felt too unstable and so forth. When she got her head on straight she wanted him back, went to court and got custody. After all that, she then decided he was better off living full-time with his dad.
sometimes if just works out that this is what's best for the child, is all.
eco & etsy
Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
i get it sometimes in life we
i get it sometimes in life we have to get pour own shit together before we can take care of our kids. internal struggles can be a real bitch and make you not such a great mom i think its awesome when a person realizes they can not do right by their children. kind of like folks who give their kids up for aqdoption because they know someone else would truely do a betetr job cuz thats what the kids dseserve have to e xamine all angles.
Jessica
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind~~Dr.Seuss
not so freaked
When I was a mom of a young child, I couldn't imagine leaving my daughter. I nursed her for years and hated that I had to work. I had some (single mom) friends that willingly sent their kids to live with their fathers for a year or more, and I never really judged them, but it did seem sad and like they were giving up. But now that my daughter is 12, I get it a little bit more. If my daughter was having problems with me/or with school, or my life was in some huge transition and she wanted to live with one of my sisters in law, or her father, or go to some kind of outdoor ed kind of boarding school, I'd be supportive. It just doesn't sound so tragic to me once kids are around middle school age.
I am too lazy to do it myself
I am too lazy to do it myself but you should find an article that was just published in BrainChild about this very thing.
i read it, and it still
i read it, and it still didn't quite make sense to me. But it's a great article!
It is weird, isn't it?
My mom did this to us. She left her two year old daughter and one year old son (my brother and I). She had visitation rights but never used them. I met her once when I was 20. I was unimpressed. I made the mistake of calling her on the phone on Mother's Day last year. Bad idea. I'll never fully understand it. I can't bear to be away from my son for more than a few hours.
In my situation, though, my mom was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She honestly believed that my grandmother and my father were out to hurt her, and that's why she left. Her reasons for not visiting us or even sending so much as a card is that she claims my father and grandmother were keeping us away from her and not allowing any contact. I know this to bullshit. But my mother believes it! So, I guess insanity is the reason why she left. It's sad, but in a way I'm glad she wasn't around with all of her craziness.
So I supposed it's possible it could have been something like that. But I get what you mean. It really bugs me to hear when a mom chooses to stop being a mom.
"Feminists are just women who don't want to be treated like shit." -Su.
Wow. That's rough. I grew up
Wow. That's rough. I grew up without my dad, and with an actually crazy mom, who was abusive, but I can't imagine not having had her around I guess.
With the people in this case it seems that the mother wanted to do something in a town a few hours away, that her kid couldn't be there for. I know she and her husband weren't a love connection, but nothing too dramatic or crazy seemed to be happening (though I know a lot can be hidden). It seems like she just drifted away.
The other woman moved to another country for legal issues (so she could continue to work at her chosen career with better laws governing it) and I guess her daughter had the choice to go with her, but there were other complications. And the mom and dad weren't divorcing, just she wanted to move and pursue her career, and he wanted to stay and continue his. Neither of these women seem actually openly crazy at all. Just like their interests in their stuff was bigger than their interest in their kids and raising them.
With my friend too,
There was nothing sketchy going on at home. He was grumpy, but not abusively so. She just wanted to be single, and I guess her kid didn't figure into that equation. Then her new man wanted to move out of state so they did. Last time I talked with her she was bitching about her ex "bleeding her dry" with child support, and she didn't even talk to her kid on the phone, let alone visit. I was kind of speechless and told her I needed to go. Left with the sense of... why are you telling me this? Are you looking for absolution, you think I'm just going to be a sounding board? Because you're a chick I'm not going to hate you just as much as I would a dad who ditched his family and didn't want to pay child support?
It bothers me too.
A friend of mine did this a few years ago, moved out of state too. I have a really hard time wrapping my brain around the whole deal.
My SIL's mom did this
when SIL was about 14, and had two younger siblings. She (the mom) was diagnosed with bone cancer, and at the same time discovered that her husband had a drug problem and was cheating on her with the kids' babysitter. I guess it was all just too much for her to deal with, she left the family, divorced SIL's dad and moved 3,000 miles away. It definitely created some huge scars with her kids...but I can also see how something like that could just shut you down as a person, and you might not be able to deal. She has never really re-connected with her kids as a mom, though she's more of a "girlfriend" to her daughters, now that they are adults and have kids of their own.
I guess we don't hear about it as much because women are so conditioned to put everyone else first, much more so than men. So women tend to leave their kids less frequently, therefore it seems more shocking?
**edited to add - I also wonder if leaving your kids isn't motivated by extreme depression. The only time it's ever occurred to me was after my first was born, and I was dealing with some major PPD. I kept feeling like I was only going to fuck him up, and maybe he'd be better off without knowing me. Now I can't imagine leaving my kids, but I remember having that feeling and being terrified by it.
"Too weird to live. Too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson
I guess it just seems really
I guess it just seems really unnatural. I don't see a big difference from a man leaving his family than a woman leaving hers. It's just maybe easier for a man because of the social stigma? the fact that they don't breast feed and some don't bond like women do.