“Dad was really upset, and that was the final straw for her. As Today reported, years later, Oscar would travel via plane to visit his mother on holidays and summers, and Rebekah noted that they were very close and communicated constantly. Losing some friends and family members in the process, Mrs Collins said revealing her situation to strangers made her realise just “how cruel women could be” to one another. Meet The Guests. “My ex and I aren’t getting what we thought we would have [in a family] when we started,” she started. Their kids were eight, five, and one at the time—and after an internal debate, Lauren decided she would do it, she wrote for Selfish Mother. by Olivia Pennelle | Jan 13, 2021 | Resources | 0 comments. One self-proclaimed “deadbeat dad” on Reddit wrote that he had only ever seen his daughter one time, and he was fine with it that way. Not everyone can bring themselves to stay. It is certainly a good point of view to realize life could be alot worse and that you must understand their isn't anything wrong with you that your mother failed as a parent. By KIMBERLEY HIBBERT. In 2010, twelve years after marrying her husband, Melissa Collins made the hardest decision of her life. By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, Go Ask Mom editor. One anonymous dad admitted on Reddit that he effectively walked out on his daughter because her mom was “a terrible person” and kept him from his daughter for the first year or more of her life. In the end, the feelings of inadequacy dad has can’t possibly outweigh the benefits of having a father figure who’s working toward becoming a better man and role model. For many parents, it’s unfathomable to even consider leaving their children behind. While plenty of parents who wind up splitting up can manage to co-parent effectively, one Reddit user’s ex quickly welcomed a new man into her life, one that her daughter was taught to call “daddy.” The anonymous dad wrote that because of his ex’s not letting him see his daughter until she was two, the little girl started calling him “other daddy,” and that’s when her biological father realized he could never “win.” Rather than fight what he felt was a losing battle against his ex, he gave up fighting for custody and “made the difficult decision to walk away.”. i mean how can you do that? “I was crying on my kitchen floor all the time,” she said. While many women pursue careers before “settling down” to have children, Te-Erika Patterson did it the other way around. There are even support groups now for women who decide to leave their children. The NZ Herald reported that Kieran’s younger daughter began stuttering, lost weight, and regressed in her development. In the end, though, Natalie was able to get out and get better without impacting her kids’ lives too much. Why three women made the tough decision to leave their children. Both parents spoke with a child psychologist separately, and ultimately, the psychologist recommended that Kieran stay away for a few weeks and see what happened. But they seem to not allow themselves to go to that regret space very often. At the same time, he claims to “love [his] baby girl so much,” but opted to stay away altogether when the baby’s mother told him he couldn’t come in and out of her life on a whim. Despite social stigma, more moms are giving up custody to the father of their children in divorces. He was an unwilling participant when it came to his former flame getting pregnant with their child, and he wasn’t sure he was really the father. Brooke and her sister, Paige Hyland, left Dance Moms a few seasons ago and there have been some discrepancies about why they got the boot. While one study found that dads increased their childcare role during the pandemic, it also showed moms spent the most time in caring for children.. Men who break their promises and betray their families usually have no room or time to think about regret. Since the dad couldn’t fight for his son without incurring further debt—and couldn’t begin to pay the debt in the first place—he let his son go with his mom. When fathers leave their families for good, we take comfort in the fact that the kids are still in mom's warm embrace. Due to COVID, there wasn't much cops could do to help. For some reason, the societal expectation is that moms will always stay and be nurturing caregivers while dads are more likely to jump in and out of their children’s lives on a whim. Her now-ex had asked—no, begged—her to birth them, and he would handle the rest, he promised. At the time, she wrote, she felt like her ability to financially provide for her two boys was tied to her overall worth as a person. What is happening? i was so mixed up when i watched that. One “absent father” explained on Oprah’s Lifeclass the exact reason he left his family, and as Huffington Post reported, it had plenty of involved parents scratching their heads. So, she packed her bags and moved to a new city, commuting to see her kids three or four days per week. Moms who Leave their kids WOMEN & CHILDREN. That’s because he was 17 at the time he and his then-girlfriend conceived the child, and from the moment he found out, the dad had “advocated for adoption.” He also had doubts about the child actually being his, so decided to continue on with his own life and not be a father to the child. “My Dad really stepped up, and as I got older it became normal not to have her around. The mothers who did the walking away aren't heard from as much. Share Share Tweet Email Comment. There's no way to know from those numbers how many women willingly gave up their kids, how many single dads are widows … Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, a writer, and woman who made news headlines for … “When my sister was older, she decided to live with mum because she didn’t like dad’s rules. The anonymous dad explained that in the first few months of fighting for visitation with his toddler son, he was paying rent on his house and his ex’s, paying court fees, and interim child support—plus he had to pay for his own lawyer while his ex got one for free. After his ex lodged charges, the dad had to spend a ton of money fighting back in court but still lost all his rights to his child. How does this affect the children growing up? “It felt like I was just in the same house she was in, and I never spent a long time with her.”. Well, we don't know that for a fact. Why did Brooke Hyland leave Dance Moms? “Going to see my mum, I felt like an intruder because she didn’t have the time for me.”. “They were so little when I left, and they just wanted to know why,” Mrs Collins said. Parents who leave their kids behind are often vilified in the media, and it’s usually moms who fare worse than dads. Log in, register or subscribe to save articles for later. What reason would lead a mother to leave her children? He hopes to reconnect with them when they’re older and in a more stable place. But when they turned one, the mom got the kids removed from her care for endangerment. But many military families do not live on bases or send their children to schools on base. She knew what the social repercussions of the decision would be, but years later, she reflected that her relationship with her children was healthy and hadn’t suffered from the change. We never cuddled, there was nothing there,” she said. She moved away to Brisbane, and left her boys with their father in country Queensland. In fact sometimes a father leaving is seen as a good thing; that a broken home is better than an unhappy one. “What I did was right for me and my children, and if you really love your kids, you will do what is right for them.”. Freelance writer & homeschool mom with a passion for writing lifestyle and entertainment, parenting, educational, and career articles in a variety of online spaces. By NewsForYouNow. There are 2.4 million moms who don't have custody of their kids (versus 8.6 million single moms) and there are 2.6 million single dads. An anonymous mom on Reddit shared that she had just left her family after years of struggling as a working mom. There are some out there though, that have said their side of the story, no matter how good their reasons or how awful and selfish. Years after, she reflected that she had to leave her children to “find” them again—and to find herself. 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