Despite gains in gender equity, mothers who leave their children with family or partners are frequently viewed as deeply flawed. Is this going to change?
Quitting a job she dislikes, leaving a city that no longer meets her needs, or ending a relationship with someone she no longer loves – in recent decades, Western society has championed women who make these types of empowering decisions. But what if she chooses to abandon her children?
Despite progress toward gender equality, mothers who make the difficult decision to live apart from their children are frequently treated with contempt.
“Even if both parents are doing an excellent job of raising happy, healthy children, if they live away from their mother, the women are still vilified,” says Melissa, who lives an hour and a half away from her two children. and runs an online support group for women in similar circumstances. “[These] mothers are described as defective, as if something deep within their core is broken.”
The recent Netflix production of The Lost Daughter shed light on this type of reaction to mothers who live apart from their children. The film, based on Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, focuses on actress Olivia Coleman as a mother who leaves her children with her husband for three years to pursue her own career goals. Both she and others portray her decision as selfish, which contrasts with a father in the film who has also abandoned his children (played by Ed Harris) and appears to be without much.
Though parents of all genders have walked away from their children for centuries, there is some anecdotal evidence that mothers are leaving in greater numbers. Melissa reports that the online support group she manages has hundreds of members and is steadily growing. And therapists, such as Reennee Singh, a spokesperson for the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), say they are seeing a “slight shift” in the number of mothers opting out of live-in parenting.
Data from the United Kingdom and the United States also show an increase in the proportion of single-father households, though this does not differentiate between families where children still spend a significant amount of time with their mothers – or do not – or how such childcare arrangements were decided.
My children had a father and extended family who loved them, routines and a home. Leaving was about saving myself. Once you hit rock bottom, you have to get creative – Natalie
Whatever the exact figures are, the issue of women – rather than men – leaving the family unit continues to polarise Western cultures. One of the tensions in the film The Lost Daughter (hinted at in the title) is the question of whether a daughter has been abandoned by her mother, or whether the mother who abandons her daughters is the “lost one,” implying that there is still a strong emotional response to this behaviour. This may appear surprising in many ways, given the tidal wave of societal and media support for gender equity in other parts of society.
“Blended families, same-sex parents – we’ve accepted these more than working mothers who are parenting from a distance,” says one expert. says Tom Buchanan, a sociology professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. “There is a cultural difference.” According to experts, this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
The reasons for leaving home
Academics and therapists who have observed a “slight shift” in the number of mothers choosing to live apart from their children say there are a variety of reasons for this.
Some leave to pursue jobs, assignments, or study opportunities in other cities, either while still in a relationship with their children’s father or following a divorce. “Times have changed enough for women to feel more comfortable and entitled to pursue their own careers, their own interests,” Singh says, “even if it means living away from [the family] home.”
Other women decide that it is better for their children to live with their father after a divorce for practical or financial reasons. “The children were living in a lovely country home on a farm, and they “We went to good schools and had wonderful friends,” Melissa says. “I didn’t know how I was going to afford to house [them]”. She was able to re-establish her career as a freelance journalist and move to a cheaper neighbourhood closer to her extended family by leaving her children with their father. “I was also exhausted by what happened in the marriage and needed time to recover.”
Mothers who leave home to pursue a different lifestyle or relationship are also represented on the spectrum of choice.
“I just felt trapped, completely trapped in a situation,” says Katy, a teacher who moved to a different part of Europe with her five children in 2018. “I got married when I was 22, I had my first child at 25 and then it was ‘boom, boom, boom’ – child after child after child. And, while they were what I wanted at the time, I don’t feel like I got to do anything for myself.”
Mothers fleeing toxic relationships are at the other end of the spectrum. Leaving their children behind may be a last resort for this group in order to overcome serious mental health issues and move on with their lives. That was the case for Natalie from Australia, who suffered from severe depression while living abroad with her ex-husband. She claims their relationship was unhealthy, but he was a great carer to their children, so she ended up returning to her home country without them.
“My children had a father and extended family who loved them, routines, and a home. “I was leaving to save myself,” she explains. “When you’ve reached rock bottom, you have to get creative.”
In contrast to previous generations, where women often felt they had to put up with existing domestic arrangements, Singh believes rising public awareness of wellbeing is influencing mothers’ decisions to leave the family nest. Contemporary self-help books and podcasts about separations or self-care, for example, can provide comfort and validation to those who have made the difficult decision to live apart from their children.
However, Singh warns some of this literature only exists because of ongoing stereotypes about motherhood, and she’s concerned some women may feel they need to use discourses about wellbeing “to warrant or legitimise what they are doing”.
“If society were more equal and just, Then they may not have to rely as heavily on the literature to feel confident in their decisions. “I try to help women become stronger and more grounded in their choices, to think, ‘oh, well, society can say ‘whatever,’ but this is what I want to do at this point,” she says. “Sometimes, this is the only option that presents itself to them… [So] it’s also just giving them permission to leave and making them feel safe.”