SHE ABANDONED HER CHILDREN ...A SACRIFICE OR BETRAYAL?
Last night’s new BBC drama Come Home highlighted the last taboo of parenting – when a mother abandons her children. SADIE NICHOLAS speaks to one mother who did just that but believes it was the best decision for her family
WHEN Carolyn Dodd decided to leave her young daughter and son to start a new life 6,000 miles away in Hong Kong, many may have seen her decision as the ultimate betrayal of her children. But Carolyn says that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“I didn’t choose to live apart from my children because I wanted to or because I didn’t love them – I couldn’t have loved them more,” says Carolyn, 62, an artist. “I did it because I felt it would be better for them to stay in the family home with their father.”
Although it is 30 years since Carolyn Dodd ended her marriage and made the controversial decision to live apart from her children, she can still vividly recall the disapproving looks from others.
“Thankfully my children and I are very close now but there have been some tough times and if I could turn back the clock I’m not sure I’d make the same decision again. At the time it seemed to be the right thing to do.”
Carolyn had been married for nine years to Julian, a company director, and their children Polly and Harry were four and two when she moved into a flat near their London home.
“I come from a single-parent family and didn’t see my father from the age of 10 so after a few years of knowing that my marriage was hitting the rocks I wanted to try to limit the damage that it would cause to Polly and Harry,” Carolyn continues.
“But because I was the one who actually ended the marriage and Julian told me from the word go that he didn’t want to be a weekend dad I felt that it would be wrong of me to then demand that I keep the children and the house.
“He was a very good father and financially stable and I also felt that of the two of us I was emotionally stronger and would be better able to cope with living apart from the children, whereas he would go to pieces without them.”
Still, a mother leaving her young is the last taboo of parenting and there are thought to be about 200,000 women in the UK living apart from their dependent children.
Yet men leave their children all the time so why do we judge mothers who walk away more harshly? It is a question posed by new BBC drama Come Home, which tells the story of a woman who walks out on her husband and their three children after 19 years of marriage.
Diana Parkinson is a Harley Street psychotherapist and relationship therapist and says the tendency to make social pariahs of absent mothers boils down to nature and enduring social stereotypes.
“We still have this view of the mother’s place as being with the children because her body has carried them, given birth to them and fed them as babies.
“For a mother to walk away and leave her children behind is extremely painful, particularly if it goes against her instinct to nurture them but it happens and the fallout for all of them can be huge.
“Often when men walk away they do so simply because they subscribe to the traditional view that children should be with their mother but very often inside they are completely broken.
“In reality neither mothers nor fathers should walk away from their children because whatever the circumstances and whoever stays with whom, it’s still abandonment on some level.”
Carolyn certainly didn’t just disappear from her children’s lives. It was a decision borne of lengthy discussions with Julian and much private angst.
Living close to them for a few years after the break-up meant that she was able to return to the marital home every day to give Polly and Harry breakfast and take them to school. She also did pick-ups at the end of the day as often as she could to maintain a sense of normality for them.
But not everyone was understanding. “There were a couple of other mothers who lived on the same road as us who were particularly scathing and I can’t deny that although it was none of their business their reaction really hurt me,” says Carolyn.
bUT four years after her divorce Carolyn married again and moved halfway around the world to Hong Kong with her new husband, which is when the reality of mother and children being apart took its toll on everyone.
“I wrote to Polly and Harry every week and sent drawings and photographs and I’d come back every six weeks for the school holidays but when they’re little it’s not really enough,” she reflects.
Julian had remarried the same year and they each went on to have more children.
Carolyn says: “I missed the daily cuddles and physical contact terribly and I think what I underestimated when I decided to leave my children was my worth to them as a mother.
“I went through a period that I can
only describe as grieving in Hong Kong and deliberately avoided friends with young children at weekends because it was too painful.
“But equally I realised that it had all been my decision so I had to get on with it.”
Polly, now 34 and a personal trainer, is married with two children and recalls being very upset by her mum’s move overseas.
“When my parents first separated dad came to me while I was playing in the garden and said, ‘Mum’s going to go to live somewhere else,’ and I apparently just said ‘OK’ and carried on playing,” she says.
“Because mum only lived around the corner and would come round every day it didn’t feel as though too much had changed.
“We had a lovely home with our own bedrooms within walking distance of my school and dad was financially stable which meant that we could carry on living there.
“Dad was wonderful as was my stepmother. But I remember being very tearful when mum moved to Hong Kong when I was eight. At school my mind would wander and my teachers would comfort me when I told them how much I was missing her.”
Julian admits that from the moment the marriage ended he was concerned about the impact it would have on the children – particularly Polly – of Carolyn living elsewhere. He juggled a high-flying career and frequent travel with ironing school uniforms and overseeing homework.
Before remarrying he relied heavily on help from his parents to look after the children.
“Notwithstanding the fact that I didn’t want to lose the children I do think it was the best thing for them to live with me even though in those days for the father to have care of the children was highly unusual,” he explains.
“But that didn’t stop me being incredibly conscious that girls in particular need their mother around especially in their teenage years. Harry was more grounded and resilient but it bothered me a lot about Polly, more so when Carolyn moved to Hong Kong.
“I just had to deal with it and do my best but it took its toll and I remember sleeping very little and feeling incredibly tired and often short-tempered during those years.” Julian continues: “There were a couple of times when Carolyn called to speak to the children and Polly refused because she was angry about her being so far away.
“Even though my own mother and my second wife were loving maternal figures it wasn’t the same as having her own mother there.”
When Polly was 14 Carolyn and her husband moved back to the UK and several years later mother and daughter had counselling to come to terms with their time apart.
Polly says: “I was 19 by then and a bit of a stroppy, angry teenager. The hardest thing for me was that I had been so young when mum left that I didn’t have the chance to question or understand why she did what she did or to think properly about how it made me feel. Counselling made me see that actually mum had sacrificed her own feelings and had genuinely believed that leaving us in the family home with dad was the best possible place for Harry and me to be.
“Only now that I’m a mother myself can I truly appreciate the extent of that sacrifice for her.”
The pair now live a few miles from one another in Sussex and enjoy a strong bond despite everything. Carolyn and Julian have also remained friends.
Carolyn says: “I adore Polly and Harry, their spouses and my grandchildren and I appreciate our family relationships all the more because of the time we were apart.
“But of course I do regret that I can never get back those years that I lost with my children.”