Woman decides full-time mothering isn't for her

[delalluvia]

Ten years ago, when her sons were 5 and 3, Rizzuto received a fellowship to spend six months in Japan, researching a book about the survivors of Hiroshima. Four months in, when her children came to visit, she had an epiphany: She didn't want to be a full-time mother anymore. When she returned to New York, she ended her 20-year marriage and chose not to be her kids' custodial parent.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/the-opposite-of-a-tiger-mother-leaving-your-children-behind-2460982/;_ylt=AmtAIgVHo7oSsQxv40hgyxN8bqU5?pg=1143#comments

If you read the comments, you will see that the double-standard is alive and well.  Women who have kids are mothers, first, foremost and always and should subjugate their lives to their kids.  Period.

Any attempts to lead your own life after you have kids will be met with contempt and derision.

How 1st century some people's attitudes still are.

[pnwDUDE]

Ten years ago, when her sons were 5 and 3, Rizzuto received a fellowship to spend six months in Japan, researching a book about the survivors of Hiroshima. Four months in, when her children came to visit, she had an epiphany: She didn't want to be a full-time mother anymore. When she returned to New York, she ended her 20-year marriage and chose not to be her kids' custodial parent.

It's not that she didn't want to be a full-time mother. She didn't want to be a mother, period. You should re name the subject of this thread to SELF CENTERED WOMAN THROWS AWAY HER CHILDREN.

Any attempts to lead your own life after you have kids will be met with contempt and derision.

This has nothing to do with having a fulfilled life after children. It is about abandoning and wanting nothing to do with your children. Sorry, but there is responsibility in being a mother or father. This womans attitude reminds me of a woman named Diane Downs--she 'abandoned' her kids so she could have a life............ Sick.

Brad

[Monika]

It's not that she didn't want to be a full-time mother. She didn't want to be a mother, period. You should re name the subject of this thread to SELF CENTERED WOMAN THROWS AWAY HER CHILDREN.
This has nothing to do with having a fulfilled life after children. It is about abandoning and wanting nothing to do with your children. Sorry, but there is responsibility in being a mother or father. This womans attitude reminds me of a woman named Diane Downs--she 'abandoned' her kids so she could have a life............ Sick.

Brad

Nice one, Brad 

[Shasta542]

I have taught children whose mother has left them totally to the father. Even when the father is the better parent, involved, etc., they have ALWAYS been more troubled, more affected, more prone to acting out--than the ones whose father left them with the mother. It may be a double standard, but IMO, it's worse for a mother to do that. I agree with you, Brad.

[Marge_Innavera]

If you read the comments, you will see that the double-standard is alive and well.  Women who have kids are mothers, first, foremost and always and should subjugate their lives to their kids.  Period.

Any attempts to lead your own life after you have kids will be met with contempt and derision.

How 1st century some people's attitudes still are.

No kidding.  And you don't have to go any further than this thread to see some ripe examples.

I suspect the kids will be okay, as long as they're not homeschooled.

[Marge_Innavera]

Nice one, Brad 

Yeah, the quote you posted just warmed the cockles of my ole pink heart.   

[Front-Ranger]

Mothering as a subject is such a minefield!!

[Kelda]

Personally my opinion is if you have decided to be a parent, and then decide later actually I don't want to do this, well I don't think its acceptable for either a man or woman to do this.

You made a decision, you should stand by that decision.

Of course, where there is a divorce and the parents can't live together thats a different scenario because this is the best thing for the kids to have 2 happy parents to look after them, and evidently it normally ends up that one parent takes up more of the caring role than the other.

Do I think it should always be the woman? No, I think individual circumstances are much more important to consider.

[Penthesilea]

Personally my opinion is if you have decided to be a parent, and then decide later actually I don't want to do this, well I don't think its acceptable for either a man or woman to do this.

You made a decision, you should stand by that decision.

Of course, where there is a divorce and the parents can't live together thats a different scenario because this is the best thing for the kids to have 2 happy parents to look after them, and evidently it normally ends up that one parent takes up more of the caring role than the other.

Do I think it should always be the woman? No, I think individual circumstances are much more important to consider.

Completely agreed.
Individual circumstances are much more important than gender roles. But somehow this is very hard to understand for many people.

Strangely, I have never seen such outrage from the moral high horse about successful business-men, travelling continents 48 weeks a year. They may well see much less of their children than the woman in the article, they may well be much less involved in their childrens' daily life - but hey, they do have a penis, so it's ok. Double standard, as Della already said in the OP.

[delalluvia]

Personally my opinion is if you have decided to be a parent, and then decide later actually I don't want to do this, well I don't think its acceptable for either a man or woman to do this.

You made a decision, you should stand by that decision.

Of course, where there is a divorce and the parents can't live together thats a different scenario because this is the best thing for the kids to have 2 happy parents to look after them, and evidently it normally ends up that one parent takes up more of the caring role than the other.

Do I think it should always be the woman? No, I think individual circumstances are much more important to consider.

People make decisions that are bad all the time.  We usually give them some options.

Notice she didn't make the decision until AFTER she had them.  I'm sure beforehand she'd swallowed whole the myth that having children would make her feel like a 'real woman' whole and fulfilled.  It didn't.

Now what are her options?

According to many of the posters on that article and here as well, she's just stuck.  She has NO choices and so she needs to put on a fake happy face and just go through the motions for another decade or so.

Really?  Do you think she'll be able to keep up that facade of a happy, good mother?

Do you think her kids and family won't notice?

Unlikely.  Sooner or later she will take it out on her husband, her children and those around her.

Now MEN seem to have options.  If they have kids and then decide they're not really into them, they can disappear to work, to the golf course, into themselves and be emotionally absent and distant and then of course, to divorce because family life wasn't for them.  So long as they pick up the check, the criticism for them seems to be extremely light and absent.

But mothers will be vilified if they don't fit into the mold of how society thinks mothers should be, despite the fact that women are PEOPLE first and not all the same.

I thought women's rights were all about getting society to realize women were people.  Apparently some still think women should be forced into gender roles and not have any choices.

Not me and not this woman and not quite a few working moms I've talked to over the years who had to whisper to me their dislike of mothering and their enjoyment of work.  They had to whisper.  I think that's what's "sick".