Lost Children

A Guide for Separating Parents

Penny Cross

Penny Cross has written a heart-wrenching account of her own failed marriage, and about her decision to leave behind her twelve-year old twins and two sons. The pain she felt when her children then accused her of abandoning them, and the way she was told that all the good times she had shared with them were wiped out, makes for sad reading.

Cross wants to speak out for mothers in a similar situation, those who feel that by leaving their children behind they are putting their children’s interests first by leaving them in the family home among familiar surroundings. The aftermath is often unexpected and truly shattering.

Three years on, writing this book, Penny Cross feels she understands more fully some of the reasons her children do not want to know her. Although she still misses them, she feels on balance they are all better off and happier than when she was at home in a fraught relationship.

Cross wants other women to be prepared, in a way she was not, for the collapse of the relationship with their children. "Learn from my mistakes," she begs. The author had hoped that she would be able to support her children through the misery of their parents’ divorce. She maintains their father has brainwashed them against her, but I believe that the children were also dealing with their own reactions to the breakup of their family life and trying to make sense of it all.

Penny Cross is not the only mother to leave her children, and we hear from other women who have taken the gut-wrenching decision to leave without their children. She is right to comment on the fact that women who live apart from their children are looked upon with more suspicion and criticism than men who leave their families.

If it is uppermost in your mind to end your marriage and begin a new relationship, be aware that the partner left behind may be vindictive and may use the children as weapons. I would also add that this partner may be distraught and in a quite desperate state to manage and may be in shock for some considerable time. This partner may suffer long term effects, and these in turn will affect the children.

Lost Children provides these important guidelines if you are thinking of leaving home

• Think twice and seek help

• Be prepared for the partner left behind to influence the children against you - this is now more widely recognized and called Parental Alienation Syndrome

• Remember you have a responsibility to help the children cope with changes.

• Try to protect the children’s lifetime relationships with both their parents.

• Try to prepare the children for the breakup and if possible tell the children about it together.

• Think about creating a ‘Family Union’ after divorce. Cross details how agreements to suit both parents and children may be worked out.

If you have already left home use her check list of practical issues. She gives a list of helpful organizations in the UK.

I will end with a quote from Penny Cross’s book that is well worth keeping in mind:"Consider in the cold light of day whether what you really want is just an escape route. All escape routes come at a price. Could you be about to jump from the fat into frying pan.?"

Penny Cross is a mother who has been badly burned.

© Jill Curtis 2002

Velvet Glove Publishing ISBN 0 953839 206

  available from the publishers at £8.99 plus £1 p&p from PO Box 30617 London E1W 1GP and from