Parenting
How Mothers Deny The Children Of Their Fathers
Ways How Your Child’s Mother is Alienating Your Children From You.
My friend has been through a nasty divorce. He has two children with his ex. The separation angered his ex to the extent where she started “alienating” their children.
This happens more than we would think. It doesn’t happen only to separated/ divorced parents. You see, my mother was an alienator too.
Any parent can exhibit alienating behaviours — it’s not a gender issue. However, there are specific ways in which each type of parent experiences parental alienation. Unfortunately, I’ve seen mostly angry and obsessive women alienating children. If you are a father and you suspect that the mother of your children is alienating them, look for these signs below.
“Your Father Earns More Than Me, He Should Get You A New Bike”
My mother used to say some nasty things about my father to me and my sisters. My father cheated on her — she was upset. But that doesn’t excuse her behaviour, instead of using her daughters as the weapon against our dad, she should have left him.
She used to call us into the kitchen to “discuss” our dad, quite often she would instruct us not to tell our dad about our little conversations. She would blame him a lot.
“ I am sorry I am unable to send you the camping trip. Your father didn’t give me enough money this month so I can’t afford it. He must be spending it on his mistress instead on his children”
My parents weren’t separated. My father “gave” money to mum for her to use on whatever she wanted or needed. She chooses not to work, even though she was well-educated. And my father never knew about the “camping trip”, if he did, he would have sent me with no issue. But my mother wanted to portray him in the worst light, so she continuing making up bullshit like this in order to create a rift between me and my father.
Passive-aggressive comments towards the other parent can add up and create long-term problems. If a stepparent is involved, the mother would usually also attack the stepmother and might say something like this:
“Your father hasn’t called you this week, because he is spending time with his new girlfriend. He must love her more than you. But don’t worry your Mummy loves you the most”
This behaviour is called a “smear campaign”. The parents do all in their power to create a distorted picture of the other parent in the child’s eyes. The kids’ normal relationship with the alienated parent changes and they become suddenly stop showing affection toward you.
“ You see, I must do all in my power to fight the Father, he is trying to take you away from me! You don’t want that to happen, do you?!”
Active parental alienation happens when one parent takes actions such as involving other people (school, therapists, social workers, extended family) and provides false information about the parent with the intention to eliminate them from the child’s life.
They often tell the children “what’s going on” and ask the child to keep it a secret. They would usually say something like
“ Your father doesn’t like me and he is fighting me, it makes me so so upset”.
This way they are creating feelings of loyalty, a private bond from which the child learns to withhold parts of their life from the other parent. The child will start seeing everything “black and white”. The alienating parent will become perfect even when they forget to feed the child or pick them up from school, the child will find an excuse for them.
While the alienated parent will always be the bad guy, no matter how hard he tried. The child will reject the alienated parent and also everyone around that parent: stepparents, grandparents, uncles. Anyone who might not “side” with the alienating parent’s narrative.
“ You just hate my Mummy! No, Mummy didn’t tell me to say that!”
Frequently the alienated kid will repeat nearly every argument that you’ve heard from the alienating parent’ mouth. They will use the same words, phrases and reasonings. Without you asking, the child will reassure you that their decision to say certain means things to you is theirs and theirs alone.
They’ll insist the targeting parent isn’t influencing them — they would never do such a thing!
“Your Daddy is unwell and he might hurt you one day…”
The last stage is when the alienating parent stops trying to hide and becomes full obsessive and openly speaks badly about the other parent in front of the child with the aim to create a sense of “unease”, they might even resort to telling the child that the other parent is “dangerous” making child fear for their safety.
At this point, the parent aggressively seeks ways to manipulate the child and damage the relationship with the other parent. They might create “false memories”, make false allegations against the other party and tell children of the events which have never occurred which “may have” endangered the child.
Obsessive people exhibit these behaviours. And being obsessive is dangerous. Very often people who display obsessive and destructive tendencies tend to suffer from a variety of serious mental health conditions. They may have even been hospitalized on multiple occasions but they might have the situation “under control” for now.
These women have often unresolved emotional pain and psychological disorders. They are not affected by logic or reason. They are motivated by anger — all they wish to do is harm the other parent, unaware of how their actions affecting the child in-between.
If you consider yourself to be the “alienated” parent, please keep an eye on the parental alienation checklist which is widely used in family proceedings. Some of the alienating behaviours include:
- Talking negatively and name-calling the other parent
- Limiting, monitoring and obstructing the contact with the child
- Interfering with communication either by not allowing the parent to speak with the child or coming up with excuses as to why the child can’t have visitation
- Making the child choose sides, and choose with who to spend time
- Telling the child the other parent doesn’t love them
- Telling the child that the other parent is dangerous
- Telling the child about “past” and personal relationship with the other parent
- Telling the child to keep a secret from the other parent
- Asking the child to stop spending time with a stepparent
- Undermining and belittling the other parent
These are just a few techniques the “alienators” used to seriously damage a child’s relationship with one of the parents. It’s heartbreaking how many children are wounded for life because of such malicious parents.
Many of these kids become damaged goods. They lack empathy when growing up. They become cold and distant. They don’t understand what guilt or gratitude is. Their “alienated” parents suffer, while the children suffer more.
The question remains: why do parents resort to alienation?
They are angry. Selfish. These people should not have kids in the first place.
Only a weak person, a deadbeat would deploy the kids as weapons.
The women I knew who did that were weak, insecure, and miserable. They feel betrayed by their partner, they are very upset and they are unable to put aside these feelings to work along with their ex-partner to do what’s best for their children.
You will see these women usually using terms as “my” children rather than “our” children. They are severely controlling and they do vicious things only because they lost control over their partner.
But what goes around comes around. One day, not today, but one day, children will become adults and they won’t need their Mummy anymore.
One day, the abuse will cease.
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