Mothers Who Leave: Behind the Myth of Women Without Their Children

by Rosemary Jackson

In Britain an estimated 100,000 women live without their children, in the United States at least half a million. Yet mothers who've left are still thought of as abnormal, immoral, even deviant. Drawing on her own experience and that of many other women, Rosie Jackson asks what can drive a mother to relinquish her children and examines the emotional aftermath. Exploding the myths that surround such mothers, myths that range from vampirism to hard-hearted feminism, she explores this dark side of mothering with unusual depth and sensitivity.

333 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994