Mum reveals how spending two years away from her kids made her a BETTER mother
Kim Chartes admitted leaving her two boys with their dad when she and her new partner moved away was 'the hardest thing'
A MUM who spent two years away from her kids has revealed why she believes it made her a better mother.
Kim Chartes, from the US, admitted leaving her two boys with their father when she and her new partner moved away was “the hardest thing I’d ever do in my life”.
But ultimately, it helped her to reflect on “mistakes” she’d been making and gave her the opportunity to re-evaluate how she parented her children.
Writing on , Kim explained how she’s always been a hands-on mum, choosing to stay at home and run the local playgroup rather than go back to work.
“Watching my sons morph into young men before my eyes was an irreplaceable experience, but it was clouded by judgement from friends that I was being overprotective for failing to let them out of my sight,” she said.
But everything changed when she and their stepdad decided to move away - something Kim had always wanted to do. They gave the boys, aged 14 and 17, the option of coming with them, or staying with their dad.
They decided to stay, and as Kim and her partner drove away several weeks later, the reality of the situation hit home.
“My tears started flowing,” she wrote. “Knowing I’d left them in capable hands was no consolation.”
The first year was the hardest for all of them, and more than once Kim packed up her things and began the drive back.
“The pain of not having my children around was unbearable and despite being surrounded by family, I’d lost my purpose and reason to get up in the morning,” she explained.
“For so long I’d been a mother, and without daily contact I really wasn’t sure who I was anymore.”
But during the second year, Kim had an “epiphany”. She told how she began to understand where her friends had been coming from when they said she was overprotective of her kids.
“I’d gotten so used to doing absolutely everything for my children, that it was only after a year of seeing them in a different living environment that I could see I’d been holding on too tight,” she wrote.
“Life with their father was different. He didn’t chase after them like I always had. He made them catch public transport, cook their own meals and do their own washing.
“They became more independent and self-confident in their own abilities, and I watched in amazement as their father continued living his life in much the same fashion as he always had, despite having our kids under his roof.”
It was at this point that Kim started to see the “crucial mistakes” she’d been making, and despite the fact she’d brought up two polite, caring young men, she’d never given them the opportunity to really make their own choices.
She described the opportunity to evaluate her parenting as “invaluable”, as she realised she couldn’t protect them from everything, no matter how hard she tried, and trying to do so was “doing them a disservice”.
Kim moved back after two years, having felt something was “missing” without her boys around her, and returned “a new and improved version of my former self” that was “no longer ruled by guilt and negative emotions”.
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She concluded: “Parenting was suddenly much more simple. And my sons were better young men for it.”
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