The “Mama Bear” Who Failed Her Cub
Yes, it’s possible.
“She’s really a great mom,” my husband told me for years. “She’s totally unselfish.”
He was talking about his ex-wife, the mother of their only child.
It seemed to be true. Kathy had been completely dedicated to their son Jackson from the second he entered the world in late summer of 1999. She couldn’t bear to be away from him. She and David, who had been married for a few years prior to starting a family, stayed home most nights because she didn’t trust babysitters.
I’d been a stay-at-home mom on and off myself since my own children were little, so at first I didn’t see much of a problem with the level of dedication the ex had into their young son.
What I didn’t know was that, in Kathy’s mind, Jackson was her son.
She was the mama bear.
David told me that from the time they married to the birth of their son, his wife had been dedicated to their marriage, but once she became a mother, her commitment shifted rather abruptly. She now had eyes only for Jackson, he said. It was almost to the point of obsession.
When Jackson was three, David found out that he had an eight-year-old daughter with an old flame who hadn’t bothered to tell him until she’d ended her own marriage and…
