sharing motherhood?

[blossom]

Indianas last post on the thread that has gone way off topic from a guy trying to pick up a pretty girl but getting his attempts sabotaged, reminded me of a situation I found myself in about 2 years ago.
The subject is a little unconventional, but has interesting tribal references involved, so I wanted to put it out there and see what people think.

The situation was that about 2 years ago , when I was living in a home with 2 other housemates, and I met a woman who was technically homeless who had a 10 year old daughter with obesity issues. I knew that we had a granny flat out the back and asked the lease holder if we could let this woman and her child stay there for a set time until she had found a stable home.
He agreed to this for a period of 2-3 weeks, so they moved in!

Of course, it is never as simple as that, and what unfolded was nothing short of book worthy, and I'm working on that one, mainly as therapy for me as it all went terribly wierd and I ended up homeless, by some strange twist of fate.
The woman, having managed to charm the lease holder and other housemate, as she was INCREDIBLY beautiful, like forest faery otherworldly beautiful, was not coping very well at all with being a mum, and also had PTSD symptoms. She needed alot of support, which I did my best to provide without getting drawn into her poor me/victim drama, which she was spreading on pretty thick let me tell ya'
Basically she wanted me to take over being her daughters mother while she ran off and tried to get her life back! Yes you read that one right folks

Now, it was around this time that I was smack bang in the middle of my ongoing battle against my hormones, societal conditioning and the constant urge to have a baby, whilst being surrounded by women having kids everywhere I looked, so, for a while I actually considered taking over for her!
She was a pretty magical being, and I'm not sure whether I was carried away a bit by her prescence in the house...I mean, I'm basically straight, but even I was a little bit in love with this woman!

I did not end up taking over, and instead found myself booted out, after she had seduced the lease holder, taken over the house and been entirely rude to me in the process, when I'm the one who gave her a place to live in the first place. Bee-atch right!

So, my interest in relaying this story to you all is to find out what you all think about the concept of a stranger taking over the role of motherhood for another "sister" in this modern world?

In tribal times, as a community, women were expected to take turns bearing the load of motherhood...and this woman had lived in the forest, in communal settings for over 10 years, so, to her, it wasn't a big ask at all!

[ssandra]

All the drama aside from this woman, I think the best thing you can do as a parent for your children is recognise when you are not suited to be a good parent for them, and find someone better. Being homeless would be not suited in my opinion.

It doesn´t even have to be forever, just until you are back on your feet.

in this situation I do think that she was just looking for the easy way out. In which case I think it is good that you didn´t take over, because you could have been in worse trouble, but I would have also suggested (if you asked for advice back then) to notify the authorities, because this child deserves a better chance in life.

[blossom]

Yes, it is something I was just discussing with a friend not five minutes ago! I feel like whilst neither of them were my responsability, I could have contacted child services. I tried telling friends but noone believed me, they all thought I was paranoid and exaggerating, but I wasn't.

To make matters worse the lease holder was heavily involved in a cult and I tried to talk to her rationally about the fact that I could see that she wasn't very grounded at the time, and that maybe it wasn't the best thing for either of them to get involved with this man, but she insisted that she was in love with him, when all I could see was this guy who kept trying to rescue everyone when he really needed to look at saving himself...I've been there myself!

The mother was just escaping into pot smoking and acting all insane...she just wanted someone to take care of her for a change, and when I refused to give into her she got seriously rude and was leaving little curse dollies outside my room, trying to scare me, sewing things onto my childhood dolls without my permission and other bizarre and rather creepy behaviour.

She believed that rich people should give their money to her, she wanted me to give her my job even...she just wanted handouts, and I knew it wasn't empowering for her and it wasn't what was best for her daughter.
At the time though I had my own problems.
My boyfriend left me the same week as my parents split and then the lease holder kicked me out rather abusively and I spent the next 6 months looking for a place, three of them in a shelter...so I did have my hands full.
Looking back on it I do wish I had called someone...I was pretty traumatized myself though.