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At the age of five years, Khadija Mohammed’s parents divorced and each one of them went their separate ways. Her mother took off with her.

They moved in with her maternal grandmother where they stayed for a while before her mother got herself another lover who later married her.

At the same, her father also got married to another woman. The two basically forgot about Khadija who had to keep up with abusive uncles and aunties.

And while both her parents started another life with other spouses, she was denied the much-needed parental love. This has caused her years of anguish, pain and resentment towards her parents.

“I don’t know why my mother did not move with me to her new home and left me at my grandmother’s place,” says Khadija who was born and raised in Kwale.

The worst thing is that her parents never provided for her.“I saw how my grandmother struggled to feed, clothe and even educate me while both my parents were alive,” she says.

Lack of connection

With each passing day, her resentment towards them grew, but it pushed her towards working hard so as to get out of the poverty they lived in.

Fortunately, Khadija was able to excel in her education and got a lucrative job, which she terms as the best revenge against her parents. Despite her success, Khadija is yet to understand why her parents left her in the hands of her grandmother without any sheer concern.

“My grandmother will never miss anything as long as I’m alive, but I really do not care about what happens to my parents,” she says.

Khadija has never been in good terms with her parents or her siblings from their other marriages. “I do not have any relations or connections with my step-siblings. I cannot imagine staying in one room with them,” she says.

Even though Khadija is hesitant in accepting the anger inside her, it is evident that the denial of parental love has had a great impact on her.

Sometimes, parents might not know the after-effects of divorce on their children —worse still, when they abandon their children and move to their next marriages.

Experts say children often have feelings of loss, anger, confusion and anxiety. A child may feel a sense of loss. Others can feel rejected and insecure

Psychologist Loise Okello says the anger of children left behind by parents who move on to start new life with other partners is justifiable as they lack love, which was, however given to their siblings in the other marriages.

The expert shares that children may develop attachment disorders, conditions that can develop in young children who have issues establishing a deep emotional connection—known as the attachment bond—with their parent or primary caregiver.

Since the quality of the attachment bond profoundly impacts your child’s development, experiencing attachment issues can affect their ability to express emotions, develop trust and security, and build meaningful relationships later in life.

“Children left behind often feel abandoned and rejected and may end up being traumatised. If this is not checked, it might grow to hatred towards the parents, especially the mother,” she says.

Tough choices

But why would a mother leave some of her children behind? Counselling psychologist Kabi Thuo says divorced or separated women who have children are forced to make tough choices when it comes to deciding on whether to move in with their children to the new marriages or not.

He says top on the list on why children from other marriages are left behind is because the mother might not be certain about the welfare of the children under a new father figure, making them a bit hesitant.

“Women are anthropologically wired to nurture children and they will not move with them before ascertaining that the move is sustainable in the long term,” he says. 

Thuo says in most circumstances, such parents feel their new homes are not yet safe for their children and, therefore opt to leave them behind.

Other times, the new spouse or his family may reject the children. In some communities, the culture demands children be left with their fathers and when the fathers are not willing to take responsibility or are violent, then they are left with grandparents.

“African men are wary of children sired by other men, especially if they are sons, largely because of cultural orientation and matters inheritance. There is a belief that you might invest in someone else’s son and when they become adults, they fly away to their biological father,” he notes. 

Thuo further says despite the modern mothers embracing the existence of their other children, there is a crop of women who would not want to bring “baggage” including children from their previous marriages to their new relationships.

He says introducing and integrating the two sets of children require time. This is especially difficult for children, especially teenage who already have an identity and self-awareness.

Some children, he says, also have a strong bond with their biological fathers and trying to introduce another arrangement might also backfire on the mother.  

He shares how integrating children early in the relationship may cause a lot of conflicts and rivalry, which can result to maladjusted behaviour, while late integration may result to rejection or mistrust between the siblings.

“If a mother does not give concrete reasons on why she left some of her children behind, they might hate her, or lose the bond and trust they had,” he says.

Thuo says children born out of the new marriage are justified to feel some entitlement while those who were left behind can only learn to cope with new realities of abandonment and perceptions of hate.

He shares how majority of children left behind by their parents normally do not see the need to amend things with their parents because the pain of rejection is still strong.

He says unless the parent initiates the process, most children are likely to stay away from the parents and seek comfort from those who were present while growing up.

“Growing up in the hands of another person yet your parents are alive is not an easy thing. Parents can take the first step to bring these children closer by seeking forgiveness and explaining why they had to leave them,” he adds.