Fewer bonds are considered more sacred than the one that exists between a mother and her children. So, what happens when a woman rejects an already committed maternal instinct and hands over her position as primary carer to her male partner?
Here three women explain why they voluntarily gave custody of their children to the fathers.
Samantha
Samantha walked away from her four children for 12 months. The youngest, a girl, was three years old at the time. The eldest, another girl, was seven. The twins, boys, were five. For half of that period she had no contact with them at all, save her feverish phone-calls to her mother for news about how they were getting on.
"It wasn't a question of either my husband left the home or I did," she says. "Basically, I left because I was becoming abusive. I had lost it. I was losing my temper with the kids almost all of the time and I was violent with them.
"I didn't want them to go through what I had. The final straw was when I attacked my husband in the hall and the children were watching me from the stairs."
Samantha and her husband were unemployed back then. He was also frequently unfaithful. As Samantha puts it, "he nailed everything female that didn't run a mile from him". She herself had been beaten as a child by her mother and brother, without her father's knowledge. She felt she was slipping into the same mode of behaviour with her children.
"I honestly thought the kids were better off without me," she continues. "My husband had me convinced I was no good too. Nobody understood. I knew I needed help but didn't know how to go about getting it.
"Everyone was horrible. His family were the worst. On one occasion, after I'd come back for good, his brother attacked me in the kitchen. For a year afterwards, I heard my husband's mother was going to come up to the house and put me in my place."
A few months before her lengthy departure from her kids, Samantha ran away for a week to a friend's flat. She hid there from her husband's family of whom, she says, she was truly frightened. No one knew where she was.
She wasn't in contact with her children at all during those seven long days. They were told she'd gone to England to work. She hadn't a clue how long she was going to stay away. On this occasion, her mind was made up for her when she found out her husband had been imprisoned for failure to pay car tax and insurance. She came home immediately.
While her husband was incarcerated Samantha started a relationship with another man. When she made the big break, she and her partner moved to the countryside. Her husband had told her she was wrecking his and the kids' lives by living close and dropping in only to go again. Down the country, she tried to start anew, even going back to school. It didn't work out.
"I'm not suicidal but if it hadn't been for my boyfriend I probably wouldn't be here today," she states, tears welling up in her eyes.
"I felt like I was an alien on Earth. My mother gave me up for adoption when I was three. When I was pregnant with my last I refound her, only to be rejected again. I vowed I'd never leave my children yet here I was. I missed them terribly. All I can say is that you don't know what you'll do until you're in that situation."
Samantha admits she might have stayed out of her children's lives permanently if her husband had been taking care of them properly. One day, out of the blue, she called to see them only to discover her husband's girlfriend "rolling up a joint" in the kitchen while the kids played in the sitting-room. She grabbed them instantly and took them to her boyfriend's parents' house.
"It wasn't too difficult getting the kids back. My husband didn't want them," informs Samantha. "I went for help to a brilliant counsellor. I don't hit the kids at all now. I have a job. I'm not in a relationship with anyone and I've told my kids everything. In fact, they asked me more in-depth questions than anyone.
"The one question that rocked me completely was when they asked me why I'd come back. They didn't think they were worth it. There's still terrible guilt but you learn to live with it."
Catherine
Catherine was 19 when she became pregnant. The father was 27. At the time, she was working in animation. She's now a screen printer. They lived and socialised in the same suburban village of Co Dublin. The relationship lasted into the third month of pregnancy.
Seven years later, communication between Catherine and Fiona's father is still extremely poor. The difference is Fiona now lives full-time with her father and his fiancee. For a while, Catherine took Fiona for the weekend but now she works at that time and only has her for the one night during the week.
Catherine has been in counselling since she was 17. She suffers from depression (though not clinical). She forfeited her custody of Fiona because she felt she was teaching her daughter patterns of behaviour that would lead her into the same blind alley of lethargy, despair and low self-esteem. She has been on Prozac for 3 1/2 years out of the four years since she handed over Fiona.
"In the immediate period after we agreed Fiona would go to live with her father I suffered terrible panic attacks. I was in bits. Half of me was telling me this is the right thing to do. The other half was asking myself how I could possibly do this to anyone."
Catherine admits at one point she considered whether it might not be better for Fiona if her mother got out of her life altogether. She's glad she didn't, even though she thinks the bonds between them are not as strong as they used to be.
"Support from his parents and mine during the pregnancy was fantastic," Catherine explains. "However, the relationship between myself and my mother hasn't been very good.
"She was very hurt when she found out I was giving Fiona to her father. My dad said one or two things that indicated he understood a little what I was going through. We've never really discussed it."
Catherine hasn't yet told Fiona her reasons for doing what she did. Fiona is very sensitive, she says, and would worry terribly if she thought her mother was in trouble.
"I really don't know how to tell her without sounding all doom and gloom," she adds. "She's financially better off where she is now and she gets on great with her father's fiancee."
Catherine doesn't rule out becoming a mother again in the future. At the same time, she feels a lot of women go into motherhood not knowing what to expect and end up disappointed. In her own case, she was waiting for it to all come naturally but, she says, it never happened.
"I don't think I can be loving towards anyone, really," she comments. "My mother was the same. I was starting to show her impatience towards Fiona. Until I'm capable of taking care of myself I don't feel I can mind someone else. Still, every day it kills me."
Mary
Mary had her son when she was 20. By the time he was 2 1/2 years old her relationship with his father had disintegrated. She chose to stay in London, where they were living, and pursue her career. Father and son moved to the rural south-east of Ireland. Originally, it was planned they would all move there together.
"I didn't just want to be a housewife and a mother," says Mary. "It's a positive thing that your children can see you're more than just the person who cleans the house and looks after them. My mother reared 10 but I felt she wanted to do something more. I didn't want to end up forcing my children to be the things I yearned to be."
According to Mary, there was a big effort on both sides to ensure she saw her son as often as possible, even though they were living in different countries.
As an act of goodwill, Mary guaranteed her partner full custody, which he got. She knew he was a good father, but as an unmarried one he had no rights.
"There was a really close bond between my son and I," she suggests. "I breastfed him for a year. After 12 months the desire to see him became overwhelming and interfered too much with the career I was hoping to be successful in. My personal life became the priority. Your children leave you when they're older anyway. I lost two years. It was just too soon to say goodbye."
