Eleven years ago , Brenda Heist dropped off her young kids at school -- and never returned . Not to pick them up later , and not to their Pennsylvania home . The family thought she was dead . That something terrible had happened to her . What else could explain the sudden disappearance of a woman her daughter , then 8 , later described as a `` great '' mom ? But then last week , after more than a decade , Heist turned up in Florida , revealing to police that she had n't been kidnapped or killed . She had , she said , been stressed . Most mothers are familiar with the feeling -- for some it 's more fleeting than for others -- of total exhaustion , frustration , a sense of being overwhelmed by duty and the responsibility of raising children . Maybe some indulge in a momentary fantasy of running away . Though there are no hard numbers , reports would seem to indicate that the number of moms who actually do run away -- or at least walk away -- is increasing . According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the number of single fathers has been rising steadily , from more than 600,000 in 1982 to more than 2 million in 2011 . Anecdotally , too , we 're hearing more from mothers who leave their children due to choice or circumstance . There 's Rahna Reiko Rizzuto , who wrote in an essay for Salon.com that she realized , when her sons were 3 and 5 that she did n't want to be a full-time mother anymore . There are even support groups now for women who decide to leave their children . What is happening ? It 's hard to say , but our increasingly me-first world might have something to do with it . According to a study published in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science , clinical narcissism -- defined by heightened feelings of entitlement , decreased morality and a dog-eat-dog mentality -- has increased by 30 % over the past 20 years . Two out of every three people now measure high for the disorder . In her book `` The Narcissism Epidemic , '' Jean Twenge argues that we live in a culture that not only tolerates , but also encourages , `` being true to ourselves '' and `` never compromising . '' This can extend to parenthood , as more and more mothers and fathers resist the notion that parenthood is necessarily life changing -- and perhaps not all it 's cracked up to be . A 2010 New York magazine story titled `` All Joy and No Fun : Why parents hate parenting , '' for example , cited a 2004 study by behavioral economic Daniel Kahneman that found that child care ranked 16th in pleasure out of 19 activities among the Texas women surveyed . Except , of course , parenting is n't always supposed to be fun . Whoever said it was ? Mothers who abandon their children tend to be judged far more harshly by society , and by their children , than fathers who do the same -- though not because of outcome . According to various studies , including a 1994 report in the Journal of Family Issues , children raised in single-father homes as a whole fare as well as those in single-mother homes . From an emotional standpoint , there are no studies to show that children of absentee mothers are angrier than those of absentee fathers . But anecdotally , this seems to be the case . If this is true , it has to do with the fact that although stereotypical gender roles for women have changed , with more men staying home to raise the kids as mom brings home the bacon and father cooks it , societal expectations for mothers remain rooted firmly in the traditional . Case in point : Although the number of stay-at-home fathers -- about 154,000 according to the 2010 census -- is on the rise , women still carry out more of the domestic work , according to a report by Pew Research Center . American culture , meanwhile , is still conditioned -- through the media and pop culture -- to believe that many women 's greatest desire is to have a baby . When mothers abandon their children , it 's seen as unnatural . Could this imbalance of responsibility and expectation be another reason more women are abandoning their children ? It 's possible . As one married mother of two , Janelle , told me , `` My husband does n't do much . I have to do and plan for everything myself . '' It 's easy to see where resentment could come in . The positive spin : Most experts , myself included , agree that it 's better for a child to have an absent parent than a parent who 's present but neglectful -- or worse . And in my experience , children who come to accept the abandonment of a parent , specifically a mother , tend to be more forgiving when they believe that in doing so they were given a better life , whether that was the mother 's intent or not . Of course , every single case is different and there are few generalizations to be made . Brenda Heist 's children , for their part , want nothing to do with their mother . The good news is that being raised by a single parent does not condemn a child to a disadvantaged life . These days , the unconventional family is the norm . Thankfully , when it comes to parenting , it 's quality over quantity .
After disappearing for more than a decade , Brenda finally showed up in 2008 . Nancy Drexler : Reports that the number of moms who run away is on the rise . She thinks our increasingly me - first narcissistic tendencies might have something to do with it . Drexler : Mothers who abandon their children are still judged more harshly by society .