social-&-emotional
A Single Mother’s Tough Choice: Leaving Her 3-Year-Old to Build a Better Future for Them Both
Published: 06/02/26
Updated: 06/02/26
When a short airport video surfaced online, it took only a few seconds for the internet to pass judgment. A mother with teary eyes walks away, leaving a 3-year-old child.
To many strangers watching from behind their screens, it looked like abandonment. To the woman living that moment, it was the hardest decision of her life.
When Motherhood Comes With No Safety Net
Manasa Banoth, the 28-year-old mother, said that she faced domestic violence in her marriage. The motherhood arrived with joy and then with sudden isolation. After her daughter was born in 2022, her marriage collapsed. Her husband cut off contact. Overnight, she found herself not just a new mother, but a single parent carrying emotional, financial, and social responsibility alone.
Like many women in similar situations, Manasa leaned on her parents. They helped with childcare, expenses, and emotional support. But dependency came with its own weight. She worked night shifts and earned around ₹35,000 a month which was enough to survive, but not enough to secure her daughter’s future.
School fees, healthcare, rent, rising costs was getting out of hand. She wasn’t dreaming of luxury. But basic stability is what she wanted for herself and daughter.
And slowly, she realised staying where she was might keep her close to her daughter, but not help her move forward. So she took the next bold step –further studies in abroad.
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The Decision No Mother Wants to Make
The idea of studying abroad didn’t come from ambition alone, it came from desperation and hope. Higher education meant better opportunities, higher income, and a chance to break out of constant financial anxiety.
After applying and being accepted into a master’s programme in Internetworking at Dalhousie University in Canada, Manasa faced a reality that would break any parent’s heart, she couldn’t take her daughter with her immediately.
Legal hurdles stood in the way. Her child’s passport required consent from her estranged husband - a consent he refused to give. Court cases take time. Visas have deadlines. Dreams don’t pause for paperwork.
So Manasa made a decision - she would go first, study, work, and prepare the ground so her daughter could later join her.
The Goodbye That Shook the Internet
On January 26, at the airport, Manasa recorded a short video (not expecting it to go viral) She wrote: “23 kg allowed… so I left my heaviest piece of my heart behind.”
The clip showed a mother torn between the present pain and a future promise.
Instead of empathy, the internet responded with outrage. People questioned her motherhood, her priorities, her morals. Some said she should have stayed no matter what. Others assumed she was choosing herself over her child.
What they didn’t see was the years of struggle behind that moment - the sleepless nights, the calculations, the fear of failing her child by staying stuck.
Life Abroad Is Not an Escape
Canada didn’t offer comfort. It offered challenge.
Manasa now studies full-time while working two part-time jobs - one at a coffee shop, another at a restaurant. She pays rent, utilities, food, and transport on her own. There are no shortcuts.
Every call with her daughter is both comfort and ache. Every night ends with the same promise: This separation is temporary.
When Love Chooses Strength Over Comfort
Manasa has said she no longer wants to depend on her father. She wants to stand on her own feet. She wants to earn enough to give her daughter the kind of upbringing she herself received.
This is what many critics fail to understand. Sometimes love means staying close, and sometimes love means stepping away to build something stronger.
For migrant parents, single mothers, and struggling families across the world, sacrifice often looks messy. It doesn’t fit neatly into viral clips or moral absolutes. But it is still love.
For Manasa, leaving was not the easy option. Staying would have been easier emotionally but harder in the long run.
Manasa is now fighting her legal battle to bring her daughter to Canada.
One day, when her daughter is old enough to understand, she may learn that her mother didn’t leave because she wanted to - she left because she had to.
Because sometimes, a mother walks away not to escape responsibility, but to carry it better.
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