Abandon children, so it's said (4)
I believe the answer is:
cede
'abandon' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'children so it's said' is the wordplay.
'children' becomes 'seed' (seed can mean one's offspring).
'so it's said' indicates a 'sounds like' (homophone) clue.
'seed' sounds like 'CEDE'.
(Other definitions for cede that I've seen before include "Yield, give way" , "Deliver" , "Allow" , "21 across" , "Yield formally" .)