"As a parent..."

Absolutely. I'd argue that having children makes some self-absorbed people even more self absorbed than they were before, and that a number of them are in this thread.

Ok try this different reviewed research. Concludes parents under significant changes in social cognition including an increase in empathy. There are others but I assume to can use google too.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62622-7

The humour comes in with parents saying 'having children makes me so much more empathetic. For example when I hear of tragedies now I ìmmediately think of how I would feel if this affected ME PERSONALLY'

"Generally" bring the key word here - and then you go on to dismiss all childless women in your last sentence!

That is an un peer reviewed study from 2 years ago and as such it’s difficult to know how much credibility to attach to it.

Well we could always settle this with science rather than opinion. Being a mother ‘generally’ makes you more empathetic. A number of studies. One here.

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-478801/v1

If you don’t have children you don’t know. Sorry

There have been a lot of posts like yours which proves that many people do develop a deeper sense of empathy after having a child.
However, I did not! I've ALWAYS felt huge, painful empathy for others (especially children). Before having kids I used to hear news stories of abused children and I'd feel like I'd been kicked in the stomach, physically sick. These stories would haunt me. Having a child hasn't changed this one bit! My reaction to children suffering is exactly the same as it's always been.
Please don't think I'm bragging, saying I have more empathy than others. My ex used to say I felt empathy to a neurotic degree and he was right. It's a curse, nothing good about it! It's something I've inherited from my mum.
But what I'm trying to say is that some people (yes even those without kids!) do feel the pain of others extremely deeply. There are plenty of women WITHOUT children who will feel more empathy towards children than women with children!

@Mark19735 Your tripadvisor example is that there’s a person who has never been to Spain, and is Spainsplaining to those who have all about Spain.

A better example is that the person has been to Spain and had a different experience, but keeps being told that they haven’t been to Spain or that their visit to Spain doesn’t count as it wasn’t a proper one.

You regard it as an indisputable fact that parents are the only ones who can experience Spain, and anyone else is just pretending to have done so and/or has dysmorphia or bitterness about their inability to go there. I find that incredibly arrogant, but recognise that we’re never going to agree.

The weird thing is that people like the OP seem to look for offence in how others express their own emotions.

Not remotely it.This thread has turned into a bunch of parents telling childless women that they know our emotions better than we do. I don’t think that anyone is wrong to find that insulting.

*things like this 🤦🏼‍♀️

I even explained to my mother how to cross the road safely the first time she took my child out for a walk...

Omg me too! She just smiled & nodded but I couldn't help it. It's like a visceral need isn't it!?

@LaPerduta Sorry I disagree. I mean I get what you're saying that yes, I'd still feel a tremendous amount of empathy for the child if I wasn't a parent but since becoming one, my reaction to thinks like this has intensified quite a lot! It immediately makes you imagine the same happening to your own child and your natural, maternal protective instinct & emotions kick in.

It's totally different

The truth is, and a huge reason as to why our society is in such an awful state, is that the vast majority of people don’t actually give a shit about unjust situations unless they can personally relate to them (eg fathers of girls, parents of teens, people with disabled siblings etc.)
Has anyone actually said they didn't give a shit until they had children though?

Acknowledging that your emotional reaction is different when something resonates personally is different to not giving a shit beforehand.

The weird thing is that people like the OP seem to look for offence in how others express their own emotions.

You didn’t ‘simply’ state anything 😂

Posting views on a BMW or holiday resort is very different to the ability to express empathy which in case you weren’t sure means imagining what someone else feels. You can’t imagine the mechanics of a BMW.

The truth is, and a huge reason as to why our society is in such an awful state, is that the vast majority of people don’t actually give a shit about unjust situations unless they can personally relate to them (eg fathers of girls, parents of teens, people with disabled siblings etc.)

Well I suppose it might just be the majority of Mumsnet users. Perhaps the outlook is not so bleak.

I am with you OP.

And then I went onto Tripadvisor and got into a bit of a spat when I left some reviews on holidays to places I'd never been to. I mean, who are they to say that my opinions are any less valid than theirs. You don't have to have been to a place to leave a review about it - AIBU?

^ to be fair I often think has this reviewer even been here because it sounds nothing like where I went 😂

Well clearly there exceptions! But I wpuld say for most parents this is the case. Before kids if something happened to a child I would feel sympathy like most people but afyer kids it's different, I can't help but think about what it would be like if it was my child and I feel much sadder and want to be closer to my children at the time

I think this comment summarises why OP gets annoyed. The obvious answer is you do need to experience something to really understand it, this is with anything including having children. And often they're saying it, as you might "as a sister", "as a fellow whatever" or similar. But also many people do use that wording and come from a place of superiority, particularly when the default is you might have a "chip" to even question it, and secretly you probably want kids yourself (which is the dumbest response and there are a few on here who do this), and how dare you come on mumsnet to ask anything if it's not all about the muuuummmmmm

Mark You are repeatedly failing to comprehend the difference between an opinion and an emotion.

Take your example: arguing why not having a car makes my opinions on the latest BMW especially relevant - at least as relevant as theirs

Your opinion on, say, how smoothly a particular car drives or how well it takes corners or whatever other things people who are car experts share views on, will of course be informed by your experience of driving it (you wouldn't actually have to own a given car to have experience of driving it, but I get your general principle).

However, many people are 'into' fast cars, they are passionate about luxury cars, Porches and Ferraris and so on even if they have no hope of ever owning one. That is an emotion rather than an opinion. And, conversely, many people hate petrol-guzzling fast cars because of their environmental impact and wouldn't dream of ever owning one - an equally valid emotional response.

Fair points 😂

I had to read this twice+ (don’t have my glasses on) but bravo 😂

*AIBU to think that it is not necessary to be a parent to be able to feel empathy/sympathy towards a child who has had a traumatic experience?

As someone who is not a parent, I find this trope to be quite insulting*

Someone is saying "as a parent" and it conveys an emotional stratum or two that other parents will feel, too, - this sort of thing "as someone who has had experience X" enables people to express/have a small empathetic connection with others.

It seems to me you have a chip on your shoulder about people being parents, expressing themselves in the light thereof, and want to justify the fact that you feel entitlement to some sort of injury when it happens. imo YABU to seek it on MUMSnet.

Sorry, I would have replied sooner but I was on a thread on pistonheads arguing why not having a car makes my opinions on the latest BMW especially relevant - at least as relevant as theirs. I can't believe how rude and dismissive they were.

And then I went onto Tripadvisor and got into a bit of a spat when I left some reviews on holidays to places I'd never been to. I mean, who are they to say that my opinions are any less valid than theirs. You don't have to have been to a place to leave a review about it - AIBU?

I make no comparison between the absolute levels of empathy in parents and non-parents. I simply state that most parents attest to having increased their empathy and feeling when discussing topics related to children being harmed since they themselves became parents. It's a reasonable hypothesis that non-parents have even more capacity for even greater empathy than they already experience, based on the testimony of all the other people who have become parents. But clearly the ones posting here are all 100% OK with their lot, all tickety-boo, and have no issues or hang-ups at all. They just hang round a forum for parents complaining at how left out they feel when parents discuss parent-y things.

Now, I'm off to find some GC forums to tell them how trans women are feeling left out and excluded by all this biological essentialism. I mean, who's to say that a biological man doesn't feel more feminine than a biological woman, right?

I haven’t read the whole thread but I have read the OPs messages.

About 12 years ago I was working as a fairly senior ICU ‘trainee’ doctor- 8 years into post graduate and a year from being a consultant.

I did not have children at that time.

One night a 14 year old came in as a crash call after an incident, in cardiac arrest. Myself and my colleague (same age/ grade) attended as the airway and intensive care seniors.

We could not save this boy despite all and everyone’s efforts.

We were all devastated. But the people on the team with children were, for a while, inconsolable. My close colleague cried for hours after, I had to take her bleep from her to attend other calls. She felt this child’s death so much more than me, thinking of her own children at home asleep and thinking about the child’s parents receiving this most awful news.

I was upset- really upset- about the child’s death but not in the same way as my colleague who was a mother.

Fast forward a few years- working in paediatrics- when I was heavily pregnant with my second child and toddler at home… I regularly had a quiet cry in the loos after doing my rounds on the children’s cancer ward.

Point of long ramble is: having children massively intensified or chanted my own visceral responses to children suffering in a way I couldn’t have anticipated.

That doesn’t take away from that fact that before children I felt huge empathy for children and families. It just made it feel more personal and therefore much more acute.

On that basis I vote YABU.

Indeed @PussBilledDuckyPlait !

It's interesting, isn't it, in these threads where posters such as @Mark19735 (oh so empathic because they're a parent, doncha know?) basically tell non-parents to fuck off, no-one talks about the oh-so-caring-because-they're-parents sociopaths, isn't it? Or the selfish people who become parents? Or the narcissist parents?

No-one says "As a parent, I drink too much and neglect my children".

But apparently "As a parent" gives someone a magical insight into deep emotion that is completely unknown to anyone not a parent.

It's BS.