"As a parent..."

You know, im lucky enough to have parented a child even though I haven't given birth to or fathered one, but prior to that I experienced the pain of infertility. Anyway, Children are my future as much as they are their parents'. And to not care profoundly about their wellbeing is to not care about oneself.

World would be

I feel everything you feel but haven't been a biological parent. I feel that the would be a better place if we collivectely as a society cared more deeply for OUR children

The people who make the "as a parent" comments are likely the same ones who insist that you simply CANNOT know true love unless you have children - their whole identity and personality is being a parent and it centers in everything they do, so I guess it doesn't register with them that people who aren't parents and don't have their children at the center of everything are also able to feel things like sympathy and love etc.

Speaking for myself, when becoming a parent, I found anything to do with atrocities against children too much to bear. Where before having children, I would feel sad about these situations, now I'd be imagining my own child in their position, and its utterly heartbreaking to think about.

That could just indicate you are quite a shallow person, incapable of sympathetic imagination about anything outside your direct experience.

An interesting example of this… for reasons which I won’t go into, a support session was set up where I work relating to an incident involving CSA.

The support session was in theory for all staff affected but heavily banded with “as parents, we are horrified…”, and “let’s get together and share our feelings as parents”.

I am a survivor of CSA and so stories do affect me in quite a profound way. I didn’t want to go and share my feelings with my colleagues anyway, but it was such an obvious statement that no person could be as affected by the incident as a parent.

That narrative is persistent through this thread, and I genuinely don’t understand why some parents have to play top trumps over things like, what type of love is deepest and what type of sadness is strongest. I feel as though it’s an attempt to demonstrate that parents are the most empathetic but ironically it does the opposite, because everyone else’s experiences are automatically less simply because they’ve not used their reproductive organs.

Maybe that’s a feeling that parents simply can’t understand!

Yup. Those who are parents, know. Those who aren't need to learn some humility and accept that their not being parents means there are some things they simply can't comprehend. It's not always about your views or feelings - when parents say "as a parent" it's a clear signal that they are talking about the feelings that parents have experienced and want to talk about - as parents.

Thought experiment ... how much does it wind the same posters up when a man puts on a frock and says "as a woman, ..."? Or is that somehow different? If so ... how?

This topic is ridiculous. As a parent some things just hit harder.

Also I think I was probably more sensitive to the ‘as a parent’ prefix as before DD I’d had many years of infertility. However I still don’t like it and wouldn’t say it myself. The only way is use it is if it was a situation directly related to being a parent I was discussing ie ‘as a parent I find it hard to attend 7 am meetings at work / travel overseas’ etc. I wouldn’t use it to express emotion / opinions about a topical event.

I think that parents and non parents are both able to empathise and feel shock and horror about bad things happening to children, of course. I was 15 when maddie mcann went missing and I remember being really upset for her, many years before I had a baby.

However, I used to not agree with the death penalty but now, I would be capable of torture and murder myself if anyone hurt my child. So I would say that becoming a parent definitely changes people. How could it not?

Its not that I didn't care or understand before kids... when i hear of something awful happening to a child (death, horrible illness, bullying, abuse ect...) it's a whole different feeling. It's like my body reacts and there is an overwhelming panic because I think of my kids in that situation. And it stays in my mind. Before kids I'd feel sad for a minute then forget it.

if you have kids one day you’ll get it. If you’re not going to then maybe MN isn’t the place for you because it’s full of us people who think being a parent changes you as a person.

Oh ffs, it's also full of people who don't think that at all, and are sick of seeing people with kids try to chase people without kids off the site.

You are overthinking this.

What was probably meant is that the writer ends up being even concerned about their own teen going out when they hear about these incidents.

Which of course would not be an issue for someone who does not have children to worry about.

Not the same thing as those smug parents who seem to think having kids makes them superior/wiser/more important...

The difference between viewing an incident as someone with children and as someone without is this, for me. If I am not a parent I can see it as a terrible thing that has happened to a young person and sympathise hugely. If I view the incident as a parent,particularly if my child is a similar age at that point, it adds an extra layer because that's another thing I have to worry will happen to my actual ,existing child. As a parent I would know absolutely the long lasting and dreadful fallout that would have come if either of my sons had been mugged. If I didn't have those sons I wouldn't have had to consider that.

I don't necessarily agree with the more / less empathetic analysis. I don't think people who use the phrase "as a parent" are saying they're more empathetic, but I also don't think it shows they're less empathetic.

Like others, for me personally having children changed my emotional reaction to these stories. I probably feel the same empathy as I did before, but I feel far more emotionally invested and upset by anything happening to children. Agree that on some level its probably Imagining that it were my DC. But part of it is I find it much easier to imagine the person who has had the bad thing happen to them. Prior to my own child I didn't really know what a 2, 3, 4 year old was like. Now when I hear something happening to someone of those ages I form a much clearer picture of them.

I also find it jars far more against my own instincts to protect my child at all costs. Before I think that I thought of crimes against teenagers as worse than crimes against adults, but an extension of the same category. Now they're an entirely different category to me, unspeakably worse. I don't know / care whether this makes me more or less empathetic than the average person (I don't it doesn't sway either way) but it's just how I've experienced a change in Myself.

‘It reminds me of a relative who, despite being very well-off, was almost anti giving to charity. Then someone in her immediate family got cancer and suddenly she's a passionate fundraiser for cancer charities.’

Someone’s
life experience has changed their opinion - hardly front page news?
And in this case changed it in a way that is probably a positive thing? W

what a weird thing to use as an example. If anything it shows why a big thing like - oh, having children maybe- completely changes your POV.

and I say that as a parent, because my experience as a parent is relevant

I always cared. Since having children I have become unhelpfully emotional in my response to children's pain. The pain level of the personal response has altered. I'm not alone in that. Doesn't mean I objectively care more and someone who is not a parent might have started out at that level of response. Doesn't mean I didn't care before. But now, speaking from my subjective experience, I might say I found something very painful as a parent but it's my perception that it's more painful now that I'm a parent. How people who weren't parents would feel about that statement wouldn't occur to me as the focus is not on contrasting with them but with how I was pre-parenthood. People are going to make these comments and it seems a huge waste of time to get offended and start a thread.

As this is related to something that happened to a child YABU.
My dad get more upset about stuff that happens to older people than to teenagers because he’s retired and has more empathy with a granny who gets conned.

it’s natural. And yes, being a parent does make you concerned about things that you wouldn’t normally have cared about.

when I was 30 and childless I wouldn’t have given a damn about a playground closure or a teen having his phone nicked or about the cost of a day out at the zoo.

i was more concerned about the local music venue losing its late licence because of noise complaints - from people with kids… priorities change.

if you have kids one day you’ll get it. If you’re not going to then maybe MN isn’t the place for you because it’s full of us people who think being a parent changes you as a person.

But i will on occasion say "as a parent of 3 teenagers, both boys and girls" as i would hope that would show i have an element of experience that backs up what im saying
Agree with this, sometimes someone's life experiences or role matter.

I definitely say "as a teacher" at times on threads where posters are bashing an OP for quite reasonably wanting to challenge or question something a school is potentially doing wrong (eg challenging people arguing it would be fine for a school to illegally discriminate against a child with SEN).

I don't think they are saying what you've interpreted OP. Speaking for myself, when becoming a parent, I found anything to do with atrocities against children too much to bear. Where before having children, I would feel sad about these situations, now I'd be imagining my own child in their position, and its utterly heartbreaking to think about. It's not a snub to those without children, and you obviously feel empathy, sadness, and heartbreak, too, just in a different way.

If the topic is directly related to parenting, even more so a specific age group of child "as a parent" does hold some weight. If the topic is more broad, no, its pointless and doesn't validate your opinion more.

But i will on occasion say "as a parent of 3 teenagers, both boys and girls" as i would hope that would show i have an element of experience that backs up what im saying.

And yes it does wrench my gut. Even though it’s never had a baby in it.

It’s also a life changing event to not have been able to have children when you wanted them.

When I hear stories about children being abused or neglected, to death in some cases, I’m not thinking “how awful that would be if it were my kids”, I’m thinking how terrible for those children to be born to parents who did it or allowed it to happen, to have been born into a living nightmare of a home where they could rely on no one to protect them or look out for them and to have been let down by health and social care services too. I’m still haunted by the story of Peter Connolly (Baby P) to this day.

YANBU.

It makes it all about themselves.
Look at me, I’ve breeded, aren’t I special!!

For most, being a parent undoubtedly changes you. So yes you do see things differently. It changes your perception of so many things. and the way you react to many things and not least the way you feel about all sorts of things.

It's not a slight on you or your childlessness. It's highlighting the fact that the person commenting has been through the life changing event of parenting. It isn't a statement that they are better than you, just that they are different to you.

The bigger question is why you feel someone expressing who they are is being used as a pejorative towards you or perhaps why you take offence so easily that you expect others to obscure their own life experiences to make you feel that yours are more valuable. Do you honestly think you should be able to compel people not to speak about their own feelings and experiences to make you feel more valid as a person.