Does being a mum change you..

[Anydaynow1]

Just curious really..
Married and TTC and wondering if people felt any personality changes once they became a mum?
I understand lifestyle and family dynamics change drastically once children come along but did you feel your personality and how you look at the world changed?

I changed.
Almost overnight.
My empathy has soared and I'm not anywhere near as selfish as I was. I'm far more tolerant.
I'm also more active socially. I want this world to be a better place for my dd to grow up in. I've done protest marches, sponsored challenges and let dd know if you feel something is wrong you have to DO something about it.
I used to be able to watch sad things on the telly and think 'oh, that's sad' and move on. After having dd I can't watch anything remotely sad (bambi, dumbo, the fault in our stars) because I become a blubbering wreck.

Yes.

You become much more empathetic. Your eyes become much more open to how the system is rigged against women - particularly mothers. You experience love like youve never known before.

Also, at first you lose all your confidence and wonder where the hell ‘old you’ went. Then, after the first few hard years are over and you come out the other side you find that you’re much stronger and resilient than you were before, with a much much lower tolerance for bullshit.

It also changed my relationship with my body. I have a lot more respect now for what it can do. I give so much less of a fuck about being ‘attractive’. Now I feel like my body’s not for you, men. It’s done its job brilliantly and now it’s all mine again.

I love being a mum.

Yes!
I thought I'd be the Relaxed cool mum, but I'm not!
I worry about things that are out of my control now,
I get stressed when the Kids are there, but more stressed when they aren't there.
I well up at adverts or when other people cry now, where I've always been known to have a "swinging brick"
I cannot switch off, and I wish I could.
Like others have said I'm Less selfish than I was pre Kids, and I Watch the pennies now whereas before I was terrible with money!

What Whack said (very well). Especially giving less of a shit about what others think of you and how ‘If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention’ has never been more true.

Also echoing Ihave that I’ve always been one to cry at anything and it’s so much worse now.

I think it’s changed me for the better overall.

Absolutely. My life is compartmentalised. My life after children is not the same as before children. I am different.

That doesn't mean there are lots of crossovers, but I'm not the same person, because when you become responsible for another persons life (and not in the same way as a partner or spouse ) then you do change.

I agree with previous posters. A lot of it is to do with empathy, and losing the selfishness, and also tolerance. I have a lot more now. I have to. I'm kinder as a person, not because I'm naturally a 'nice' person, because I have learnt to be.

Yes, I’m permanently knackered.

I did.

I was horribly judgemental before. I’m actually a much better person now because I’m a Mum.

I am a bit of cliche too- everything upsets me. I struggle to watch the news etc. everything is- what if that happened to my child? How can I protect her? Even climate change... I didn’t give a shit about it until having DD. Now I’m like, what about her future?!

I think I have changed in a positive way, the only negative is the Mum guilt and the worrying.

I have become very risk averse. I can’t do it any more because I imagine myself falling off and breaking my neck, and who would do the kid taxi service then? I am hyper aware of my own and everyone else’s mortality. Possibly this is worse than normal because I lost my own mother relatively young.

Honestly, I don't think it has changed me that much as a person and I don't see that my friends or family who have become mothers have changed much either. The groups I move in have mothers working at least part-time and they still spend time and money on themselves, and have maintained a good social life- all things that help maintain your self-concept imo.
I would say though that I felt very ready to be a mother and have always been maternal. I Grew up in a large family with lots of babies so I felt prepared. I think I was lucky with my dc also as she was relatively easy baby's
Obviously my life as a whole has changed (for the better), even though I have less time and money etc!

Oh I missed a sentence - I meant to say I used to do a lot of horse riding but can’t do it any more...

More risk averse (and I was always cautious anyway).
More empathy in some ways and more judgemental in others.
A lot less patience for mundane (non child related) stuff. I have to stop myself eye rolling sometimes in work meetings.
I am fairly impatient in general but now I have a capacity for tolerance I didn’t think I had before.
Anxiety about things I would have never worried about.

Thanks for all your replies really nice to have an insight. I'm a blubbering mess anyway so I imagine that's only going to get worse also hope that children give me more patience as I lack that virtue!

@VenusClapTrap I worry ill be the same as I lost my mum as a young teen too sending hugs

The biggest Change for me was the horrible guilt I suddenly started to feel about a everything I did.
Anything I did for me (not the girls) felt guilty.
Anytime I made a mistake-oh the guilt
Anytime I think everyone else is doing it better-which is all the time-feel so guilty.
Anytime the kids are upset-yep, feel like it's my fault too...
It's an exhausting and corrosive emotion guilt and I would say my personality has totally changed because of it.

I'm a lot more relaxed and contented than before. I used to get totally wound up by stupid petty things and be a pretty unpleasant person to be around as a result. Now my acceptance of others is much higher and my day to day personality is much more chilled out. My number one parenting rule is "chill" which has definitely spread out into other areas of my life!

I haven't changed at all to any significant extent, and I don't detect any significant changes in people I know who have become parents.

Having a child has been a delightful addition to my life, but it hasn't caused any personality alterations or changed priorities. I certainly didn't need to have a child in order to be a feminist who is angry about structural inequalities, as I've always been deeply political, and I've been a vegetarian, non-driving user of public transport and fanatic recycler all my adult life, so I haven't suddenly got attuned to climate change since having my son. Work remains just as important to me as it did before I had him. I've never felt a moment of 'maternal guilt', and the idea that it's some kind of natural or inevitable thing annoys me -- it's just socialisation you can resist.

I think one change is probably that I am more productive in my work life -- with expensive childcare limiting the time I can spend on work, I need to make sure I don't waste the available time.

My sense of myself as being fundamentally unchanged may be down to the fact that I had my son just before I turned 40, so I had had 20 years of adult life already to become the person I was, and am. It might be very different if you have a child at a stage of life when you are still figuring out who you are.

I was always fairly political, I am now extremely political, esp in standing up and fighting for my DD to have adequate health care treatment (she has a chronic condition). Womens rights and climate change too.

I have raised DD as a long parent for most of her life (she is 21 now) and it has proven how strong and independent I can be.

I definitely have become more caring, I work with a few girls in my dept who are early-mid 20s, and I have somehow become the 'work mum' (offering advice, looking after them when they are sick!)

I also have a 'pre child' and 'post child' lives, which I never thought would happen. Don't get me wrong I still have a lot of my traits from pre child but my lifestyle has significantly changed (no longer a workaholic, drinking every Saturday night etc) I am now merging into both categories since DD left home.

No I'm still the same. I was worried I would change but I think if you don't want to you don't