Anyone else a much more sensitive viewer since having children?

[70sShmeventies]

I’ve just started The Last of Us and I usually love a good zombie flick but since having children I can’t help thinking what might happen to them in that scenario. I think I’m gonna have to turn off. I’ve become such a bloody wet 🤦‍♀️. Anyone else?!

Recent news has been harrowing.

Yes I stopped watching all horror films.

Yup. Have mum pals similarly afflicted. Oldest is 14 and I can now almost enjoy that sort of thing again. Also helped by the fact DS sits and watches these shows with me laughing openly about how seriously I take it and if we were in a zombie apocalypse I have a variety of strategies planned out.

When they were little I had to try very hard to rationalise the fact it wasn’t bloody real while watching/reading anything where I felt that DC might have died. Remember well watching the Walking Dead when DS was a baby and having to watch Everybody Loves Raymond immediately after as a sort of psychic palate cleanser. Also got myself into quite a state at The Road, made worse because DH looked a lot like the father. There’s also a film where the family commit suicide but a small boy is left alone in a locked-in state. Disturbing AF.

Recent setback was a book called Dreamland. Had to go in and look and them both asleep and consciously remind myself it wasn’t real.

Is there not a website where you can check if anything bad happens to kids in a film? I’d subscribe.

@Rinkydinkydoodle ‘psychic palate cleanser’ excellent 😁

100% total wet blanket now.

I used to tease my mum for being like this when I was younger and she'd say "I wasn't always like this you know. Having kids changes you." Boy was she right.

Yes I never used to cry during sad films and could watch things like disaster films and not really think about the kids involved!

Now I’m always in tears and it’s like I can see my own childrens’ expressions mirrored in the child actors faces and it really affects me.

Yes definitely. I find it incredibly difficult to watch anything that involves a child being harmed.

I also seem to cry at films and TV with any intense emotional scene now I’ve had children. I remember when DS was a baby I cried my eyes out watching the episode of Eastenders where Ronnie’s long lost daughter Danielle was killed. I even cried watching the rehearsal dinner speech in Freaky Friday! Used to love horror films, couldn’t stomach then now.

When the DC were babies I really went off horror films. I'm not so bad these days. I think Covid changed a lot of it because now I know how unrealistic and ridiculous most zombie apocalypse things are!

The Last of Us doesn't really have lots of people getting eaten by zombies. But there is a lot of personal stories with very few happy endings so far. So I would probably give it a miss for a few years TBH.

Yes! I didn’t even finish the first series of Poldark because I heard that a child died. My DD was probably around 1 at the time.

Im not into horror, but I do remember wondering how a friends mother functioned in life if she cried at the drop of a hat when sad stuff involving kids came on the TV, I was a teenager at the time. She said "just you wait."
Fast forward to being a mother, I now understand.

Yep same with books too.

There are nursery rhymes and some of
My baby's books I can't get through without crying now
The news affects me much more than before

Ohhhhh that series absolutely broke my heart. Also unsure why we continued to watch it. The last episode tore me apart.