To think people without children can have a view

[McHappyPants2012]

This gets on my nerves when mainly parents dismiss Heath visitors and midwives advice solely because they have not had children of there own.

To me HV and MW do a great job, but like in all jobs you get good and bad.

Personality factors like empathy and good communication skills are more than experience.

I agree. You can be empathetic without having experienced the situation. Even if you have had children, you need to tread a careful line between passing empathy and entering into the land of sympathy.

beewi sorry I was kidding. It was a joke answering the thread title. Sorry it upset you. I don't care whether or not midwives have their own children. I don't use midwives! Though I think the fact that my consultant lost a child through cot death made him extremely good with clients who suffered baby loss.

sorry back at you, dysfunctionalme. My humour detector seems to be playing up today

My personal experience of those without children is they can be sanctimonious idiots, even when they mean well.

So can people with children :)

I trained as a nurse in my early 20s and was a ward sister and then a district nurse at 25. I gave up to be a sahm for a while and went back after ds2 was born.

I was a good nurse before I think but having had children and all the maturity and experience that brings made me immeasurably better.

I had 2 more kids and now a TA and feel my experience of having 4 kids through the education system makes me understand the experiences of parents.

I do find the young teachers with No kids very judgmental and some defiantly inept handling kids and parents.

Not sure if this is an age and maturity thing though so much as having children.