Page 5 | "As a parent..."

LaPerduta · 2023-04-20T13:29:50+00:00

I've just read about a local teenager who was recently subjected to a rather distressing mugging. The person who posted about this said that, "as a parent," she found this horrifying. 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 and it's usually completely unnecessary to state. (I'm assuming the person who posted details of the attack doesn't actually mean that they would have found it acceptable had they not had children of their own.) Why invoke a pro-natal hierarchy, unnecessarily?

MattTebbuttsDenimShirt · 20/04/2023 20:35

You've never known worry and fear until you've had a child.

Just as you start to relax - you're gifted a grandchild. Asked to babysit - then aargh!! It's all new again!

Plumbear2 · 20/04/2023 20:36

MattTebbuttsDenimShirt · 20/04/2023 20:22

Exactly.

You should be grateful that you cannot comprehend such loss.

The boy murdered was 2 years above my daughter at school. The 14 year old charged with his murder was in the same year.

The pain and fallout has been heartbreaking. But I cannot claim to feel the same loss.
Even to think that is beyond insensitive.

Show quote history

We are talking about a child being mugged not murdered. Yes I can feel pain of the parent because this happened to one of my kids. Someone who isn't a parent of teenager couldn't feel this pain. I'm not going to apologise for saying as a parent.

MattTebbuttsDenimShirt · 20/04/2023 20:39

Plumbear2 · 20/04/2023 20:36

We are talking about a child being mugged not murdered. Yes I can feel pain of the parent because this happened to one of my kids. Someone who isn't a parent of teenager couldn't feel this pain. I'm not going to apologise for saying as a parent.

Show quote history

Righty ho.

As long as it fits your remit then.

Nn @Plumbear2

Thighlengthboots · 20/04/2023 20:40

I'm not going to apologise for saying as a parent

As a parent, I agree and I really dont give a flying fck if it annoys anyone!

MattTebbuttsDenimShirt · 20/04/2023 20:41

@LaPerduta YANBU

Original poster

LaPerduta · 20/04/2023 20:42

Thanks for everyone's thoughts, particularly those who have disagreed in a manner that is not unkind.

OP posts:

KimberleyClark · 20/04/2023 20:42

SufferingCarlos · 20/04/2023 19:34

It's only people who don't have children who protest that they felt the same way before I've never seen an actual parent in real life (not online as people can pretend to further their argument) say they feel the same way exactly as pre children. And it's also childless people who keep insisting that they know and understand what it's like to be a parent or how to parent because they were a child once upon a time or watched someone closely raise their child. It really isn't the same thing. Like a pp cleverly said, as a parent, you'll understand when you're a parent!

Equally, parents claim they know what childfree/childless life is like because they were pre children once. Being pre children you have no idea what it is like to know you will never have children or what it is like to be childless at E.g 60.

CrackerAndPudding · 20/04/2023 20:51

Yes I can feel pain of the parent because this happened to one of my kids.

So you recognise the difference even if you refuse to examine it. You think you feel the same pain because you have been in their shoes. It's not "as a parent" so much as it is "as someone who has experienced the same thing" that you say you feel their pain.

Beachywave · 20/04/2023 21:16

I actually agree with you. I also think this when someone talks about parenting when they’ve been a parent for fives minutes…
comments like “mum life” but their baby is 6 months old and they have no idea what parenting actually means yet.

Acornsoup · 20/04/2023 21:24

Beachywave · 20/04/2023 21:16

I actually agree with you. I also think this when someone talks about parenting when they’ve been a parent for fives minutes…
comments like “mum life” but their baby is 6 months old and they have no idea what parenting actually means yet.

They literally are parents

paulthepython · 20/04/2023 21:31

I think they are just responding on personal feeling, for some people becoming a parent changes how they respond to certain information and situations. That doesn't mean to say that the same levels of empathy aren't achieved by people without children just that for that person being a parent changed things for them. I'm exactly the same tbh. I've always felt it awful when something happens to a child but now I'm a mum it impacts me in a completely different way. I think about their parents, it makes me envision how that loss would feel for me if it was my child, I think about how scared the child must have been and how scared mine would be and it makes me physically feel sick. Just having my children makes it so much more real for me in a way that reading about it happening to someone I had no physical memory of just didn't generate. That's just how it's been for me 🤷‍♀️

Quandary45 · 20/04/2023 21:31

Beachywave · 20/04/2023 21:16

I actually agree with you. I also think this when someone talks about parenting when they’ve been a parent for fives minutes…
comments like “mum life” but their baby is 6 months old and they have no idea what parenting actually means yet.

Really? What's the magic age of the child before people become parents then? Because we're 3 months in, the only time I've left the house independently was for a smear and we've already been to A&E in complete worry and panic...feels like being a parent to me!

fitzwilliamdarcy · 20/04/2023 21:42

thecatsthecats · 20/04/2023 15:15

I find that when it comes to crime, certain kinds of people always talk about "as a parent, I think the punishment should be xyz".

They rarely think, "if my child did this, I would want the punishment to be xyz".

A lot of "as a parent" statements unwittingly reveal that said parent is less rational, kind or fair than an impartial person. Not that they've been gifted special insight and meaning.

I think this is bang on.

CrotchetyCrocheting · 20/04/2023 21:47

KimberleyClark · 20/04/2023 20:42

Equally, parents claim they know what childfree/childless life is like because they were pre children once. Being pre children you have no idea what it is like to know you will never have children or what it is like to be childless at E.g 60.

Show quote history

Is anyone here claiming to know what it feels like to be a 60 year old childless woman? I can't imagine what it is like to be 60 at all and I wouldn't tell someone that their experience is wrong. I don't know what it'd be like to know I'd never have children either but I don't see anyone claiming to on this thread?

fitzwilliamdarcy · 20/04/2023 21:47

Plumbear2 · 20/04/2023 19:37

How dare you tell me what I feel. How dare the OP suggest parents stop saying this. Stop telling people what they can or cannot say, or feel. If Op feels triggered then that's her problem , not mine. Yes I do feel the pain of the parents. I'm a mother to teenagers, don't dare try to tell me how I feel

Show quote history

This is extraordinarily arrogant, and exactly why OP is not BU.

fitzwilliamdarcy · 20/04/2023 21:53

CrotchetyCrocheting · 20/04/2023 21:47

Is anyone here claiming to know what it feels like to be a 60 year old childless woman? I can't imagine what it is like to be 60 at all and I wouldn't tell someone that their experience is wrong. I don't know what it'd be like to know I'd never have children either but I don't see anyone claiming to on this thread?

Show quote history

Every single thread about childless women has this kind of comment on it. It’ll happen, worry not.

(It’s usually used to argue that parents have experience of both being childless and being parents, whereas childless people only have the one. Hence the counter that parents have experienced a period of childlessness but not childlessness full stop.)

Mamamia32 · 20/04/2023 22:14

I think when people say "as a parent, this has really upset me." They're usually just saying "If this happened to me/my child I'd be devastated."

"Every parent's worst nightmare." Is also a phrase people use, meaning basically the same thing. It's not a dig against people who don't have children, more an acknowledgement of the fear that comes with loving a child so much.

emziecy · 20/04/2023 22:36

Of course every human being is or should be horrified by stuff like this, nobody is saying otherwise. When you become a parent you project and imagine how you would feel if it happened to your child. It is a instinctive visceral response and its fucking terrifying. which is not the same thing.

WandaWonder · 20/04/2023 22:47

LolaSmiles · 20/04/2023 14:38

There are times where "as a parent" is relevant and times that it's not. I don't think either of you are unreasonable.

Since becoming a parent my response to some topics has changed and it's not that I care any more about the topic/situation because I'm a mother. It's like a change in emotional reaction and I wonder if on a subconscious level some parents put their child in the situation of the child in the situation and that's why they respond that way. Things involving children being harmed is one of those topics that despite years of professional training and experience with children, the gut emotional reaction felt different once having my DC.

Before I had a child I thought the same and thought the same things were shocking and bad and whatever

Since having a child though I actually feel it in my stomach when I hear certain news

Manchestermummax3 · 20/04/2023 23:24

LaPerduta · 20/04/2023 14:45

You don't need to look very hard to find the "as a parent..." trope. It's ubiquitous.

I will admit to being (over-)sensitive to it, but I find it smug.

Show quote history

This...becoming a parent does change how you react/feel towards a situation. Imagining it happening to your own child.
It's not smug.

I cannot relate completely to someone who had lost a parent or a child, as I have thankfully, never experienced this.
I cannot completely relate to someone suffering cancer etc.

You cannot relate to the feeling a mother has because you aren't one. Doesn't make your feelings less important or valid... but it is NOT the same.

StepAwayFromTheBiscuitJar · 20/04/2023 23:38

It's a bit like when posters say "as a man"...

JudgeRudy · 20/04/2023 23:43

Taq · 20/04/2023 14:40

You are overthinking this and looking for things to be offended at.

She’s giving her opinion on it as a parent. It means she’s imagining how she’d feel if it were her child. It’s perfectly normal.

I'm offended.....as a Scorpio

Noicant · 20/04/2023 23:52

I think becoming a parent has changed me, everything threatening feels rawer, any injustice against a child cuts me a bit deeper. It’s hard to explain, I always felt it if something happened to a child but having DD really brought home the vulnerability and fragility of kids. I relate everything back to “if it happened to DD” , it becomes all the more awful when you can imagine the same terrible thing happening to your child.

I actually think it’s a good thing, it motivates people to be more proactive about making society in general safer so that their specific child is safer.

inyoureyes · 21/04/2023 00:27

This made me smile because according to blokey reddit, us mumsnetters are always justifying our useless opinions with "as a mother"

Srin · 21/04/2023 06:19

I don’t use it because I know it is annoying but I do think it sometimes. It has changed the way I think about lots of things and also changed the way I do my job (I work with children). It is bound to alter your world view to a certain extent.