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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"As a parent..."

258 replies

LaPerduta · 20/04/2023 14:29

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?

OP posts:
Forfrigz · 21/04/2023 07:26

In a way adding 'as a parent' it makes it less empathetic because instead of "this is how I personally respond to it' it's 'this is how I respond to it when imagining it affecting me'. Some people genuinely are thick as shit until they have kids and realise other people exist.

blueluce85 · 21/04/2023 07:27

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.

This with bells on!

Joystir59 · 21/04/2023 07:29

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.

But it's entirely possible to feel gut wrenching empathy for children without having birthed one.

dudsville · 21/04/2023 07:29

I think there can be some naiive statements but i know that there are insights parents have that i do not. Equally i have insights they do not. We all make up the whole.

EveryWitchWaybutLoose · 21/04/2023 07:34

As someone who is not a parent, I find this trope to be quite insulting and it's usually completely unnecessary to state.

I always think that anyone who invokes "As a parent ..." must have be quite a shallow person & lacking in compassion, if they didn't feel intensely or upset at injustice etc etc before reproducing.

EveryWitchWaybutLoose · 21/04/2023 07:45

Joystir59 · 21/04/2023 07:29

But it's entirely possible to feel gut wrenching empathy for children without having birthed one.

Show quote history

Indeed!

And some parents make decisions and choices for their children, which have a deleterious impact on other people's children (eg 4 wheel drives!)

Dibbydoos · 21/04/2023 07:55

So you're objecting to them saying that they empathise because they have kids? Why? Because you don't?

Perhaps they feel they can feel both it's awful (not their kid) and feel it as a parent would, so doubly bad, whereas a none parent would empathise purely for the kid.

The comment doesn't say you feel it less, just maybe differently.

There are plenty bigger issues to get your knickers in a not over, OP. YABU

Flittingaboutagain · 21/04/2023 08:02

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

^ yes I get a visceral reaction and want to hug my babies closer than ever. I'm afraid like it or not there are some things that are just different if you have kids. As a parent just means through the lens of...we all have multiple lenses. It's not a dig at you or trying to be superior over you for your lack of children.

Catuscatish · 21/04/2023 08:16

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.

NameChangedSoYouDontKnowHowBrokenMyHeartIs · 21/04/2023 08:18

YANBU.

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

KimberleyClark · 21/04/2023 08:28

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.

KimberleyClark · 21/04/2023 08:29

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

milafawny · 21/04/2023 08:31

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.

TravelDazzle · 21/04/2023 08:33

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.

LolaSmiles · 21/04/2023 08:36

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).

Ersorrywhatnow · 21/04/2023 08:38

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.

Vexar · 21/04/2023 08:40

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.

Ersorrywhatnow · 21/04/2023 08:43

‘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

ModestMoon · 21/04/2023 08:48

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.

AngelinaFibres · 21/04/2023 08:56

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.

Greenfairydust · 21/04/2023 09:15

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...

ItsThePlayBusDingDing · 21/04/2023 09:22

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.

tillylula · 21/04/2023 09:28

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.

User678945 · 21/04/2023 09:55

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?

GreyGoose1980 · 21/04/2023 09:59

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.

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