"As a parent..."

[LaPerduta]

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?

This topic is ridiculous. As a parent some things just hit harder.

Yup. Those who are parents, know. Those who aren't need to learn some humility and accept that their not being parents means there are some things they simply can't comprehend. It's not always about your views or feelings - when parents say "as a parent" it's a clear signal that they are talking about the feelings that parents have experienced and want to talk about - as parents.

Thought experiment ... how much does it wind the same posters up when a man puts on a frock and says "as a woman, ..."? Or is that somehow different? If so ... how?

An interesting example of this… for reasons which I won’t go into, a support session was set up where I work relating to an incident involving CSA.

The support session was in theory for all staff affected but heavily banded with “as parents, we are horrified…”, and “let’s get together and share our feelings as parents”.

I am a survivor of CSA and so stories do affect me in quite a profound way. I didn’t want to go and share my feelings with my colleagues anyway, but it was such an obvious statement that no person could be as affected by the incident as a parent.

That narrative is persistent through this thread, and I genuinely don’t understand why some parents have to play top trumps over things like, what type of love is deepest and what type of sadness is strongest. I feel as though it’s an attempt to demonstrate that parents are the most empathetic but ironically it does the opposite, because everyone else’s experiences are automatically less simply because they’ve not used their reproductive organs.

Maybe that’s a feeling that parents simply can’t understand!

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.

That could just indicate you are quite a shallow person, incapable of sympathetic imagination about anything outside your direct experience.

The people who make the "as a parent" comments are likely the same ones who insist that you simply CANNOT know true love unless you have children - their whole identity and personality is being a parent and it centers in everything they do, so I guess it doesn't register with them that people who aren't parents and don't have their children at the center of everything are also able to feel things like sympathy and love etc.

I feel everything you feel but haven't been a biological parent. I feel that the would be a better place if we collivectely as a society cared more deeply for OUR children

World would be

You know, im lucky enough to have parented a child even though I haven't given birth to or fathered one, but prior to that I experienced the pain of infertility. Anyway, Children are my future as much as they are their parents'. And to not care profoundly about their wellbeing is to not care about oneself.

Okay I posted further upstream how insulting the 'as a parent' thing is as a non parent because I have a lot of empathy and CAN understand the situation.

I've been thinking and a lot of people have posted sensibly and made me rethink.

I guess it's the same as if I say (as a white female) I can fully understand the situation faced by people of colour. There is a certain line of course - I can draw parallels to experiences in my life that would be similar, and I personally tick a lot of boxes on the 'othering list'. I can empathise and understand. But I haven't lived it, and there is still a difference in that - and 'as a woman' I get that no man will truly know what it feels like to be a woman. So it's the same thing. I get why parents say it. There is some truth in it.

I think the issue is it is often used in ways that invoke a sense of superiority - often unconsciously. And this is wholly different from people who speak from a minority or othered position and speak as a person from that position.

The particular case in point kind of illustrates this, because by the very same logic that those here who are saying 'people who aren't parents can't understand', those who ARE parents can't understand the situation being described here unless they've gone through the same process.

@EstherHazy I really like this post. I struggled with similar feelings because it’s true that I do not know what it is like to have a child. I can imagine, empathise, use my powers of imagination and knowledge to put myself in those shoes but I do not know for sure. So on that level, yes, the statement is correct (as is, the statement that I won’t know parental love).

But as you say, it’s the superiority that sticks in the craw. And just as I don’t understand what it’s like to read a horrible news story about a child as a parent, does not mean that parents understand what it’s like for me to read that story (or indeed anyone else). Nobody knows how anyone else feels or experiences anything. Childless people on these threads usually accept that principle, but parents usually do not.

I agree.

I guess it's the same as if I say (as a white female) I can fully understand the situation faced by people of colour. There is a certain line of course - I can draw parallels to experiences in my life that would be similar, and I personally tick a lot of boxes on the 'othering list'. I can empathise and understand. But I haven't lived it, and there is still a difference in that - and 'as a woman' I get that no man will truly know what it feels like to be a woman. So it's the same thing. I get why parents say it. There is some truth in it.

That's a pretty daft comparison.

The vast majority of people who say "as a parent..." when there's a tragedy involved haven't experienced the tragedy themselves, they are just parents. They haven't actually been through anything similar, just the having a kid part,so they still haven't lived it.

For example there's a woman I vaguely know who has a daughter the same age my daughter would be if she hadn't died. Almost every time I see her she tells me that she hugs her daughter a little tighter every time she thinks of mine 🙄 she cannot possibly know what it's like to be me, she has her kid, I don't have mine, yet she thinks that she understands because we had babies at the same time.

I would agree that if someone is targeting teens in the area (for example) then there's that extra layer of worry if you have a teen, so potentially relevant in that sense, otherwise, not really.

I agree with this. I've always felt empathy when seeing children being harmed as I'm sure anyone would, but since having a child the feeling is much stronger.
I do also agree that many times I'm sure it's unnecessary.

Isn't that just human nature though and why is that a bad thing? We can't all care about everything or we would go crazy, but when someone we know and love is affected by something sometimes that brings it home to us.

@ItsThePlayBusDingDing I think you've sort of made the same point which comes further down my post :)

She has a child she is worried about getting mugged. You don’t. That’s relevant surely

Exactly this

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

But this is the thing. It’s not feeling intensely upset when you think about said thing happening to your child. It’s something beyond that.

It’s a different level of emotion which I am not sure is possible to articulate in language easily. And it’s nothing to do with empathy.

But we could argue this to the cows come home and it won’t be solved unless / until non-parents become parents and realise the difference!

I remember being a non parent and thinking I knew everything etc... Then I became a parent and realised what it's all about and what I dick I'd been.

I wish non parents (using a parenting forum) would stop acting like know-it all's and assuming they get parenting when they don't. Does it really matter if someone who is a parent has a different experience to you? Does it matter if they speak from experience? Does it matter to you that they feel differently about things that happen to a child because it rips at their heart in a different way than it rips at yours?

This thread is weird. It's a non issue. Leave the parents be, and let them say "as a parent.."

So in other words, for you, horrifying things are not particularly horrifying until they are something that could actually happen to you. Things that could only happen to other people don't bother you as much. Fair enough, but please don't assume everyone has such a narrow viewpoint.

So in other words, for you, horrifying things are not particularly horrifying until they are something that could actually happen to you. Things that could only happen to other people don't bother you as much. Fair enough, but please don't assume everyone has such a narrow viewpoint.

That’s not what I said. But what I did say was there’s no point arguing as you can’t understand my viewpoint. It’s impossible at this point in your life. Just like men can’t understand what it’s like to be women, or why I can’t understand how it feels to be Asian. So why bother?

It’s impossible at this point in your life.

What 'point in my life' do you mean?

YANBU - I have recently had a baby and yes feelings do get heightened however not having a baby doesn’t mean you are less empathetic or upset by certain things.

It really annoys me how people treat child free people as less emotional or sympathetic - some of the kindest people I know are child free.

You're projecting your feelings on to her - you've no reason to assume she is being smug, she is just stating that she is a parent. As a parent you immediately think - what if this was my child - and it gives you a whole other perspective. That doesn't mean you are better, or think you are better, than people without children.

I absolutely agree. It really pisses me off. Police officers say it frequently when talking to the press. I'm like "What the fuck! You wouldn't be horrified/concerned/whatever, if you weren't a father/mother/parent/dog owner/car owner/gardener/whatever."