As a mother...

[Ducksinthebath]

"As a mother..." seems to be how about how just about every opinion expressed to me about the Middle East situation seems to start at the moment.

Same for XL Bully issues, the recent party conferences and every blooming thought that comes out someone's head about the environment.

I feel like I'm in an echo chamber with Andrea Leadsom and it's irritating.

@NunsKnickers don’t worry about her, just ignore her comments. She always pops up in childfree threads, sticking her nose in.

I have seen some people use “as a mother” as a way to signify that their opinions carry some sort of special status. This makes sense when talking about breastfeeding, labour wards, maternity funding etc not so much when talking about tights. It is rare that you hear of a man using “as a father” and I suspect it’s because men are more comfortable that their opinions are straight up important regardless of their status. There are very few circumstances where I would use it, nearly all of which would involve a man and an episode of mansplaining but almost never when speaking to another woman.

@Mumsanetta
"It is rare that you hear of a man using “as a father”

It isn't, you know. Every time there is a publicised case of VAWG you find men saying "As the father of girls I...." as if that was the only reason they could feel empathy.

I have seen some people use “as a mother” as a way to signify that their opinions carry some sort of special status. This makes sense when talking about breastfeeding, labour wards, maternity funding etc not so much when talking about tights

Someone on another thread has used it in that way - as a parent she feels obliged to keep with the news. Why, what's the logical connection there?

I am a mother and this always makes me cringe, especially so when it's said to a woman who isn't a mother. I always feel there's an implication that the mother feels she has some special sort of understanding that the childless woman lacks. I never say it.
If children are murdered in a war zone (or wherever) it hurts me deeply but it also did before I had children. I don't need to say "As a mother, this causes me pain".

Exactly. I imagined what it would feel like before I had my dd and now 15 years after having dd. It feels as sad as I thought it would to imagine any child hurt.

Who knew? They are basically saying they were stunted before.

As Bill Billy says it's a euphanism for talking out of my arse.

Good point about men as fathers of girls, thing is I think its the same thing. The fear or maybe empathy because they didn't really feel that fear before. For men as fathers it does hit hard because they do know what men especially teenage boys are like, if not them then they saw it in pe and the pub etc.

The thing is though the process of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding do change a women's brain in real and measurable ways, Google Matrinsence (sp?) for more information. It doesn't make one way of processing information better or worse than the other, but it is a fact that brains that have been through through the hormonal changes of maternity function differently to those that haven't.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain "Someone on another thread has used it in that way - as a parent she feels obliged to keep with the news. Why, what's the logical connection there?"
Actually, I can understand that one. If as an individual you choose not to keep up with the news, that doesn't affect anyone but yourself. If you have the responsibility for children, then it's up to you to help them become informed, aware members of society. I would think badly of anyone who doesn't keep up with the news. But worse of a parent.

I would think badly of anyone who doesn't keep up with the news. But worse of a parent

How remarkably presumptuous of you.

It isn't, you know. Every time there is a publicised case of VAWG you find men saying "As the father of girls I...." as if that was the only reason they could feel empathy.

To be honest, I find that far more irritating and men who say it need a flashing neon sign above their heads that says knob.

I think that the as a mother line irritates me because it implies that people without children don't go through life changing events; and that annoys because it feeds into the narrative that we are all irresponsible, shallow party animals who are continuing to be stuck in a selfish overgrown teenager world.

In reality childfree women grow up, experience our own life events, are shaped by those, maybe damaged too and those events can still inform and affect our views of the world.

I had cancer several years ago and now I'm a consultant oncologist. I could say that as a cancer survivor I inherently understand my patients better and I'm therefore better than an oncologist who hasn't had cancer. However, that would be wrong because I only have experience of my cancer - leukaemia - from which I made a total recovery. Whilst I can empathise with my prostate cancer patients, my ovarian cancer patients and my lung cancer patients - their experiences are different to mine and so me saying as a cancer survivor to someone who is terminally ill, makes me a bit of a knob.

I do think the criticism of and attribution of motives to other women on here is a bit shit, frankly.

And yet from the same poster we have:

Criticism
Do you ever wonder why people are sometimes a little impatient with you?

Attribution of motives (not one I disagree with but still hypocritical given the above comment)
men saying "As the father of girls I...." as if that was the only reason they could feel empathy.

Criticism
I would think badly of anyone who doesn't keep up with the news. But worse of a parent.

So either only mothers are allowed to criticise childfree women, men and mothers or this is incredibly hypocritical

No two brains function alike not even twins brains so everyone's brains function differently anyway

Having PCOS or endometriosis changes your brain function, as can ptsd, trauma, winning at sports, reading, listening to music, drinking coffee etc

So its not like everyone who hasn't been through childbirth has the same brain anyway, and only having a baby changes your brain.

Good point about men as fathers of girls, thing is I think its the same thing.The fear or maybe empathy because they didn't really feel that fear before. For men as fathers it does hit hard because they do know what men especially teenage boys are like, if not them then they saw it in pe and the pub etc.
I suspect that's because they know how men (including them at times) have spoken about women and girls.There's also, potentially, a little bit of hidden patriarchy at play where a man views his wife and daughters as his in some way.

In my experience the "as a father" comes out when it's something linked to male treatment of women and girls, but doesn't tend to come out on other topics, whereas "as a mother" seems to come out as a preface on anything from which supermarket vegetables are nice through to an opinion on the Israel-Gaza war.

That's because it IS though. Men/male politicians are statistically much more likely to support, e.g., women's reproductive rights or better childcare provision if they have daughters.

If anyone tries this "As a mother... " rubbish with me, I just think that they probably were pretty shallow unthinking people before they reproduced.

What's VAWG?

violence against women and girls

The thing is, child free people say insulting things to people with kids all the time. My old boss: 'god I hate kids, I can't imagine anything worse' when I came back from mat leave and a colleague asked me how the baby was. My long time friends the other week babysat for their nieces fir a few days and pronounced that it totally validated their decision not to have kids because it was so awful. To me, who has three. People are often either lacking in empathy, trying to validate their own life choices or just plain rude and thoughtless. It is true to say though that I was child free until I was 30. So I do know what that's like. People who are child free cannot possibly know what it is like to have children. They can imagine and empathise but they cannot know. It is a lived experience they simply don't have...in the same way I have never experienced disability or being black. Do people resent people saying 'as a black person, George Floyd was especially painful for me.' Or is that different?

I honestly do wonder about this sometimes

There was a thread the other day where a posters was saying how childless women didn't know that babies were different to children and that they couldn't stay away from their mothers for as long and they might need breastfeeding, and she believed childfree women wouldn't know this because she didn't know until she had children

And I just wondered honestly whether she was a teenage mum or a very young adult mum. Because it's not exactly shocking that there are differences between a baby and a toddler or that babies are less independent or that they need feeding and that includes breastfeeding.

And I think this is part of the problem when it comes to ignorant things that are said about childfree women. So people assume that the maturity and development they had is wholly down to them being a parent and not down to them having lived longer. So they assume childfree women are perpetually stuck at the age that they themselves became a mother.

So even things like threads that ask "what would you do if you didn't have kids" where posters seem to think they would be going out all the time and living life like they did in their 20s. No you wouldn't. Because you when you are 39, regardless of whether you had kids or not, there is a far greater chance that you dont have the energy and enthusiasm for the same activities as you did when you were 29.

Or when people say they are wiser because they had kids, forgetting that it's not just the being a parent that has contributed to the wisdom, it's also age. And childfree people unfortunately also age.

And there's also sometimes a sense of scale missing. So yes having a child may have made you more empathetic but that doesn't mean you are more empathetic to victims of war than the childfree women who was a refugee fleeing a war for example. Or you might find it more difficult to watch things about childhood sexual abuse but if you haven't been through it that doesn't mean you find it more difficult than the childfree woman who went through childhood sexual abuse.

You can only measure the change in yourself. You cannot assume you are on the same scale as everyone else and judge them compared to you. So the constant assumption that childfree women are at the bottom of the scale regardless of their entire life story is the issue really

'god I hate kids, I can't imagine anything worse'

How is that them insulting you? If, for example, you were a professional dancer and they said "God I hate dancing in public, I can't imagine anything worse" would you think they were insulting you as a dancer, or making a statement that they personally don't like dancing?

it totally validated their decision not to have kids because it was so awful.

And if you had your kids go away to camp for a week and you told your friend that you had missed them and them being away made you realise how much you loved being a mother and how it validated you having children because it was awful being without them would you be saying that to insult your childfree friends?

these aren't insults directed at you as they read from your post - although tone, intonation etc can add a great deal, so perhaps the were mean people being mean, it's not like childfree people and parents can't equally be mean. Some people are mean some people aren't. Whether they have kids is irrelevant to that, which is kind of the point we are trying to make - that assuming a sterotype about childfree people being "selfish, mean, cold..." is irritating.

Do people resent people saying 'as a black person, George Floyd was especially painful for me.'

A. as a mixed race person I get very very fucking bored of black people being brought in as the comparator to every situation

B. The whole point here is that the comparator would be "As a black mother, George Floyd was especially painful to me" as if young black men who get singled out by the police in America constantly couldn't possibly feel as much

But no, a group of childfree women on the childfree board getting irritated by things like "as a woman I find the fit of tights to be especially important" is not the same as black people speaking out against generations of racism and violence against them. You appear to be the only person who thinks it is.

I absolutely agree with trauma fundementally changing your brain chemistry and structure but drinking coffee ? C' mon there is a sense of scale here and going through pregnacy and child birth fundementally changes the way you understand and process information in a way that a cup of coffee or Mozart simply isn't capable of.

I wonder if the different feelings parents say they experience are actually the result of growing older and gaining life experience, which happens to almost all of us.

My outlook on life changed a lot between my 20s and my 30s - I look back on some of the things I thought and did as a young adult and it's as if I were a different person.

Yes I deliberately chose changes along the full length of the scale. From the large - trauma and ptsd, to the moderate - pcos and endometriosis, to the small - reading, listening to music, drinking coffee.

That doesn't change my points, that:

A. No two brains work the same way not even twins
B. Lots of life events change brains function

Which agrees with the other post I have made above. That going through pregnancy changes you personally but that you cannot assume that that gives you a comparator to a childfree person e.g. mothers are always more empathetic than non mothers.

Because for starters many childfree people are more empathetic than mothers who abuse their children and because everyone's brains are different so you cannot make that assumption. Someone's "more empathetic after having children" may still be less empathetic than someone else before they had children.

For reference I have been through pregnancy and childbirth. My baby was stillborn. So it's not like I haven't experienced these changes myself. It's just I don't think that means my viewpoint is so identical to other mothers and so different to childfree women than the phrase "as a mother" before a statement is anything other then pointless.

Exactly