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.

It's very hard to put into words what I actually mean!

Then don't bother because we've had hundred variations of this shit already.

*Hypothetically...the thought of someone dropping me and dh in the middle of Gaza now would be awful. But I'd go into practical mode. We're fit and healthy adults, we'd (obviously) do our best to stay safe, whatever that looked like.

By comparison, the thought of someone dropping us in Gaza with our three dc makes me feel ice cold with terror. Not because I'm a wonderful mummykins who loves her ickle ones sooooo much. But because it's three whole people who can't care for themselves or help in any way*

And the same would apply if you were someone with, say, elderly parents who couldn't care for themselves. Bedbound, or reliant on dialysis, or in the last weeks/months of their lives or disabled in some way, who couldn't run and hide, who needed special food or medical treatment every day. I'd be just as terrified in that scenario - but as a daughter or a sister or a niece. Feeling terror that you can't protect your family and feeling hugely protective and responsible for them isn't confined to parents.

But I think as a VERY big generalisation, parents may be able to visualise or 'feel' the horror slightly more than your average healthy single adult or adults, with thoughts of those they're responsible for at the front of their minds

Oh balls. We're back to 'parents are just more empathetic and feel things so much more,' aren't we? I don't know about anyone else, but I don't regard my reactions to a horror like the last week In Israel as being an entry for some sort of empathy Olympics.

This study shows some interesting work on the changes in a mothers brain, however I cannot find the bit where it explains that all mothers are more empathetic than childless women which was what was requested. Perhaps I missed it, if you could point it out?

I just skimmed it and it mainly talks about memory and other cognitive issues. While of course changes happen to ensure bond with baby.
Not being more emphatic and connected to the world and having better thinking.

X posted i see

I'm pretty sure my DH would feel exactly the same if I was with him somewhere like that, given I'm half blind and physically disabled.

It references lots of other studys, it's a fairly well established phenomena. If better memory and enchaned executive function isn't better thinking can you tell me what would be ?

@Insommmmnia 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.

Oh my god...the penny has just dropped massively for me! You are so right!! I have one friend in particular (same age) who infantilises me and she had a baby fairly young (well, young for our circle). It winds me up but this has given me great perspective - it's not me, it's her! Because tbf at the age she had her child I probably was a lot more clueless and less aware of other people's circumstances.

I'm sorry to hear about what you went through with your stillborn child. I note none of the incredibly empathetic mothers on the thread have acknowledged your experience.

But again where does it say mothers have better memory than childless women? Or mothers have better executive disfunction than childless women?

Better than they themselves did previously perhaps, but that doesn't equate to better than everyone else who hasn't been through childbirth.

I also note that they say similar effects have been seen with people with caring responsibilities. I note they link that more to adoption but it's a fairly lazy sterotype that childfree people have no caring responsibilities.

Thank you that's very kind of you.

Yes us childfree women are all Nora Battys.

It's excutive function not dysfunction ( that would be the opposite) yes the same changes occur to a lesser extent in non birthing parents.

I am not quite sure who it was who said they had a still birth. Obviously that must have been a horrible experience for you. Loss of a child is a loss of a child at any stage IMO anyway.💐

@Goldencup You said that the evidence proves:

… that their thinking after pregnancy is better, more empathetic, more connected to the plight of the world's children

You’re now suggesting that the evidence in fact shows that caring responsibilities - not pregnancy - improve memory and organisation skills. Not quite the same thing, is it?

Thank you very much! Wouldn't have worked that out on my own. W=women, perhaps...

Yes that was an autocorrect I meant executive function.

I find it interesting that you interpret the phrase "similar results" in non birthing people with caring responsibilities to "lesser extent"

Actually it's both, the pregnancy and the caring responsibilities as explained in the article. As I understand it the pregnacy hormones prime the brain then the caring responsibilities inact the changes ( isn't the human body amazing) . I only discovered this line of reasearch about 2 months ago, I think it is facinating.

I side eye people who now have kids calling themselves childfree before the kids arrived. Because to me being childfree is a very active decision and not just continuing the status quo. It is actively saying no thanks to kids, ever, and therefore I would say someone who is a 'not yet' on the kid front isn't childfree.
As you say being one of the many who don't have kids through choice or 'yet' at 30 is very different to those who don't at 40 where that active decision becomes more clear to others.

I don't think it's necessarily about empathy that no one else but a mother could feel and so on - because lots of people are capable of being very empathetic - I just know personally before having children I didn't feel the same gut wrenching reduced to tears twisted heartache that I do now when I see photos of those blood soaked baby beds. Because I see my own children's beds in those photos and the toys on the floor and the stickers on the wall. Scenes like that touch me now in a way they didn't before because I see my own life and those of my own children reflected back at me.

There is something incredibly ableist by the way in suggesting those with a poorer memory or executive disfunction are not "better thinking" especially where you link that to them not being as empathetic

You can pick your quote tbh, most of the research has been done in birthing mothers.

As it says
However, no study to date has examined cognitive changes across the transition to parenthood for females who become parents without being pregnant and giving birth, or in people whose gender may not match their sex, representing a clear gap in the literature.

Ok, can you tell me how you would objectively define " better thinking" if you didn't use those parameters ? I didn't use the term " better" I said different. I was simply quoting another poster.

Ah so you are now going from lesser extend to none

There is other research out there than one paper....

And the paper itself states

In the only study in human nonbirthing mothers, foster mothers showed positive associations between oxytocin levels, and the quality of their maternal bond, and their brain response to their infant’s cues, similar to those of biological mothers

The isolated impact of caregiving has been shown in female virgin rodents exposed to pups [40,121], suggesting that the caregiving environment alone can induce beneficial neural and cognitive changes in new parents.

What you are saying though is that not enough studies have been done in none mothers. So the claims that going through pregnancy etc makes someone more empathetic and have a better memory etc is fairly unfounded as the studies haven't been done on childless women with caring responsibilities etc to compare them to.

You can't say one is "better thinking" than the other when there is no baseline for the other. All you can say is that we have been neglected in the research. not really the same thing at all

Someone posted on AIBU that she’d bought a dress for her sister’s daughter and her sister hated it and said what a good thing it was she couldn’t have children because she’d have dressed them horribly. Now there’s a nice caring empathetic mother.

I was happily childfree for almost 40 years, then had a child, and in the 11 years since I became a parent, I can report that my comprehension of geopolitics, levels of compassion, empathy, altruism, selfishness etc are essentially identical to beforehand.

I am pretty much the same person. Just with a child.

You are starting with the premise that one type of thinking is somehow inherently better than another

So I guess if you could show me a study that mothers were less likely to be abusive than childfree women I might think their thinking was better. Or if they were less likely to be bullies (not born out by the posts we've seen on this topic) or if they were less likely to be criminals or more likely to be philanthropic for example, or less likely to be ableist or racist etc.

Absolutely not if you search my posts I start off by saying it changes women's brain and they think differently. I was not the one who who started talking about better thinking.