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.

Many times I've heard women say how motherhood changed them. How they developed more empathy and became more deeply affected by the suffering of children. I have no reason to assume they're lying so I suppose it must be true for them. They share links to scientific papers proving it's true.
What they sometimes fail to realise is that many women feel like that before having children and that, actually, becoming a mother hasn't changed them one bit! I'm one of those women - I've always been deeply affected by the suffering of children. I was 17 when James Bulger was killed and it haunted me for weeks. I wasn't a mother was baby P was tortured to death and I was most deeply, horribly affected. Having a child has made no difference to me in terms of empathy whatsoever.
Because of this I know that plenty of child free (or pre-child) women feel the same as I did. Plenty of them will have very deep feelings of empathy for people and children they've never met. For these women it must feel like a slap in the face to have mothers tell them "You don't understand, you care so much more about children once you're a mother. It happened to me!"
Also there are plenty of mothers who don't have an ounce of empathy and other mothers who abuse their children.
It's far too simplistic to assume that all women undergo this change when having babies and that women who aren't mothers can't have the same feelings. They most definitely can.

Out of curiosity, how would you describe me then? Never planned not to have children, they just didn’t happen, mainly due to not being in a relationship at the right time, and now the window of possibility has passed.

Can I not describe myself as childfree? I’m definitely not pre-children.

It’s up to you whether you describe yourself as childless or childfree depending on how you feel about it. I actually use both depending on context (wanted children, couldn’t have them, now living a great childfree life and post menopausal so zero chance of that changing). But I don’t think anyone who has had a child can really say they were childfree before having them. Unless they did decide they were never having them and then changed their mind.

Why do you think it has anything to do with you? It's just what someone else is saying they feel. As a mother. It's not about you. Why take it personally?

"As a mother," is one of those puzzling phrases because it's almost always used in the context of discussing something bad i.e. child abuse/murder, war, or other horrific things as if people without children somehow lack the ability to understand just how horrific it is.

There is a real level of superiority about it and it can (unintentionally-maybe) further the notion that those of us without children are somehow deficient in respects of compassion and empathy.

Believe it or not, I can absolutely be as horrified as any parent about cases of child abuse/murder because I have empathy and am a thinking and feeling human being. I appreciate that children are society's most vulnerable and would do anything to protect them. Just because I didn't push one out of my coochie (and I can't believe I just typed that) doesn't mean I'm some unthinking, unfeeling blob.

Are the people who use this phrase really trying to insinuate that before pushing a child out of your lady parts you didn't have empathy or compassion and do you realise that's not the boast you think it is?

I would also argue against the notion that parents become more empathetic after having children. They don't. You only have to spend 10 minutes scrolling on MN to know that many parents only feel empathy for their own, biological children and every other child can get in the bin. I'm not judging that-but to suggest that parents have deeper empathy, especially towards children, is a complete and total stretch.

Even on this very thread it's been mentioned by some PP's that when a tragic thing happens to a child, their thought is "What if it happened to my child?" So their empathy remains entirely in conjunction with their own, biological child and not for the child that has been harmed. So, I don't view that as having deeper emotions or understanding of empathy at all.

There is a real level of superiority about it and it can (unintentionally-maybe) further the notion that those of us without children are somehow deficient in respects of compassion and empathy.

@CleverLilViper you are deciding How someone feels after becoming a mother is not reflective of you. Or a judgement on you. It's not about you.

It is when it’s said to you, specifically, as a childfree or childless woman, accompanied by ‘you wouldn’t understand’, or some equally crass variant.

This is the experience of thousands of childfree women, and something we sympathise with each other over. Here, on the Childfree board, which we asked to set up so we didn’t have to deal with quite so much of what you are doing, precisely.

Maybe try having more respect for other women? You seem to think you speak for one whole group of women, and presume to tell another whole group how wrong they are to feel how they feel about something done to them.

You are proving a lot of points here, but not the ones you think you are.

This is the childfree forum. It's not about you.

Then why feel the need to differentiate between being a mother with the phrase "as a mother" to those without children? That's what that phrase does-it differentiates between the two and seems to indicate that one is superior and the other lacking, given the context it is often used in.

Rarely, would a woman use "As a mother" to describe something she feels she lacks.

Rarely, would a woman use "As a mother" to describe something she feels she lacks

I don't think I've ever heard anyone utter that specific sentence. However 'since I had kids' or other variations - yes, I've heard it lots. And plenty of times not related to a positive.

Never heard anyone say that

Samantha Cameron for a start. Loads of people when natural disasters or bad things are reported in the news. It's fairly widespread and there have been multiple threads on MN about it over the years.

When several people join in with anecdotes about the same thing do you always jump to the conclusion it can't be true because it hasn't happened to you?

This.
My life is absolutely actively planned out with no children in mind. Next years, property plans for future, retirement, no need to keep money for inheritance etc. We actively plan it. It's not "well we will see what happens if it happens". It's "this is how it will be". There is no ambiguity there.

I was absolutely planning never to have children. I had met DH at 19. He equally planned not to have any. We spent the next 20 years together not having children by choice. Then we decided to have one just before I turned 40. I don’t think that invalidates more than 20 years being childfree by choice, and getting all the irritating covert and overt judgements about being ‘selfish’ and ‘cold’ and intrusive questions from strangers that come up all the time on here. I have been childfree by choice for far more of my adult life than I’ve been a parent. I occasionally look in on childfree forum posts because, again, it’s not that I don’t get it.

But this tells me you had never definitely ruled out having children, but decided to have one at the point where the choice might become more difficult and before it became too late?

@Insommmmnia

I didn't say it can't be true, of course if many have heard it said then it is true.

I'm simply saying "just about every opinion" is a bit of a stretch as I haven't heard one person say it.

Well thank you very much for popping by the childfree board to let us know you as a parent haven't come across something that's bothering us. Much appreciated.

Just because you haven't heard it, doesn't mean people don't say it.

Also, I'm getting really sick of parents coming onto the Childfree board to tell us all that our experiences are invalid because they "haven't heard anyone say that."

No, shit, Sherlock. If you have kids, people are less likely to throw out the phrase "As a mother" to and around you because it would be pretty redundant. Yet, people do say it and many posters on this thread and in a recent Guardian article can attest to it.

It's the same as when the parents stroll in to the child-free board to declare that no one calls child-free people selfish for not having kids because, golly, gosh, they've never heard it. Again, if you have kids-people ain't saying that shit to you.

It's just irritating having a board that is meant to be for child-free people whether that's by choice or circumstance constantly get used by parents to invalidate our experiences so we have to spend a good chunk of our threads defending our own experiences to people who just dismiss them out of hand who shouldn't even be on this board in the first place.

And yes, I know some people are stumbling in here by accident from actives-fine, but there's some people who have posted multiple times on this board with the same dismissive attitude every time so I don't buy that they're not doing it intentionally.

This isn't a child-free versus parents post, either. I don't have a problem with a lot of the parents who post here. Some very thoughtful, considerate and supportive posts have been from parents. It's more the ones that constantly challenge and diminish our experiences to the point where threads get derailed from the original point because we're forced to defend it.

You have the vast majority of MN to play on-crack on elsewhere and leave us in peace.

I was entirely set on not having a child. I can’t stress that enough. All life decisions were made on the basis of remaining childfree, including having a job that meant spending six months a year abroad, and living in a tiny central London studio. DH and I both had a simultaneous attack of curiosity, but weren’t honestly expecting anything to come of it (the ‘fertility falls off a cliff at 35’ stuff was at its peak in the media), but to our shock, conceived the first month.

I’m not going to stick around because this subboard isn’t for ‘formerly childfree people’, I only wanted to add my voice to the childfree people arguing against the ‘parents are more empathetic and attuned to genocide’ position, because I’m exactly the same person I was when i spent 20 plus adult years planning not to have a child. If I was ‘selfish’, ‘cold’, ‘too career-focused’ etc then (which I got like many other childfree women), then nothing’s changed.

My personal experience is that I have more empathy since having a child. Maybe that's what they mean? I don't think people without children lack empathy, I think it's a personal thing and I simply was a harder person, but yes, it has changed me. I don't think that it's a superiority thing, just a shift that is noticable for people that knew me before.

@CleverLilViper @Insommmmnia

How do you know I'm a parent?

Because you have mentioned children on previous threads and I (unfortunately at times) have a photographic memory

@Insommmmnia

Do you check the posting history of everyone that's comments on a thread you're on?

What part of photographic memory is confusing you?

Oh I ignored that bit.