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Avoiding current affairs, violent films etc as a parent. Did you turn into a wuss too?

19 replies

treacletart · 09/03/2008 20:34

Wasn't sure where to post this. I used to be pretty hardy, but when I first became a parent, I stopped listening to radio4 and the world service, reading the paper properly, watching the news or gangster and war films etc because I just couldn't handle them anymore. I became a total wuss. Everyone becomes someone's baby or someone's parent and I just found it too upsetting.

Now I reckon this is fairly normal. It's amazing how the important stuff filters through anyway and 4 years after DS was born I was getting gradually a little hardier, but then I got pregnant again. Now with a 7 month old I'm back to metaphorically putting my fingers in my ears and shouting "lalalanotlistening" whenever horrid news comes on and I can't find the remote fast enough.

Now, got chatting to another mum last night and discovered she had a similar and perhaps a little more severe reaction - she told me at the end of our conversation that she'd seen a councellor about it - but had never spoken to anyone who'd had the same thing.

Is it that uncommon? I've always assumed it was so normal it hadn't even bothered me. What do you think?

OP posts:
nickytwotimes · 09/03/2008 20:37

Totally agree with you, treacle. Me and dh have both turned into oversensitive souls since becoming parents. From my friends, I think it is pretty normal thouygh.

constancereader · 09/03/2008 20:44

Before I had a baby I remember secretely thinking my friend was pathetic because she couldn't bear to watch the news.

Now I am a parent I know where she was coming from. I heard an item on the Today programme when my lo was a few weeks old that was so traumatic I flashback to it even now.

You are right - everyone is someone's child or parent.

policywonk · 09/03/2008 20:45

Definitely strikes a chord with me. I've never enjoyed violent films, but since getting pregnant with DS1 I've been unable to watch news coverage of violent events as well (can't read any of the reports about this 'care' home in Jersey, for instance).

I remember trying to re-read Beloved, the Toni Morrison book about a slave in the States - a really great book and one that I love - when I was pregnant with DS1, and having to give up on it because it was just too upsetting.

Scattybird · 09/03/2008 20:47

We watched Annie yesterday and I was crying before it even got started as I couldn't bear the thought of all of those children without Mummys. My son laughed at me. Alot.

Kindersurpise · 09/03/2008 20:49

I am the same. I was never a great fan of horror films or anything too violent. I don't even watch James Bond films.

Now I can hardly watch anything. I tear up at adverts, FGS. The First Choice one, where the Dad picks up his wee boy and twirls him around.

I also cannot watch the coverage of the Jersey home, or Madelaine stories. It upsets me too much.

treacletart · 09/03/2008 20:50

Oh I sobbed at the opening scenes of Nemo!

OP posts:
policywonk · 09/03/2008 20:52

I wonder whether there isn't something slightly pathalogical about the people who can happily absorb some of this stuff. Pre-kids I could take in a lot more in the way of violent imagery, but I don't think it made me a better human being - if anything it made me a worse one, I suspect. I don't think there's much that's healthy in being blase about suffering and violence.

policywonk · 09/03/2008 20:53

gargh, pathOlogical

motherinferior · 09/03/2008 20:54

Er no. There is probably some stuff about violence/abuse against children which I find harder to tolerate but overall no.

I actually feel quite strongly that to say 'I have children therefore cannot bear to know about the inhuman and appalling things that people perpetrate upon each other' is not, for quite a lot of reasons, a good idea.

constancereader · 09/03/2008 20:54

secretly

I found 'The History of Childhood' heartbreaking too.

policywonk · 09/03/2008 20:57

MI, I think for me there's a healthy middle ground between ignorance (no use to anyone) and a salacious truffling for detail (also of no use to anyone).

Kindersurpise · 09/03/2008 21:00

MI
I do agree with you, I hate it when a parent starts a statement with, "As a parent, I feel...". As if a non-parent is likely to be less horrified about something like Jersey.

But I am definately more sensitive now than I used to be. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the DCs, it is just old age.

motherinferior · 09/03/2008 21:01

I don't think I truffle madly, except in my unfailing love of the more psychopathic thrillers...

policywonk · 09/03/2008 21:29

Sorry MI, didn't mean to imply that you truffled, just that there is a certain truffling quality to a lot of news coverage, particularly regarding sexual crimes or crimes against children.

IorekByrnison · 09/03/2008 22:08

Yes me too. It is normal I'm sure. I don't consciously avoid the news but do find it much more distressing now, and I've no stomach for any fictional violence/horror etc any more.

PurplePillow · 09/03/2008 22:10

No parenthood has not changed me - I've always been a wuss

mamalovesmojitos · 09/03/2008 22:43

omg totally. never understood my mum hysterical at deaths on the news or refusing to watch scary/depressing films. now i cannot watch so many things. wuss wuss wuss. i feel pathetic. also scared to do things like skydiving (my bf did it last yr) in case i was 'tempting fate' and putting myself in a dangerous situation which i shouldn't do as a mum.

WideWebWitch · 10/03/2008 22:03

yes, I don't watch news or read it much, might flick through a paper sometimes.

southeastastra · 10/03/2008 22:04

maybe that's why the world is so f*cked up, not enough babies

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