Is this normal when you become a parent?

[louloutheshamed]

I was seeing a friend over the weekend, she is the same age as me but single and childless, I have 1 ds 2.5yo and due dc2 is sept.

I have always been close to her and she absolutely adores my ds, she is his godmother and is forever buying him gifts and vision him. She is a
Primary teacher, so likes kids generally, and she is a bit naive about the realities of parenthood but no more than I was pre dc.

However, this weekend she was telling me 2 anecdotes about children at her school, a boy who was being abused, and a girl who has a
Terminal brain tumour. She was quite matter-of-factly going into details re her illness, treatment etc, and the whole time i just wanted her
To stop talking as I just found
It so So Upsetting and terrifyingly sad and awful, I felt sick when she was telling me about it. And it struck me
Is this a result of the divide between having dc and not
Or am I just hormonal
and pathetic? It made me a bit sad for Our friendship in a weird way that I can't explain.

I feel like that too since having kids. No extra hormones here.

Yes, it is a divide.

When Madeline McCann disappeared I didn't have children and found it a sad story. Now when stories like that crop up in the news - or she is in the news for some reason- I am actively upset and emotional.

Every time I hear or read awful tales of ill or mistreated children I want to cry. I always imagine it being my own dc and the thought of anything bad happening to them makes me upset and distressed. I think I've always felt this way but more so since having had children.

If she's a teacher though, and these are children in her class and their care has nothing to do with you, how come she's telling you the details? Surely that comes under some privacy/confidentiality laws?

I feel like that too - anything sad to do with children and I cry easily and have to stop reading/listening. Had to refuse a piece of work recently because it was to do with a child who had died v young and I didn't think I could emotionally cope. Before children I would have found it sad but in a more detached way now I just imagine it's my dc in that position and burst into tears

I definitely feel it more since becoming a parent. Madeline McCain was a really sad story. April jones I literally couldn't stop thinking about her and felt physically sick.

When I see or hear stories in the news about children being hurt it upsets me since becoming a parent. It's inbuilt within you to nurture your child and you are far more empathetic about things like that. I didn't think that having a baby would divide you from your friends who don't have kids. But really it does

I'm going against the grain a bit. I would say her ability to be a little more detached from sad stories is the fact that she deals with situations like that on a daily basis, but perhaps, if you don't work in teaching . social care then you aren't ?

Very unprofessional of her to discuss highly confidential and personal details about children she has responsibility for .

Being a teacher means you come into contact with awful things happening to children and if you don't distance yourself from it all mentally you'd have a breakdown.

So I'm a teacher and have DC but could probably discuss those things matter of factly.

I could always sympathise before, but now I can relate, and perhaps that's the difference. When I hear something horrible I'm able to place myself and/or my son in the scenario for one frightening moment. You should have asked your friend to stop if it made you uncomfortable - no shame in that.

I could always sympathise before, but now I can relate, and perhaps that's the difference. When I hear something horrible I'm able to place myself and/or my son in the scenario for one frightening moment. You should have asked your friend to stop if it made you uncomfortable - no shame in that.

I think she might have a need to talk about these things with a friend. While not having children herself, she still spends a lot of time around children, so must have some feelings about the situations of the two she has told you about, while keeping a professional distance emotionally.

I found the stories sad before ds, but I joined the nspcc after he was born and give an amount of my salary each month to them. My stomach sinks every time I hear or read about a poor child who has not had the same loving home environment and start to life that my ds has. I feel physically sick when I think about what could happen to him. For this reason I avoid such stories if at all possible and put them to the back of my mind. It's the only way to stay sane.

I remember when sara payne went missing I was sick of the nrws coverage - I was early teens- but when maddie went missing it was awful - late teens, dd of my own and maddie bears a striking resemblance to my step daughter.

I refuse to read/watch/listen to stories of missing children/abuse etc as it sticks in my mind for weeks and at silly moments pop in my head :(

I don't think its anything to do with not being a parent, its more that sometimes in work you can't take things personally, otherwise you would never get through a day. My friends all think that my work stories are Terrible, I tend not to talk about work as consequence, I use colleagues to offload on, my husband works in a similar field and I can talk to him without him thinking I'm nuts. If she wasn't using names and too many details them maybe she wasn't being unprofessiona by talking about these things with you. or Maybe the stories did bother her and she needed to talk them out? Bearing in mind that you were just hearing about them but she might be facing them every day