Overwhelmed by stories of bad things happening to children since I had DC

[CityDweller]

I just wondered if anyone else has experienced this? Since I had DD (well, actually, since she was about 8 months old) I find I am affected, to the point of being overwhelmed, if I read anything about bad things happening to children. I'm almost overcome with pre-emptive grief at the prospect of anything happening to DD.

For example, there was something about the Bulger killers in the papers a few weeks ago, which just made me feel very overwhelmed at the idea that something so awful could happen to a toddler (esp. the idea that they might be very frightened before they died). Today I read something about a memorial fund in the name of one of the little girls who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting. Again, I was overcome with grief at the idea of all those terrified little children in that school as the shooter rampaged.

Is this normal? Do all mothers/ parents feel this? I've never been one to feel such strong emotions about situations that don't directly impact me. Now I almost want to avoid social media and the news for fear of hearing about something else terrible happening to small children...

[CrimeaRiver]

I get this massively. And yet, I will be the first to admit, I do NOTHING to help the millions of children worldwide who are starved, tortured, abused, neglected and worse. This hypocrisy and heartlessness of mine has been playing on my mind for over a year now, in which time more have perished, and I think it is slowly building up to something. I'm not there yet, but getting there.

I don't know if this is a cop out or if it is actually real, but I wonder whether - given the horror of what is happening to other people's children - we don't go there precisely because we have children of our own and it's too much to handle. A kind of price to pay for having the ability to empathise.

Then i think of the scores of humanitarian workers who are mothers and am totally stymied. It's sometimes not possible to reconcile oneself to one's conscience.