Having Kids Can Make Parents Less Empathetic
Some new experiences seem par for the course—feeling less annoyed by crying kids on planes, embarrassingly tearing up to dad-themed commercials—but other changes have surprised me. I’ve grown more suspicious of strangers, for example. I’ve mentally rehearsed potential sidewalk conflicts. I’ve researched nearby boxing gyms, as though by becoming stronger or more threatening, I could somehow keep her safe.
.. Past research has shown that people who endure hardships tend to treat others more compassionately. By contrast, years of medical training candecrease doctors’ connection to their patients’ suffering. And yet scientists know almost nothing about how having children—among the most titanic and most common life changes—affects empathy.
.. First—and this one is easy—I feel empathy for my child on a scale I’ve never experienced before. Second, I can feel my empathy for others sometimes diminish in her presence.
.. By way of analogy, consider self-control. Scientists have long held that will power is like a muscle that tires with repeated use.
.. Based on my own research with Dweck, I have a hunch that empathy works the same way—people are most likely to run out of it when they believe they have only so much to give. Some psychologists have drawn distinctions between two types of empathy: vicariously sharing someone else’s pain, and compassionately wishing to improve others’ experiences. In this view, the former leads to emotional fatigue, while the latter rejuvenates.