Quote:
Originally Posted by Barnes
One feels sympathy when one hasn't been there. One feels empathy when one has. The ability to put oneself into someone else's shoes is what separates man from beast. We are talking about empathy or the ability to understand, perceive another person's feelings. The two are not the same and feelings are not actions.
When it's 3 in the morning, you have too work in 4 hours and haven't had more than 6 hours of sleep all week, have practically nothing to eat in the house, your dog hasn't been walked in days, wondering if the bills are going to be paid on one income and your wife is sad all the time due to drastic hormonal changes, your perspective can get a little skewed. Feeling empathy in this situation is the natural human response. What your actions are is the measure of what kind of human you are and understanding why someone would do something is very different then doing it.
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Agreed. I used "sympathy" intentionally. I haven't felt like roughing up my children because they cried or didn't do what I wanted them too. Maybe that thought occurs in some people who can't cope. I don't think a reasonably sane, adult parent would think those things unless they had mental health issues.
I also don't agree with comments that suggest that if you don't feel like resorting to violence that it somehow means you must not have been the primary caregiver or you didn't do any work raising the child yourself. That just seems like a defense mechanism for justifying their own feelings. Which is fine, just don't say that say that I have to feel that way or else I wasn't involved in raising my kids.