I wonder if the effect is stronger for people who don’t have younger siblings. Maybe for people with younder siblings, part of the effect kicks in when they have a younger sibling (but they’re generally too young to notice this), so the effect of becoming a parent is smaller.
I remember when my younger brother was born, and this sensation of going from this scaredy hypochondriac 6 year old (who worried about poisonous spiders, house fires, earthquakes, etc), to a mindset of “Okay, but what will I DO if there is a fire. How will I get me and little brother out the window?”. There was this really sharp sensation of “Oh, I’m responsible now.” and an associated values system shift, which… I suspect is similar to what a lot of people are talking about here?
Pretty much all of my adult life, my baseline levels of “protection towards children” are pretty damn high… to the point where I stand up and move to a more protective position when I see children near ledges, (even random strangers kids).
Of course… I don’t yet have children of my own, so is hard to compare to what other people are describing with respect to having kids, but based on my own personal experience so far… yeah, I’d say younger siblings definitely CAN have a similar trigger effect.
Personally, while I like my younger siblings a lot (1.5y and 4y younger) I don’t think I had much of this sort of effect. I didn’t feel fiercely protective of them, media involving harm to children didn’t bother me until I had my own kids, etc.
The transition to parenthood wasn’t very pronouncd fir me—probably because I loved being around children before. Maybe you are onto something: I am the oldest sibling and I remember really liking to care of my twin siblings when the were babies and I was thirteen. I think it bit only prepared me but might also have kicked in the drive. I also remember studies showing that teens who have to take care of crying baby dolls as a means to discourag teen pregnancies didn’t work too well because the girls developed affections for the baby dolls anyway. Maybe an experiment people could do is to find a family with kids and help out when their baby is small and see how it is. Also: Maybe people in rationalist group houses mit Kids could be polled?
I wonder if the effect is stronger for people who don’t have younger siblings. Maybe for people with younder siblings, part of the effect kicks in when they have a younger sibling (but they’re generally too young to notice this), so the effect of becoming a parent is smaller.
I remember when my younger brother was born, and this sensation of going from this scaredy hypochondriac 6 year old (who worried about poisonous spiders, house fires, earthquakes, etc), to a mindset of “Okay, but what will I DO if there is a fire. How will I get me and little brother out the window?”. There was this really sharp sensation of “Oh, I’m responsible now.” and an associated values system shift, which… I suspect is similar to what a lot of people are talking about here?
Pretty much all of my adult life, my baseline levels of “protection towards children” are pretty damn high… to the point where I stand up and move to a more protective position when I see children near ledges, (even random strangers kids).
Of course… I don’t yet have children of my own, so is hard to compare to what other people are describing with respect to having kids, but based on my own personal experience so far… yeah, I’d say younger siblings definitely CAN have a similar trigger effect.
Personally, while I like my younger siblings a lot (1.5y and 4y younger) I don’t think I had much of this sort of effect. I didn’t feel fiercely protective of them, media involving harm to children didn’t bother me until I had my own kids, etc.
The transition to parenthood wasn’t very pronouncd fir me—probably because I loved being around children before. Maybe you are onto something: I am the oldest sibling and I remember really liking to care of my twin siblings when the were babies and I was thirteen. I think it bit only prepared me but might also have kicked in the drive. I also remember studies showing that teens who have to take care of crying baby dolls as a means to discourag teen pregnancies didn’t work too well because the girls developed affections for the baby dolls anyway. Maybe an experiment people could do is to find a family with kids and help out when their baby is small and see how it is. Also: Maybe people in rationalist group houses mit Kids could be polled?