Exaggerating a bit, I felt like my old self was dead and I just happened to somehow have inherited his memories.

But a more concrete thing: While before I might have been saddened about bad things happening to kids, like any normal person would, after having kids myself I experience an stronger reaction:

I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

I was surprised how sudden the change was - I didn't become a dad to my kid, I became a dad to all kids within sight or sound. Sure, most of the time I don't have to do anything, but I certainly notice much more now.

> I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

This is how Israel's war radicalized me, I stopped watching videos, but they made me depressed, burned out, angry, because everytime I watched videos, my brain started asking "what would I do if this happened to my kids, would I join Hamas? probably yes"

I got burned out from these thoughts

I used to work in digital forensics and I used to occasionally see horrible things as part of that work; child abuse material, beheading videos and the like.

I’d become largely desensitised to the content, but after becoming a parent I just couldn’t deal with the CAM anymore.

Same here, I can't even read articles on BBC about child abusers, it makes me nauseous just to skim over a title.

150 of em. Just gone, for no reason. That week was agonizing.

> I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

Same. I literally have trouble sleeping after hearing about things like this.

>Exaggerating a bit, I felt like my old self was dead and I just happened to somehow have inherited his memories.

I had a small mental breakdown anticipating that this was going to happen while my wife was pregnant with our first. It didn't. I ended up replacing the part of my life that was video escapism with kids and kept everything else the same. Three kids in, things are going great.

>I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

Replace ill with enraged and I have had the same experience. The strong emotions were a bit of a surprise.

Some good biological imperatives at work! Beautifully Darwinian.

The Life of Dad was a good companion through the pregnancy, even if the author preaches a bit in some areas that felt off. It explains the massive mental transformation for fathers, the impact of testosterone, and why you’re “more affected” (so to speak) by being an involved father.

I had a spell of absurd anxiety. I’m not the same person in many ways. Being a dad is frekking cool and the weirdest challenge of my life.

And to your last point… I’m such a chill, no-violence dude, but once a drunk teenager walked into us and yelled at my baby. I was shocked, but 5 seconds later I only wanted to have access to a gun to shoot that teen right there and then. Yikes.

I don’t think any children should be harmed in a conflict. The knowledge of that, or of what we used to do to children in the past, are both things that can ruin a day for me.

That's how privacy-harming policies are so successful: "but think of the children !"

I used to watch a lot of true crime and now if child abuse is involved I just cannot do it.

I don't think it's exagaration.unless you had kids young, before you had established yourself and some kind of identity, it does all go away. Who you were and your hopes and dreams all die after your newborn arrives. Your just a parent now trying to fit a life into 1 or 2 hours of free time.