Guest blogger Georgie Hockett: Does being a mom make you more empathic to children you don't even know?

With the sudden death of Jett Travolta permeating the news, moms everywhere felt the pain his celebrity parents (John Travolta and Kelly Preston) must be feeling. "I can't stop thinking about it," says Linda, mom of two, from Tacoma, WA. "I remember him being born."

Which raises the question, when you become a mother, do you become a mom to all the children of the world? "I definitely can't bear seeing children in third world countries starving," says one mom, who wants to remain anonymous. "And when I see some sex predator on the news, who has violated a child, I seriously want to hunt him down."

Just because you're human, doesn't mean that the 'empathic bone' is a part of your anatomy. Research shows that people with autistic disorders typically lack empathy ... it's also missing in people with schizophrenia. Criminal sociopaths -- or psychopaths -- lack empathy, which explains a lot.

"We never imagine living longer than our children," says Colleen M. of California; mother of two adult children. "So yes, being a mom, my feelings are heightened whenever I hear of the loss of a child. My mother has lost two children -- my brothers -- who did not live long lives. She tells me how she constantly re-lives every phase of their life, from the moment they were born."

Whether it's learning of the death of a celebrity son, or hearing about a local child who's lost then sadly found, you just see the world differently when you have a child.