Children are taught at a certain stage in their life that there are starving kids in Africa, and that they mustn’t feel too much empathy for people who they don’t know. If a kid gets depressed over conditions in foreign countries, or develops climate change anxiety, or refuses to eat meat, they aren’t encouraged. They’re either sent to a mental health professional to have their empathy recalibrated, or the adults just hope their empathy blunts over time on its own.

Why are you assuming that the female relative is a “need” in order to empathize and not just a way to feel closer to the problem? I think it’s fair that if you have deep connections with someone, their problems become your problems. It doesn’t mean you wouldn’t care about that if you didn’t have that connection.