In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's "Gross National Happiness" author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.
The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."
What makes you unhappy? What keeps you happy? Why do you think parents are unhappier?
5 comments:
Oh Who is this Alice? And why is she poking us in such uncomfortable places?
Who is this "Site Administrator"? And why is he not yet sharing his thoughts on what makes him happy?
Happiness is reading the Sunday papers alonmg with a good tall coffee and a warm flaky croissant. The sun shines gently warming your hand. Your daughter comes and sits on your lap an hour later and reads the funnies and the Sunday Magazine with you. In later years she might sit and do the crossword with you. The key to happiness in this scene is that she comes an hour later!
I wonder if these studies are specific to the US. Balancing work and parenting in the US seems more stressful than in many other parts of the world. Of course I have no real data to back this claim :).
Chandra, The studies are not specific to the U.S. - but cover mostly the western world (including Europe, where work-life balance is a bit better). At this point, mostly what everyone has is just a hypothesis! We will have to do further studies to verify any of these. However, I hope that researchers do look at eastern models of parenting (multi-generational families, neighbors who are involved, etc.) when they do their studies.
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