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Having Kids Makes You Happy
Societal ills aside, perhaps we also expect too much from the promise of parenting. The National Marriage Project's 2006 "State of Our Unions" report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations. Twenty-five years ago, women married around the age of 20, and men at 23. Today both sexes are marrying four to five years later. This means the experience of raising kids is now competing with highs in a parent's past, like career wins ("I got a raise!") or a carefree social life ("God, this is a great martini!"). Shuttling cranky kids to school or dashing to work with spit-up on your favorite sweater doesn't skew as romantic.
For the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming. As for those of us with kids, well, the news isn't all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who've never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son. As for the Sloans, it's hard to say whether they had a less meaningful existence than my parents, or if my parents were 7 percent less happy than the Sloans. Perhaps it just comes down to how you see the candy dish—half empty or half full. Or at least as a parent, that's what I'll keep telling myself.
Answer: False
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: Susanroyle @ 11/06/2008 7:56:00 PM
Comment: In my personal experience, it's not true that being childless makes you happy. I am in a second marriage, and my husband is older than I am. He had children from his first marriage and didn't want to start over again, despite my pleas. Fast forward to 20 years later, he's retired, and we're both lonely, bored and unfulfilled. It's not that we don't get along, we do. But everyone needs more than one important person in their life. People with family around, whether it's the nuclear family or extended family, have no idea how lonely and empty your life can be without family. I have found that as people age, they spend more time with extended family, particularly when they retire. I increasingly see our friends and neighbors spend more time with their grown children and grandchildren. We are spending more and more time alone. Aside from lacking people contact in my life, there is no greater human need than to be needed. I am envious of my friends who get a call from their children asking them to baby-sit. I would be thrilled to have someone need me like that.
Posted By: Greenwoman @ 11/06/2008 3:55:03 PM
Comment: The change in our collective attitude to authority is what makes parenting stressful. We only recently emerged from a world that raised children primarily through punishment, and inflexible rules. It's taking us some time to master the new way of parenting. Consider: the old paradigm was in effect for about eight thousand years.
Posted By: Greenwoman @ 11/06/2008 3:51:38 PM
Comment: Thank you "Time Matters" for some clear, helpful guidelines. I'm surprised that Lorraine Ali's article does not mention what I believe is the single greatest change in childrearing since the 1950's when I grew up: the improvement in our collective attitude toward authority. Children were once punished for "bad" behavior, and the rules were usually not negotiable. I know this caused great tension for those of us who struggled to raise children during the 1970's. We knew full well what now we should NOT do, but new alternatives were a challenge to learn, since we had NOT been raised even remotely like the new way in which we were attempting to raise our kids.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if in 2008 we have finally reached the end of that shift, and a calmer, balanced approach to parenting becomes doable, day in, day out.