海角大神

Do your children make you happy? Some research says no. I say yes.

My earth-shattering happiness formula is: To be happy, you must think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
One of the puzzles that led me to devise this formula is the question: Do children make you happy? (For people who want children, I mean; some people are quite happy not having children.)

In the book "Stumbling on Happiness," Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that children don鈥檛, in fact, make their parents happy.

He points to studies that show that marital satisfaction plummets after the birth of the first child and increases after the last child has left home, and to research that shows that a group of women found childcare only slightly more pleasant than housework.

So why do people think children bring happiness? Because, Dr. Gilbert argues, without the successful transmission of that inaccurate belief, society would crash 鈥� no one would have kids. Also, he says, when people think about having kids, they imagine the fun and success, but not the inconvenience and anxiety.

I thought a lot about Gilbert鈥檚 argument and the well-known studies he references. I certainly know from my own experience that the Big Man and I bicker much more now that we have kids, we have fewer fun adventures, and we have less time for each other. And having children is a source of worry, aggravation, expense, and inconvenience, not to mention all the colds I pick up and the chaos of toys that drives me crazy.

Nevertheless, I couldn鈥檛 accept the argument that children don鈥檛 bring happiness. Because they do! Not always in a moment-to-moment way, perhaps, but in some deeper way.

I struggled to figure out how to account for this paradox in my formula, and that鈥檚 how I came up with feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right.
I imagine that if I didn鈥檛 have children, day to day, I might very well have more feeling good and听濒别蝉蝉 feeling bad 鈥� more time reading in bed, less time replacing the caps on magic markers. Which means I鈥檇 be happier, right?

Wrong. Children are essential to my feeling right. Being a parent, holding your baby in your arms, taking your place in the circle of life 鈥� it鈥檚 corny but it鈥檚 true. Most people just wouldn't feel right if they didn't have kids. (Again, I recognize that some people don't want kids; I'm not tackling the issue of their happiness here.)

Feeling right is an essential component of happiness. I don鈥檛 think that parents-to-be fool themselves that parenthood is all fun. They might not exactly anticipate what鈥檚 going to hit them with that first baby, but they know it鈥檚 not all playgrounds and valedictorian addresses.

There are times when feeling right means feeling bad. Consider a commute. Studies show (surprise!) that a bad commute is a real downer, and one to which we never adapt. But you might choose to have a bad commute in order to live in a neighborhood with good schools. Once your kids are in the good school, you鈥檒l adapt to that circumstance, and it won鈥檛 be a source of feeling good, and the commute will make you feel bad every day. But it鈥檚 worth it, because you feel right about your trade-off.

Even though they may means less feeling good, and more feeling bad, I think children contribute mightily to happiness.

Also, they contribute to the atmosphere of growth that is important to happiness (and part of my formula). Seeing them learn, change, and grow boosts happiness.