The happiness in parenting

You won’t often find anything on parenting here, largely because I think childless people should think twice before offering it, but while waiting for the bus yesterday I picked up the Sydney Child magazine and read a little article called The Parenting Paradox, by Arthur C. Brooks, who is president of an institute that sounds like it has little to do with parenting (the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research), but obviously it does. After discussing the ways in which having children reduces parental "happiness", which, incidentally, it reports is primarily owing to the effect that they have on the marriage, with quality of a marriage found to be critically important for life satisfaction, it says this:

"So why do we keep having kids, apart from the ticking of our biological clocks? Researchers find the reason goes deeper than happiness – to meaning ... Meaning in life is not the same thing as "happiness", and for most of us it is actually more important.

But there is one way in which parenting does raise happiness: parents increase the happiness of their children. A 2007 survey conducted by MTV and the Associated Press asked more than a thousand 13 to 24 year olds what made them happy. The number-one response did not accord with our adult paranoia at all – it was not hanging out at a shopping centre, playing video games or driving too fast. It was spending time with family. Almost three-quarters of the youthful respondents anonymously reported that their relationship with their parents made them happy."

So, be encouraged. Things aren’t always what they seem.

Picture from: www.channel4learning.net