Kids & Happiness

by Geoff Battersby

A recent article in Newsweek tries to make the point that having "bundles of joy" does not really make you happy, contrary to popular notions that having children is the key to such happiness. As Alan Jacobs points out here, it seems odd that we have "organized the structure of our lives around the pursuit of happiness in such a way — that having children compromises it."

Comments

[JM Inc.]

I've always found it odd that people need social custom to tell them what sort of lives make them happy... seems kind of like a no-brainer to me. When did it become such a soul-search to 'organise the structure' of your life so that it, a) works best, and b) makes you happiest (hint: A is a means toward B)?

Kids, no kids; who really measures their own happiness by somebody else's?

[Dave Owen]

I think that the wildest part about the discussion on happiness is that so many people think that it is all about externals.

It is a choice. We have a choice each and every day as to how we react to "stuff". We can yield to the common feeling that we are victims of the world and become depressed. Or, we can decide to enjoy life and go thru this "stuff".

You find what you look for. If you look for crap on a daily basis that is what you will see. But, on the other hand, if you look for happiness, that is what you will find.

Happiness is a decision not a quest.

[Michael]

Erik Erikson would politely disagree, seeing as his developmental stage of generativity is exclusively concerned with caring for the next generation. How is it that respected psychological greats are chucked aside for recent sociological surveys when surveys are by nature unreliable? Not to mention that they're not longitudinal. Ask parents after the raising is done what their most fulfilling role was in life--word on the street is parenting is pretty fulfilling.

[GB]

JM: Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding what you wrote, but it seems to me like learning from social custom is the no-brainer. How does someone have anything like the kind of perspective necessary to decide on his own that having kids or not having kids will ultimately make him happier or not without looking to others who have gone through it before him? I know that for myself, now that I have 3 kids, I had no idea what I was getting into before having them. Same with marriage. Without the "social custom" I have no real basis for evaluating a potential happiness quotient.