Having Kids Will Ruin Life

September 4, 2011 6:25 PM

Does having children ruin your life? While most parents either say no or that you can never know until you're a parent yourself (and may not tell the whole truth when asked such a question anyway), empirical evidence suggests that it does. Every study ever conducted indicates that people with children are less happy (not unhappy, but less happy) than people who don't have kids. The idea that parents are less happy than nonparents has become so commonplace in academia that it was big news last year when the Journal of Happiness Studies published a Scottish paper declaring the opposite was true, only to issue a correction a few months later upholding the status-quo. Not too surprising when having a baby can ruin your sex-life, your career and your marriage.
posted by Effigy2000 (23 comments total)

But it's a miracle!
posted by ReeMonster at 6:26 PM on September 4, 2011

Not news in 2009 (first link) or 2008 (second link) or 2010 (third link) or 2001 (last link). Why are we posting this again, other than because our axe got dull?
posted by The Bellman at 6:30 PM on September 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Obligatory xkcd.
(posted by a happy father of three, typed with one hand while holding one of the little ones on my lap)
posted by zsazsa at 6:30 PM on September 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

So, wait, links to Salon, NYmag and the Telegraph, but no cites for the central claim that "Every study ever conducted indicates that people with children are less happy (not unhappy, but less happy) than people who don't have kids."? C'mon.
posted by unSane at 6:31 PM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Although you always have to consider whether the point of life is about being the happiest you can be, or going after some other goal (I say, as a non-parent myself who recognizes that it definitely seems to pay out for people in other ways).
posted by bizzyb at 6:31 PM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Any large change is going to alter one's life in good and bad ways. Getting an undergraduate and/or graduate degree. Getting married. Moving. Having children.

I suspect that determining whether results are a net positive or negative is not going to be universally quantified by a study.
posted by zarq at 6:34 PM on September 4, 2011

Having a kid definitely drastically altered the life I had previous to children. So did getting my first real job. So did graduating college. So did graduating high school. So did learning to ride a bike. So did potty training. So did learning to speak.
posted by sciurus at 6:35 PM on September 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

Define "your life".
posted by ddaavviidd at 6:36 PM on September 4, 2011

I would have been so much happier if I hadn't been potty trained.
posted by XMLicious at 6:37 PM on September 4, 2011

Come on, unSane, it's every study ever conducted. I mean, go find a study, and it will indicate that people without children are happier. This study from last year showing that low risk of cancer correlates with eating avocados? Well, parents tend to eat more avocados. That other study showing that cough syrup is ineffective against colds? Well, most people who administer cough syrup are parents. And having a kid that grows ever-sicker would totally make me unhappy.

Really, if you look at it right and squint a bit, every study ever conducted indicates that parents are less happy than nonparents. It's totally a fact.
posted by koeselitz at 6:40 PM on September 4, 2011 [2 favorites]

"...but no cites for the central claim that "Every study ever conducted indicates that people with children are less happy (not unhappy, but less happy) than people who don't have kids."? C'mon."
posted by unSane at 12:31 PM on September 5

It's in the third link.

"Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines. Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize–winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.) This result also shows up regularly in relationship research, with children invariably reducing marital satisfaction. The economist Andrew Oswald, who’s compared tens of thousands of Britons with children to those without, is at least inclined to view his data in a more positive light: “The broad message is not that children make you less happy; it’s just that children don’t make you more happy.” That is, he tells me, unless you have more than one. “Then the studies show a more negative impact.” As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns. But some of the studies are grimmer than others. Robin Simon, a sociologist at Wake Forest University, says parents are more depressed than nonparents no matter what their circumstances—whether they’re single or married, whether they have one child or four.

The idea that parents are less happy than nonparents has become so commonplace in academia that it was big news last year when the Journal of Happiness Studies published a Scottish paper declaring the opposite was true. “Contrary to much of the literature,” said the introduction, “our results are consistent with an effect of children on life satisfaction that is positive, large and increasing in the number of children.” Alas, the euphoria was short-lived. A few months later, the poor author discovered a coding error in his data, and the publication ran an erratum. “After correcting the problem,”it read,“the main results of the paper no longer hold. The effect of children on the life satisfaction of married individuals is small, often negative, and never statistically significant.”

posted by Effigy2000 at 6:41 PM on September 4, 2011

A friend of mine hypothesizes that people with children are (found to be) less happy in general because all the everyday stuff gets compared to the intense happiness you feel when your child(ren) are born, and so is rated lower. Childless people rate their happiness so high because they haven't properly calibrated their happiness meters.
posted by noahpoah at 6:42 PM on September 4, 2011

Keep telling yourselves this, you childless wretches. My daughter is a little happiness explosion that made every moment of every day a joy.
posted by Matt Bird at 6:42 PM on September 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Parenting is not for the timid. To even play you have to first grow a pair.
posted by hal9k at 6:42 PM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not childless. Child-free.
posted by Trurl at 6:43 PM on September 4, 2011

No no, they're actually quite expensive.
posted by mkb at 6:43 PM on September 4, 2011 [4 favorites]

“Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines.”

This is not the same thing as "every study ever conducted." The difference is in fact vast.
posted by koeselitz at 6:43 PM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Bill Hicks on the Miracle of childbirth.

Not even remotely safe for work.
posted by secondhand pho at 6:44 PM on September 4, 2011

"Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so."

hmmm..this does not seem to say what you think it says....

I know they make me happy, I have one on my lap as we speak, warm, cuddly, purring...

wait... never mind...
posted by HuronBob at 6:45 PM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Childless people rate their happiness so high because they haven't properly calibrated their happiness meters.

i dunno living alone without anybody else's clutter and going on long ass vacations whenever (i'm freelance) and where ever i want and pretty much having an extra $20k of disposable income a year is pretty fucking sweet sweet
posted by nathancaswell at 6:46 PM on September 4, 2011 [7 favorites]

All I know is that, in winter, having a six month old baby strapped to your chest is much better than a coat.

Plus, when they start to smell, you can give them back to their parents.

/godparent
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:47 PM on September 4, 2011

nathancaswell: "i dunno living alone without anybody else's clutter and going on long ass vacations whenever (i'm freelance) and where ever i want and pretty much having an extra $20k of disposable income a year is pretty fucking sweet sweet"

But you will have nobody to guilt into visiting your old ass in the nursing home!
posted by mkb at 6:48 PM on September 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

"Childless people rate their happiness so high because they haven't properly calibrated their happiness meters."

If I had children, I'd tell myself that too.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:49 PM on September 4, 2011 [8 favorites]