finding happiness in the bottom of a diaper
Does this make me regret having a kid? Does it mean you shouldn’t have kids? Does it mean that children don’t make parents happy? Do I need to punch you in the face to get the obviousness of these questions?
Being a parent means a tradeoff. A lot of tradeoffs. Thinking that kids = more happiness is a nice romantic idea not supported by actual research.
It’s interesting how studies try to quantify happiness. How do you go about putting a numerical value on something that is, by its very nature, so unquantifiable?
Sure, I guess it’s fine to say that not having kids brings more freedom. But that freedom brings with it the ability to discard happiness. I know plenty of married and single people, both with and without kids. I wouldn’t say any of them are significantly happier or worse off because they may have kids.
It’s important to get to the root of this issue. Kids are not something we truly have. They are people. They are extremely small and naive people, of whose well being we are placed in charge of for what seems like a very short time.
Maybe we need to start really defining what we mean by happiness before we start drawing connections between being happy and having kids.
(disclaimer: those of us with kids love our kids. I know we take the good with the bad. This isn’t meant as some kind of rant against anyone. I’ve been thinking about happiness a lot lately, and this seemed like a good place to let these thoughts breathe.)
