Tuesday 5 June 2018

Children may not make you happy

It is a taboo that one is not allowed to say children make one unhappy and the obvious issue is why we should expect happiness from our children in the first place. It is a mistake to expect happiness from anything. Not only that, but having children ought not to be about one's personal happiness. Do we really have children only for the most selfish reasons – to please ourselves? Is it actually possible to "make" anyone happy at all? Don't depend on children because in their priorities, you get feeling of neglect. Never meddle in children's lives. Their life is theirs, not yours. Finally, reducing luxuries, minimizing expenses and simple living is sure road to happiness.
  • Wanting offspring is hardwired, but for most of us, the decision to have a child is intensely personal that  has become all the more daunting in recent years that parents are miserable and stretched to the limit. 
  • Parents experience a high point of happiness & euphoria when their first child was born. This is because in our areligious society children will give our lives meaning (as well as being our most likely stab at an afterlife).
  • Too many parents link their well-being to the mood of their offspring and end up miserable and guilt-ridden. Our happiness is inseparable from the happiness of our children. 
  • Once the initial thrill is past, do children make parents happier? Having children does not make parents happier at all and more often children make their parents unhappy. And the more children you have, the unhappier you are likely to be. Parents are no happier than their childless peers.
  • Some studies find that parents are happier and more satisfied than their childless peers but some studies find no difference, and some studies find the reverse. The question of whether parents are happier than non-parents is not a meaningful one. Rather, it depends on the parent and the child.
  • Parents have a tremendous fear of unhappiness. Parents are in the mad hope that their children will be consistently content. And it is daft because to be alive is to be inconsistent and sometimes to be unhappy.
  • Nobel prize-winning behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman reveals that Texan mothers put childcare 16th, almost at the bottom of a list of ordinary pleasures (after sleeping, shopping, talking on the phone). Children have a detrimental effect on marriage (parents are spending more time with their children, less with one another). 
  • Parents are needed for their children's survival. Happiness is neither here nor there. The best happiest times with my children are usually the least planned. We should try and lift the happiness pressure as parents. Happiness does not come when it is called. But, in the end, parenting is not about happiness, it is about love – not the same thing at all.
  • Young parents and parents with small children are particularly unhappy, while other types report high life satisfaction, happiness, or meaning. Whether or not children go hand in hand with happiness depends on many factors, including our age, marital status, income and social support, as well as whether our children live with us and have difficult temperaments.
People without children are as happy as those children with them. It is the childless who often turn out to be the most creative, generous and en rapport with other people's children. As a parent, one quickly runs out of steam as a child entertainer. Perhaps it is as grandparents that we may reasonably predict future happiness – because the relationship with grandchildren is lighter, part-time and with no responsibility.




Money must be spent for your comforts; it may be given away to others. 
But wealth accumulated may end up with King or under the earth.
 ... a Sumathi Satakamu poem paraphrased


Children are the source of our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. Children give our lives purpose, infuse fun and pride into our lives, and enrich our identities. At the same time, they are also vectors for worry, anger, and disappointment; they deprive us of energy and sleep; and they strain our finances and our marriages. Keeping these findings in mind, 94% of parents say that having children is still worth it, despite the costs.


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