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Childless and Free. What Were We Thinking?
Research on whether kids make us happy
It was Valentine’s Day last week. Inevitably my mind turned to life’s big questions, like this one: Are we happier with or without kids?
Most research draws the same conclusion:
After having kids, people become less happy and this lasts a long time.
Kids are expensive, time-consuming, they stress us out. Our quality of life declines.
Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman surveyed some 900 employed Texas women a number of years back to reveal that caring for children ranked sixteenth out of nineteen activities in terms of enjoyment. Cooking, working out, and cleaning house ranked higher.
This 2019 study on people 50 and older from 16 European countries made me laugh. Older parents are happier than nonparents if, and only if, their kids have moved out of the house.
Jennifer Senior wrote a wonderful story in New York magazine in 2010 called All Joy and No Fun (later a book). She says marital bliss takes a blow when kids come, and the more kids you have, the less happy you become.
Of course, the picture is complicated. Paul Bloom in a more recent story in The Atlantic says happiness as a parent depends on age, financial circumstances…
