You are viewing stuff tagged with danielgilbert.

Why Parents Hate Parenting — New York Magazine is a great summary of the research findings that having kids makes people less happy. However, it teases out exactly what that means. For example, it’s the moment-to-moment happiness that people lose out on when they have kids. They have less freedom to do what they did before. “Small cracks” in their relationship with their spouse (which is integral to happiness) become “huge gulfs” under the pressure of children. What’s more, the later people wait in life, the more autonomy and enjoyment they have experienced from working and socializing, and therefore the more they give up when they do have children. My favorite part, however, was the idea that it isn’t so simple as moment to moment happiness… there’s a larger factor, one of purpose, to consider:

Continued…

‌