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窗体顶端 窗体底端 Having Kids Makes You Happy(Page 1 of 2) When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we'll call the Sloans, were the only couple on the block without kids. It wasn't that they couldn't have children; according to Mr. Sloan, they just chose not to. All the other parents, including mine, thought it was odd—even tragic. So any bad luck that befell the Sloans—the egging of their house one Halloween; the landslide that sent their pool careering to the street below—was somehow attributed to that fateful decision they'd made so many years before. "Well," the other adults would say, "you know they never did have kids." Each time I visited the Sloans, I'd search for signs of insanity, misery or even regret in their superclean home, yet I never seemed to find any. From what I could tell, the Sloans were happy, maybe even happier than my parents, despite the fact that they were (whisper) childless. My impressions may have been swayed by the fact that their candy dish was always full, but several studies now show that the Sloans could well have been more content than most of the traditional families around them. In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's "Gross National Happiness" author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless. The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not." Simon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research ("Obviously Professor Simon hates her kids," read one), which isn't surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of what we've been raised to believe is true. In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. Only one in six (16 percent) said that adding new children had a negative effect on the parents' happiness. But which parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable? Parents may openly lament their lack of sleep, hectic schedules and difficulty in dealing with their surly teens, but rarely will they cop to feeling depressed due to the everyday rigors of child rearing. "If you admit that kids and parenthood aren't making you happy, it's basically blasphemy," says Jen Singer, a stay-at-home mother of two from New Jersey who runs the popular parenting blog MommaSaid.net. "From baby-lotion commercials that make motherhood look happy and well rested, to commercials for Disney World where you're supposed to feel like a kid because you're there with your kids, we've made parenthood out to be one blissful moment after another, and it's disappointing when you find out it's not." Is it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned? Anecdotal evidence says no. In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their offspring also served a purpose—to work the farm, contribute to the household. Children were a necessity. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated work and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. A key study by University ofWisconsin-Madison's Sara McLanahan and Julia Adams, conducted some 20 years ago, found that parenthood was perceived as significantly more stressful in the 1970s than in the 1950s; the researchers attribute part of that change to major shifts in employment patterns. The majority of American parents now work outside the home, have less support from extended family and face a deteriorating education and health-care system, so raising children has not only become more complicated—it has become more expensive. Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs anywhere from $134,370 to $237,520 to raise a child from birth to the age of 17—and that's not counting school or college tuition. No wonder parents are feeling a little blue. Societal ills aside, perhaps we also expect too much from the promise of parenting. The National Marriage Project's 2006 "State of Our Unions" report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations. Twenty-five years ago, women married around the age of 20, and men at 23. Today both sexes are marrying four to five years later. This means the experience of raising kids is now competing with highs in a parent's past, like career wins ("I got a raise!") or a carefree social life ("God, this is a great martini!"). Shuttling cranky kids to school or dashing to work with spit-up on your favorite sweater doesn't skew as romantic. For the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming. As for those of us with kids, well, the news isn't all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who've never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son. As for the Sloans, it's hard to say whether they had a less meaningful existence than my parents, or if my parents were 7 percent less happy than the Sloans. Perhaps it just comes down to how you see the candy dish—half empty or half full. Or at least as a parent, that's what I'll keep telling myself. Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long. For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com. NEXT 有了孩子会让你开心 当我长大，我从前的邻居，我们会打电话给sloans，是唯一一对没有孩子的。这并不是说他们不能有孩子；根据思龙先生，他们只是没有选择。所有其他的父母，包括我，以为是奇偶悲剧。所以任何厄运降临sloans-the怂恿他们的房子一个万圣节；滑坡，把池奔向街道below-was不知归因于这一决定他们做了很多年前。”好吧，”其他人会说，“你知道他们从未有过孩子。”我每次访问sloans，我搜寻精神错乱的迹象，甚至在他们的痛苦或遗憾的超纯家，但我似乎从来没有找到任何。从我可以告诉，这sloans很快乐，甚至比我的父母，尽管事实上，他们的子女（小声）。 我的印象可能已经被动摇的事实，他们总是充满糖果碟，但一些研究显示，sloans很可能是更多的内容比大多数传统家庭周围的人。在丹尼尔的2006本书《撞上快乐，”哈佛大学心理学教授在几个研究，并得出结论认为，婚姻满意度大幅下降后诞生的第一个孩子增加只有当最后一个孩子离开了家。他还认为父母快乐的杂货店购物，甚至睡觉比花时间与他们的孩子。其他引用的数据2008的“国民幸福总值”的作者，亚瑟·布鲁克斯，发现约7个百分点，父母不太可能报告是快乐比没有孩子。 [what's this] 最新的全面研究的情感状态的那些孩子告诉我们，“惊喜”可能不是最准确的方式来描述我们的后代。”父母的经验，较低层次的情感福祉，那么频繁的积极情绪和消极情绪比他们的孩子更频繁的同行，”佛罗里达州立大学的知更鸟的社会学教授西蒙，谁进行了最近的一些教养学，最彻底的，来到2005看着收集的数据来自13000个美国人的全国调查的家庭和家庭。”事实上，没有一批parents-married，单，或甚至空nest-reported显着的情感福祉比那些没有子女的人。这是一个违反直觉的发现，因为我们这些文化信仰，儿童的关键是幸福和健康的生活，他们并没有。” 西蒙收到了很多邮件恨响应研究（“很明显西蒙教授恨她的孩子，“读一），这并不奇怪。她的调查结果摆脱非常的基础，我们从小就相信是真的。在最近的新闻周刊的民意调查，百分之50的美国人说，增加新的儿童的家庭往往会增加幸福感。只有在六个（百分之16）说，增加新的儿童有负面影响的父母的幸福。但父母愿意承认，最大的礼物了事实的他或她的生活不愉快？ 父母会公开抱怨睡眠，忙碌的时间表，并难以处理的粗暴的青少年，但很少会认感觉沮丧由于日常的严酷养育子女。”如果你承认孩子和父母不让你快乐，它基本上是亵渎，说：”珍歌手，全职妈妈2从新泽西谁运行流行的育儿博客mommasaid.net。”从baby-lotion广告使母亲看起来很快乐，精力充沛，广告迪士尼世界里，你应该觉得自己像一个孩子因为有你与你的孩子，我们做父母了一个又一个幸福的时刻，和它的令人失望的是当你发现它不是。” 它是可能的，美国的父母总是这失望？传闻说在工业化前的美国，父母肯定对自己孩子的爱，但他们的后代也曾目的的农场工作，有助于家庭。儿童是必要的。今天，我们的孩子更为情绪的原因，但一个日益复杂的工作和社会环境提出了更难找到满意。重点大学的ofwisconsin-madison莎拉麦克拉纳汉，朱丽亚亚当斯，进行了大约20年前，发现父母被认为是显着更大的压力，在上世纪70年代比50年代的一部分；研究者认为这种变化的主要转移就业模式。如今大多数父母外出工作，也不支持大家庭面临恶化的教育和医疗保健系统，以提高儿童不仅更加complicated-it变得更加昂贵。今天，美国农业部估计，它的成本在任何地方从134370美元到237520美元提高一个孩子从出生到年龄17 -这是不包括学校或大学学费。难怪家长感觉有点蓝。