I’m not usually an avid reader of the scientific journal Evolutionary Psychology – I’m more of a Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy man, myself – but I was alerted to said journal because one of its recent findings was grabbing the attention of parents around the world.
Last month, researchers at Nicosia University published a paper in the journal on their “life satisfaction” study of 5,556 people in 10 countries (China, Greece, Japan, Peru, Poland, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the UK and Ukraine). Within their reporting, they found almost no correlation between whether a subject was a parent and whether they felt happy or that their lives had purpose.
Put simply, it appears that there’s quite strong proof that having children does not, in any measurable way, make you more happy, contented or fulfilled.
As a columnist who has written about parenting for many years, these findings present ample opportunities for me to make all the jokes that every bored, stressed and exhausted dad might be formulating the second they read that paragraph. “Really?” we’ll reply in mock alarm, as we pick shards of snot from our fingernails and scrape Ready Brek from a kitchen wall, “you don’t say.”
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But to take the findings more seriously, it does present a striking question about how we, as a society, so often view parenthood as the summit of human satisfaction. I’d imagine there are many cultural factors, not to mention genetic ones, that drive humans towards viewing the rearing of children as a unique and sacred source of joy and meaning.
To take those genetic factors first, it’s likely that humans come pre-installed with a specific subset of hormones geared toward making us think that having children is the most important, special, joyful and wonderful thing a human can do. To be honest, if we want every child brought into this world to be as loved and cherished as possible, such instinctual drivers are probably a good thing (to say nothing of the existential need to, you know, keep humanity alive). To put it another way: even if it’s not true that having children makes you happier, it’s still probably a net positive for humanity that as many parents as possible believe this to be so.
Another reason I’m perfectly sanguine about these findings is that I feel it’s about time nonparents had a peer-reviewed paper they could shoot back with any time a friend or relative tells them they’re “missing out”. As a society, we’ve made progress in how we treat those who don’t have kids, whether that be through happenstance or choice. But even today, and for women especially, there still exist many pressures, stigmas and taboos around childlessness. (One might even observe that the term “childlessness” itself seems to imply that not having children is a more aberrant state of being than parenthood, but I digress.)
If these findings are to be believed, they should be cheering to those of us who have always found society’s condescension toward, and dismissal of, nonparents somewhat unsavoury, and the consistent hectoring of them to join the parenting fold distasteful.
Speaking for myself, I always wanted to have kids, and I’m delighted that I do. This would not be affected one jot by the knowledge that I’d be just as happy if I’d never had them – because I do have them, and they’re a joy. Articulating said joys – while adding in just enough complaining that my readers don’t feel sick to their stomachs – has been my guiding light in eight years of writing about parenthood every week.
That said, while my children are indisputably the greatest source of joy in my life, they are also indisputably my greatest source of stress, sadness, guilt and fear. The old adage “you are only as happy as your least happy child” comes to mind but, truthfully, I can wind myself into paroxysms of sadness even when my children are perfectly content, and some dark spectre of their hypothetical future unhappiness glides into view from nowhere. Maybe these things balance out, or maybe it’s simply that any one person’s steady state of happiness is immutable, no matter what stimulus or life experiences press upon them from the outside.
Perhaps a better way of viewing the joys of parenthood is that your children simply become a funnel through which your greatest joys are felt, rather than a new, and additional source of special, better joys than those experienced by anyone else. I’m happy to take satisfaction from this, for now. That, and I get to learn so many marvellous new things about snot and Ready Brek.
