The study also said that people with children felt more fulfilled over all 🤷♀️
They measured basically immediate happiness and long term happiness. In immediate happiness, the child free group won. In longterm happiness, the parents won. Did a lot of research into that before deciding to have a baby.
Just gotta decide what works best for you and your life style
Why is it crazy? It seems like the most sensible conclusion - no kids reduces stress significantly. Maybe in a world without need it’d be the other way around, but we don’t live in a post-scarcity society, do we?
Having kids forced me to be a better person. They forced me to step up and tackle my own problems that were preventing me from being a decent parent, and as a result outside of parenting I’m a better version of myself too.
Having kids made any kind of travel more difficult but honestly it’s opened up new things to me that I wouldn’t do without kids. That awesome new playground in town? Yeah I’m totally climbing on it chasing my kid and definitely not having a blast too! Same with the zip line, and the big slide! Going to do a corn maze in the fall and they’re all too easy? Have the child lead us on where to go and they’ll get me far more lost than I ever could get myself lost!
I’ve absolutely put off some hobbies that I’d like to explore because they aren’t compatible with kids of my kids’ ages, but they’ve become my hobbies as I nurture them and try to not only keep them alive (seriously these kids are way too skilled at trying to kill themselves or eachother) but also grow them into decent human beings
Meaning has a lot to do with happiness and for me, my life has infinitely more meaning since the little one came along. A lot of people don’t need help finding meaning in their lives and that’s great, but taking care of my family is more rewarding than anything I have experienced. But yeah… not everyone is like me and that’s okay. Some people definitely shouldn’t have and/or don’t want kids and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I’m trying to imagine applying this logic to anything else.
Telling a friend not to try out for the baseball team, because playing baseball will increase your stress. Warning my sister not to watch a scary movie, because evidence shows they cause fear and discomfort. Breaking off a date with a cutie, because I’ve got butterflies and I don’t want to feel anxious.
What do these sociologists think about rollercoasters or car races or heavy metal concerts, I wonder?
You’re trying to incorrectly put words in scientist’s mouths here.
They did not say that a person should not have children.
They merely said that on average, people who don’t have children are happier.
If people could accidentally find themselves trapped in a heavy metal concert, (just like people accidentally find themselves stuck being parents), you’d find a similar conclusion - people who don’t go to heavy metal concerts are happier. But it turns out that concerts are elective, so the effect is unlikely to be present in real life for concerts.
This has nothing to do with the “goodness“ of concerts or parenthood - both of them are awesome when the people doing them chose to do it!
No, but I do believe that complex issues with many factors can be boiled down into simpler averages. Besides, “stress” is just as multifaceted of an issue as anything else! It implies nothing about the root causes.
Moreover, this research article did not say “if you have kids, you will be miserable”. That is a personal choice you should make for personal reasons. Some people are happier with kids! But it’s also true that childless adults are on average happier.
There’s research that found that people without children are happier than people with children.
The urge to cum inside is the siren song of many
Vasectomy is a beautiful thing
Fleshlights are nice too tbh
Get both, experience Nirvana
Literally millions of year of evolution behind the urge of raw dogging.
Well, now I’m conflicted.
The study also said that people with children felt more fulfilled over all 🤷♀️
They measured basically immediate happiness and long term happiness. In immediate happiness, the child free group won. In longterm happiness, the parents won. Did a lot of research into that before deciding to have a baby.
Just gotta decide what works best for you and your life style
Sounds like a kind of crazy blanket statement for actual researchers to make but then again sociology research… well…
Why is it crazy? It seems like the most sensible conclusion - no kids reduces stress significantly. Maybe in a world without need it’d be the other way around, but we don’t live in a post-scarcity society, do we?
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Having kids forced me to be a better person. They forced me to step up and tackle my own problems that were preventing me from being a decent parent, and as a result outside of parenting I’m a better version of myself too.
Having kids made any kind of travel more difficult but honestly it’s opened up new things to me that I wouldn’t do without kids. That awesome new playground in town? Yeah I’m totally climbing on it chasing my kid and definitely not having a blast too! Same with the zip line, and the big slide! Going to do a corn maze in the fall and they’re all too easy? Have the child lead us on where to go and they’ll get me far more lost than I ever could get myself lost!
I’ve absolutely put off some hobbies that I’d like to explore because they aren’t compatible with kids of my kids’ ages, but they’ve become my hobbies as I nurture them and try to not only keep them alive (seriously these kids are way too skilled at trying to kill themselves or eachother) but also grow them into decent human beings
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mist Americans can’t afford kids, the main reason is simple as that
curious what happiness rates look like in real first world countries
Meaning has a lot to do with happiness and for me, my life has infinitely more meaning since the little one came along. A lot of people don’t need help finding meaning in their lives and that’s great, but taking care of my family is more rewarding than anything I have experienced. But yeah… not everyone is like me and that’s okay. Some people definitely shouldn’t have and/or don’t want kids and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I’m trying to imagine applying this logic to anything else.
Telling a friend not to try out for the baseball team, because playing baseball will increase your stress. Warning my sister not to watch a scary movie, because evidence shows they cause fear and discomfort. Breaking off a date with a cutie, because I’ve got butterflies and I don’t want to feel anxious.
What do these sociologists think about rollercoasters or car races or heavy metal concerts, I wonder?
You’re trying to incorrectly put words in scientist’s mouths here.
They did not say that a person should not have children.
They merely said that on average, people who don’t have children are happier.
If people could accidentally find themselves trapped in a heavy metal concert, (just like people accidentally find themselves stuck being parents), you’d find a similar conclusion - people who don’t go to heavy metal concerts are happier. But it turns out that concerts are elective, so the effect is unlikely to be present in real life for concerts.
This has nothing to do with the “goodness“ of concerts or parenthood - both of them are awesome when the people doing them chose to do it!
Because it’s a simplistic blanket statement about a very complex issue. You think you can take a single factor “kids = stress” and that’s that?
No, but I do believe that complex issues with many factors can be boiled down into simpler averages. Besides, “stress” is just as multifaceted of an issue as anything else! It implies nothing about the root causes.
Moreover, this research article did not say “if you have kids, you will be miserable”. That is a personal choice you should make for personal reasons. Some people are happier with kids! But it’s also true that childless adults are on average happier.
The article did not say that but the originator of this thread did.
So nobody can arrive at any conclusions about complex topics? That’s like saying we can’t quantify global warning because climate science is complex.
You can add 1 more to their sample size that confirms this to be true.
Glad that you feel happy. How do you know that this version of you is more happy than a version of you with kids?