Posts tagged ‘Happiness’
Do Children and Happiness Go Together?
Credit: Emma Bauso from Pexels
“Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from Him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” (Psalm 127:3-5)
These ancient words from the Psalmist used to be fairly uncontroversial. But more recently, a flood of studies and stories have been published questioning whether or not it really is good to have children. A 2011 study by Thomas Hansen, for instance, found that parents without children reported higher levels of life satisfaction than parents with children. A 2003 study by the National Council on Family Relations found that couples who did not have children reported higher levels of romance and closeness in their relationships. Finally, a famous 2004 study by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman found that out of 16 activities, taking care of children ranked above only housework and commuting in terms of enjoyability.
The sociologists, it seemed, had spoken. Having kids was not all it was cracked up to be. But new research suggests that what the sociologists once took away in their studies might be best given back.
In a recent story from The Economist, Letizia Mencarini of Bocconi University explains that “a new generation of research…suggests that children are more likely to make parents happy than was once thought,” though parents’ ongoing happiness is not merely based on the presence of children themselves, but on a multiplicity of factors:
Whether parents are married is one. Single parents are usually less happy than married ones. The age of the child is another. Children under ten seem to bring more joy than those over that age. And money matters a lot. David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Clarke of the Paris School of Economics managed to isolate the financial strain of raising children as an influence on parental happiness. They argue that it is the cost of raising kids, rather than children in the abstract, that reduces pleasure.
But the most important influence seems to be the pressure of work. It has long been known that the difficulty of balancing the demands of work and home life increase exponentially when children arrive and this results in a significant amount of stress…
This research is interesting, but it doesn’t strike me as particularly surprising. All of these findings seem to correspond to pretty traditional views on marriage and family. Married parents are important to the rearing of children. The teenage years can be difficult. Financial stability allows families room to enjoy themselves. And family is to be prioritized over work, even if your workplace disagrees. All of these things I already knew – not because a sociologist told me, but because my own parents did.
Sometimes, there’s a reason common and classic wisdom is common and classic. In this case, sociological research pointed to a lot of what a lot us already knew. The question, however, is not whether we knew this, but whether or not we will live according to this. Our society is rife with deadbeat dads, self-absorbed parents, and financial instability on the one hand juxtaposed against workaholism on the other. No wonder we’re so vulnerable to being miserable. The problem, it turns out, is not really our kids. The problem is us.
The solution to our unhappiness, then, is not to adjust our fertility rates downward. It’s to adjust our values, our decisions, and our commitments heavenward. For when we do this, we might just find that even though the Psalmist was no sociologist, he was right. Children are a blessing from the Lord. May we be willing to address our own brokenness so we can receive them as such.
The Pursuit of Something Greater Than Happiness
Credit: Franciele Cunha on Unsplash
I’ve heard it more than once from someone who feels weighted down by life’s doldrums: “I just want to be happy.” Happiness, it seems, is many people’s decisive goal and good. And who can blame them? Our nation has as its sacrosanct trinity life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We hold it as self-evident that we should be able to do whatever makes us happy.
But this begs the question: What does make us happy?
If you believe behavioral scientist Paul Dolan, being a single woman without children is a highway to happiness that too few have travelled. In an article for The Guardian, Sian Cain reports:
We may have suspected it already, but now the science backs it up: unmarried and childless women are the happiest subgroup in the population. And they are more likely to live longer than their married and child-rearing peers, according to a leading expert in happiness …
Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics, said the latest evidence showed that the traditional markers used to measure success did not correlate with happiness – particularly marriage and raising children.
The article goes on to explain that men benefit from marriage more than women, mainly because men take fewer risks, earn more money, and live longer when married. Conversely, women who are never married, according to Professor Dolan’s research, are healthier and live longer than women who are married.
On their face, Professor Dolan’s conclusions sound open and shut. But the waters become muddied as the article continues:
The study found that levels of happiness reported by those who were married was higher than the unmarried, but only when their spouse was in the room. Unmarried individuals reported lower levels of misery than married individuals who were asked when their spouse was not present.
Other studies have measured some financial and health benefits in being married for both men and women on average, which Dolan said could be attributed to higher incomes and emotional support, allowing married people to take risks and seek medical help.
Wait. What? So it’s not that unmarried women are happier than married women per se, it’s that they’re less miserable? Less misery does not equate to being happy any more than having fewer cancer cells after chemotherapy equates to being healthy. Moreover, other studies show, as this article admits, that marriage does bring certain benefits, including better health. So, which is it? Are unmarried women healthier or sicklier? Are they better off or worse off? The evidence, at best, seems inconclusive, which means that one can’t help but wonder whether Professor Dolan is following the evidence or manipulating it as he formulates his conclusions.
Beyond the evidentiary and interpretive questions surrounding Professor Dolan’s study, there is an even larger philosophical question we must consider: Should happiness really be our goal? I’m not arguing that happiness is not good; I’m just not sure it’s ultimate. Many of history’s most compelling figures – from Socrates to Joan of Arc to Abraham Lincoln to Harriet Tubman to Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Winston Churchill to Jesus Christ – sacrificed personal happiness for lasting impact. Dionysus, it turns out, may be a great addition to life, but if you make him the goal of life, you might just forfeit the very happiness he purports to promise.
C.S. Lewis, in The Four Loves, personifies Eros, which is romantic and sensual love, as saying, “Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break provided they break together.” Sometimes, misery that loves its company is better than happiness that is shallowly self-indulgent. And this is true not just of erotic love, but of every kind of love. Just ask the parent who stands by a wayward and wily child or the child who cares for an aging and ailing parent. They will testify to the righteousness of and strange fulfillment that comes from a willingness to endure misery for the sake of love.
The biblical word for love that endures misery is “longsuffering.” God is willing, the Bible says, to suffer long with His rebellious people because He loves them. And in Jesus, He is willing even to suffer long for His rebellious people because He loves them.
Hopefully, your love is not miserable. In fact, if it is, I would encourage you to seek help. Just because love that is willing to endure misery can be good doesn’t mean that it is. Have someone speak into your life who can tell you candidly whether the misery you’re experiencing is nobly selfless or just plain stupid. With this being said, I am thankful that I have a Savior who was willing to be miserable on a cross for me. That, oddly enough, brings me great happiness – and thankfulness.
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