Studies Confirm: Kids Ruin Your Life

[Grand Potentate]

VINDICATION!

http://gawker.com/studies-confirm-kids-ruin-your-life-1501803893

Studies Confirm: Kids Ruin Your Life

1Expand

The greatest virtue of science is that it uses irrefutable facts, data, and evidence to force us to accept the harsh truths that we, flawed humanity, may wish to ignore. Like the fact that children are—scientifically speaking—small bundles of misery.

We, of course, love children, and think they are just magical and all of that, particularly the children of our friends and family members. It's just that, you know, science seems to find that having kids will cause your life to sink inexorably into a pit of despair. Let's start with the most positive findings: a study in which researchers combed through data from millions of Americans, controlling for as many as variables as possible, in order to isolate only the effect of having children. From the LA Times:

"We find that in terms of life evaluation, people with kids and people without kids are not very different," said Arthur Stone of Stony Brook University. "But people with kids have more joys and happiness as well as more negative emotions, like anger, worry and stress."

It's a push! One might charitably interpret these findings to say that you'll break even by having kids. More happiness, and more unhappiness. Just like being bipolar! Who wouldn't want to sign up for that? But now let's turn our attention to what the study found for parents outside of America:

In the rest of the world, the survey results told a different story: People with kids — at least those outside the rich English-speaking world — tended to be less content with their lives.

"Our results for the world as a whole, as well as for Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia are consistent with the most common finding in the literature, that those with children have lower life evaluation," said the study.

Without the cosseted comforts of a first world lifestyle, children are a definitive drag on happiness. Well, shoot. At least you have your spouse, right? Let's roll that final study of the day, via the New York Post:

The authors of the report by the UK's Open University say they looked at numerous factors that make happy relationships... the survey of 5,000 came to the conclusion that "childless married and unmarried participants are happier with their relationship and their partner than parents."

The fact that having children has made you a stressed-out manic-depressive who's well on the way to divorce should in no way be interpreted as a sign that we don't like your kids. They're great.

 

[Grand Potentate]

The LA Times piece:

http://www.latimes.com/science/scie...-happy-20140114,0,6208398.story#axzz2qTeMAVPG

Having kids increases your life-satisfaction? Yes, if you wanted them

Mike Redmond and his 3-year-old son, Matt, ride a sled down a hill after an overnight snowfall in Baltimore in 2012. (Patrick Semansky / Associated Press)

By Deborah Netburn
January 15, 2014, 5:00 a.m.

If you're wondering if having kids will ruin your life or make it much happier, a new study has this to offer: "It depends."

"We find that in terms of life evaluation, people with kids and people without kids are not very different," said Arthur Stone of Stony Brook University. "But people with kids have more joys and happiness as well as more negative emotions, like anger, worry and stress."

Stone and his co-author, Angus Deaton of Princeton University, are the latest researchers to chime in on the correlation between life-satisfaction and parenting. As they note in a paper published this week in the journal PNAS, the results of previous studies on this topic have often been contradictory -- although many of them have found an association between parenting and a lower sense of well-being.

For this study, Stone and Deaton used data from the ongoing Gallup-Healthways Well-being Index, which has collected information from 1.77 million Americans. In the researchers' first pass through the data, they found that people most likely to be parents (adults between the ages of 34 and 46 who live with a child under the age of 15) reported a higher sense of life-satisfaction than people in the same age group who did not live with children.

So parents are happier, right? Not so fast. Stone and Deaton also found that the people most likely to be parents were also more likely to be better off financially, married, more religious, healthier and less likely to smoke than those who do not live with children. Since all of these characteristics are associated with a better sense of well-being, the researchers went through the data again, this time controlling for these characteristics.

With the controls in place, they found that people in both groups reported a similar sense of well-being. However, in the paper they also note: "No matter what the controls, children are always associated with both more positive and more negative emotions."

(That sounds about right).

When the researchers looked at similar data collected by Gallup from countries around the world, they found that in poorer countries with higher fertility rates, being a parent is associated with lower life-satisfaction. They think this is because people in these countries have less control over whether they become parents.

The researchers conclude that in the United States, and other wealthy countries, parenthood is often a deliberate choice. So, if you have children because you wanted children, you are likely just as satisfied with your life as a friend who does not have children because he or she did not want to have them.

"A lot of people start out thinking that having children must make people happy," Stone said." After all, the species needs it to continue. But there is no reason to think that people who decide to have children are any happier than people who decide not to have children.

"It's like apples and oranges and I wouldn't think that people who like apples are any happier than people who like oranges."

 

[Grand Potentate]

The Japan Times piece:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...not-always-better-with-children/#.UtabTfYZzys

Bundles of joy? Study finds life not always better with children
AFP-JIJI

• Jan 15, 2014
  Article history
• PRINT

WASHINGTON – Are people with kids happier than people without? In the United States, those with and without kids rate their lives about the same, but globally children tend to diminish well-being, a major study has shown.

The results, released Monday, were derived from two major surveys by Gallup that included almost 3 million people worldwide.

One survey covered nearly 1.8 million Americans from 2008 to 2012 and the other interviewed 1.07 million people from 161 countries between 2006 and 2012.

Participants were asked how close their lives were to being ideal, and what kinds of emotions they felt the day prior. Potential responses included happy, sad, angered, worried or stressed.

Parents reported more ups and downs than nonparents. Those with children at home reported higher levels of all the emotional responses, including happiness and stress, smiling and anger.

But when researchers took into account other attributes that parents tend to have — higher education, more income, better health and religious faith — they found similar levels of life satisfaction as reported by nonparents.

On the whole, both U.S. groups rated their lives about a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Adults of all ages with children at home rated their lives 6.82 while the childless came in at 6.84.

When researchers looked solely at people in the prime child-rearing years (ages 34-46) they found people with kids rating their lives at 6.84, just higher than those without kids at 6.51.

In the rest of the world, the survey results told a different story: People with kids — at least those outside the rich English-speaking world — tended to be less content with their lives.

“Our results for the world as a whole, as well as for Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia are consistent with the most common finding in the literature, that those with children have lower life evaluation,” said the study.

“The higher the fertility rate, the more likely are people living with children to report lower life evaluation than those who do not.”

In poor countries, personal happiness may take a back seat to necessities, like requiring extra bodies to work the farm, the study suggested.

“Because of social norms, or pressure from their own parents and communities, or because of the productive contributions of children, people may have children even when, on a purely personal level, they would rather not do so,” it said.

People were asked to rate their lives for the Gallup surveys, and were later asked a series of questions about their income and whether their households had children in them or not.

They were never asked directly whether their kids made them happy, or how having kids or not having kids affected their view of their lives.

Princeton economist and lead author Angus Deaton said the heart of the matter is the ability to choose. “The take-home message is ‘Do what you want to do,’ ” he said. “If you think children would make you happy, it’s probably true. And if you think they wouldn’t, it’s probably true, too.”

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

[Grand Potentate]

The NY Post piece:

http://nypost.com/2014/01/15/want-a-happy-relationship-dont-have-kids/

Want a happy relationship? Don’t have kids — study says
By Todd Venezia

January 15, 2014 | 8:16am

If you’re unhappy in your marriage don’t blame your spouse — blame your kids.

A new survey has found that couples without kids have more pleasant relationships that those who have procreated.

The authors of the report by the UK’s Open University say they looked at numerous factors that make happy relationships.

They didn’t explain why kids make couples less satisfied. But they said the survey of 5,000 came to the conclusion that “childless married and unmarried participants are happier with their relationship and their partner than parents.”

They added, “Unmarried parents are slightly happier than married parents.”

They also suggested ways to make things better.

“Actions really do speak louder than words, and many people consider a loving gesture to be as valuable as hearing ‘I love you,’ ” said the report’s co-author, Dr. Jacqui Gabb.

“Grand romantic gestures, although appreciated, don’t nurture a relationship as much as bringing your partner a cup of tea in bed, or watching TV together,” she said.

Despite the findings that married couples are the most unhappy, all is not bad for parents.

The study found that “mothers are the happiest in their life than any other group.”

 

[Grand Potentate]

ok, who'd you knock up?

Kid free is the way to be.

My child is in their 60's now...

 

[Russell Street]

Many childless couple reported being not just happy, but positively gay.

 

[Russell Street]

My brother has two young children. It's clearly a lot of unglamorous and exhausting work. Next time I see him, I'm going to use the schmaltzy "Thank you for your service" line that Americans have taken to bestowing on members of the military. The subtext of "better you than me" seems about the same.

 

[OfficePants]

I'll probably have kids one of these days, but I must admit that I find modern parenthood absolutely unappealing. In today's world, it's almost like having a kid is to sign up for an arm's race of never-ending consumption and status building. Plus most of the joys that the modern world offers are the very things that parenthood precludes (amorous escapades, reckless drinking, cheap travel, etc.).

Just give them a cell phone, you'll never have to interact.

 

[Grand Potentate]

Just give them a cell phone, you'll never have to interact.

If they're under the age of 8, then an iPad is apparently the appropriate substitute.

 

[Russell Street]

Just give them a cell phone, you'll never have to interact.

That's how Peter and Nancy Lanza did it.

 

[Grand Potentate]

That's how Peter and Nancy Lanza did it.

I'll admit, this took me a minute.

 

[Grand Potentate]

It now costs half a million dollars to raise a child in America – Quartz