feedback for "Are You Happy? Are You Sure?"

1. Thank you for this!  I feel like much less of a freak now.  People are always asking me how it's going and I was afraid I was keeping it a little too real for them.  Glad to hear I'm not alone.

   posted by : mellymel on 12/22/2006 at 11:48 AM Flag For Abuse

2. this resonates for me. I was discussing this with a friend last week -- a friend without kids -- and  he said that if he were to chart his happiness in the last 30 years, it would be gradually rising line. However, if he were to chart his intense experience in the last 30 years, there would be many in his early years, teens, and college with fewer and fewer intense experiences thereafter. This has been my experience -- i suspect that one exchanges intensity of experience in later life for an increase in average happiness. We figure things out, figure out what makes us happy, but are no longer surprised by the world -- that is until we have kids. Then, yes, average happiness may go down, but the densite of intense experiences returns to earlier levels. Rolling around in on the carpet with my son is pure puppy love, and his various new words and actions are thunderbolts of joy. Meanwhile a good chunk of the serenity and thoughtfulness that i enjoyed pre-child are gone. In the final analysis, i think its well worth it, but our culture understates the downside, and this kind of article is a breath of fresh air.
   

   posted by : Papaganoose on 12/25/2006 at 7:06 PM Flag For Abuse

3. I like how this ends with a call for a redefinition. Frankly, what these studies really capture are polarities, not complexities. I haven't been a parent long - only 8 months - but it has been extremely difficult. A year ago I asked a friend how him and his newborn were doing, expecting the usual pat answer, and his face crinkled and he answered, almost crying, "It's been really hard John." He was right.
   
   But at the same time, what these studies can't capture is the strange - and beautiful - irony that I at least have experienced so far. In the same moment that I want to run away far enough not to hear the unrelenting screams (or lock myself in a soundproof closet), I find myself having a deeper and more profound love (chemical reaction?) for "Blob."
   
   

   posted by : beelerspace on 1/1/2007 at 11:24 PM Flag For Abuse

4. I agree with previous poster about the studies capturing polarities and not complexities. In our culture things often tend to come off as either black or white. Having a kid is terrifying, frustrating, exhausting,, joyous, funny, & deeply fulfilling at the same time. Pretending otherwise strikes me as delusional.
   

   posted by : outdoormom on 1/2/2007 at 5:16 PM Flag For Abuse

5. Not surprisingly, don't have time at the moment to post a thoughtful response, other than to ask where this article and the first few postings have been all my life.  This is the first sophisticated discussion of the dominant issue in my life I've found.  This thing about intensity vs. contentment - I think that's what it's all about.  The problem we have is that our associations with parenthood in this society have to do with security and contentment, which creates a certain, deep-seated expectation.  But the reality of parenthood turns out to be at the other pole - it's all about experience at the COST of contentment.  That can create a pretty nasty wake-up call with the first kid, I know it did for me, and I'm still recovering, still working to redefine what's important to me in a way that accommodates contradictory facts: that I'm less happy, and that I'd definitely do it again.
   

   posted by : DadAl on 1/4/2007 at 9:08 AM Flag For Abuse

6. your comments resonate DadAl ... a friend of mine had nice take on this -- he said that people are fundamentally after experience and contentment in life, and when they decide to have children they think they are going to get contentment, and instead they get experience. I am just coming off of some amazing bonding time with my 2 year old son over the holidays, and i have to say that i haven't felt this intensity of joy and surprise in decades. That said, this experience has definitely kicked my ass in the last couple years ... it's almost as though i have been pushed back 10 squares in life and am experiencing both renewed challenge and a renewed sense of awe.
   
   I suspect that our generation has had more difficulty with this transition than other because we are so spoiled -- many of us didn't have kids until mid-thirties, after a decade of complete freedom and self-definition. My parents never experienced that -- they went straight from the challenges of school to those of raising a family. maybe its our comeuppance.
   

   posted by : Papaganoose on 1/6/2007 at 8:44 AM Flag For Abuse

7. This was a great read!
   

   posted by : KatieKatt on 2/19/2007 at 12:00 PM Flag For Abuse