Are You Happy? Are You Sure?
Parents claim to enjoy their kids; researchers say they're deluded.
by Elizabeth Mitchell
December 21, 2006
They allow you into a secret club that crosses ethnicity, economics and age. Elizabeth Goodman remembers sitting on her stoop with her new baby. "Total strangers came by and said, 'Bless you.' They would never have spoken to me otherwise."
Maybe we parents are all just deluded, but we love our children so much we would rather change the very definition of happiness than admit that we're unhappy. "Happiness is feeling in sync with yourself," says Steinke. "There's that euphoric happiness, but I don't like that so much anymore. Probably because I don't get it. Partly because you're tired after it."
"It changes the framework of happiness altogether," Karon says. "It changes the benchmarks. By the measures that you used to determine your happiness before you had children, you're completely miserable. That's probably why so many people are so scared of it — because they don't have access to another paradigm. But as soon as you have your children, those first moments of holding your child, your whole sense of what's important to you changes, of what your place is in the world. It's a far more profound happiness and connectedness with everything, that you can't have when you don't have a child."
"It's impossible to not romanticize [child-rearing]," says Rabhan. "This is your flesh and blood; this is family. And as you get older, you look at these things as really being much better than they were. The hard times in life are dealing with death, and real issues and hardships with children. Losing a night's sleep is nothing in life. Losing a child is everything or having a child hurt in an accident. The longer you live in life, the more you appreciate things. And the things that were meaningful are that much more meaningful, and the things that are meaningless are forgotten."
Despite his uninspiring findings, Oswald recommends children to everyone. "Perhaps like many parents," he says, "I have hoodwinked myself into having views that my data don't have to share."
I haven't said much to my daughter during the first couple of blocks of driving home. "Why are you sad?" she asks from the back seat. I'm impressed by the fact that she recognizes my quiet as sadness and not anger or lack of love. She's a brilliant little person.
I decide to tell her the truth. "Because I was really looking forward to seeing you," I tell her, "and then you acted all crazy."
"I'm not acting craaaaaazy."
"You were." I consider the problem. "It hurt my feelings."
She falls silent. We drive a few blocks.
From the car seat, the voice comes again: "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings."
"It's okay," I say. "I was just really happy to see you."
A few blocks later, she starts a new conversation. "Remember when I was all crazy?"
And thankfully, if this colonoscopy goes on long enough, I won't.
©2006 Elizabeth Mitchell and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Elizabeth Mitchell, former executive editor of George and features editor of Spin, is the author of Three Strides Before the Wire: The Dark and Beautiful World of Horse Racing and W.: Revenge of the Bush Dynasty. |
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