Happiness and parenthood
In an article in Atlantic magazine, author and Yale University professor of psychology Paul Bloom makes a provocative observation about parenthood and happiness:
Pretty much no matter how you test it, children make us less happy. The evidence isn’t just from diary studies; surveys of marital satisfaction show that couples tend to start off happy, get less happy when they have kids, and become happy again only once the kids leave the house. As the psychologist Daniel Gilbert puts it, “Despite what we read in the popular press, the only known symptom of ‘empty-nest syndrome’ is increased smiling.” So why do people believe that children give them so much pleasure? Gilbert sees it as an illusion, a failure of affective forecasting. Society’s needs are served when people believe that having children is a good thing, so we are deluged with images and stories about how wonderful kids are. We think they make us happy, though they actually don’t.
Although researchers have endured heated responses for daring to suggest that children may not be life’s greatest blessing as far as happiness goes, I’m happy to accept this as a fact. One of the ways that this has been established is by beeper studies. Here’s Bloom in an interview:
…the literature is pretty clear that if you beep people on a beeper while they’re with their children and ask them how they’re feeling, they’re not so happy. But if you ask people what they like most in life, they say they love their kids—their kids are the great joys of their lives … Kids really make us unhappy, but we think they make us happy.
I think the delusion is more likely to be rooted in genetics than culture, but that’s another story.
Anyway, the beeper thing reminded me of the old idea of the “mindfulness bell” — a bell that rings either at regular or random intervals during the day, reminding you to check in with yourself. I used such bells as an integral part of the retreat schedule while leading working retreats at Dhanakosa retreat centre in Scotland; we can become overly engrossed in work to the point that we lose touch with ourselves, and as a consequence we steer ourselves blindly into suffering. Think of working on a computer, realizing that you’ve been so intent on achieving some task that your back and neck are aching. It’s because you’ve been focused on a task that you haven’t paid attention to your own well-being.
So for the last few days I’ve been checking in with myself while parenting, not just seeing whether or not I’m happy, but seeing what I can do to bring about more happiness. My inner mindfulness bell will ring, I’ll remember to check in with myself while playing with or taking care of my daughter, and find sometimes that I’m not really engaged, part of me wishing that I was reading a book or watching a movie. So I bring my attention more into the present moment, appreciating how delightful my daughter is, appreciating that I’m alive and aware, relaxing my body, and letting myself be happy. It often seems to be this way, that happiness is there but simply obscured by some inner activity like wishing I was doing something else. When I let got of that activity, happiness once again comes to the forefront of my awareness.
So although having children may tend to make us less happy, I don’t think that’s inevitable. With greater mindfulness our parenting can be rich and fulfilling.
8 Responses to “Happiness and parenthood”
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You’re currently reading “Happiness and parenthood,” an entry on Bodhipaksa's blog, bodhi tree swaying
Published: Nov 15 2008
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Tags: Dhanakosa, family, Maia, mindfulness, parenting, Paul Bloom, psychology
Category: Adoption/Family
WARNING: Much personal information follows and you have no idea who I am. Plus, it’s long.
I’m up at nearly 4 a.m. with insomnia. The Atlantic article was timely for me. I think about this all the time with regard to my son. When he was tiny, I used to ask people why they chose to have more children, and I swore that my son would be an only. Now after four years, we’re contemplating another one, and this article gives me even more pause than I had before.
But more importantly, we had been considering expanding our family by adopting from Ethiopia (that’s how I found you). Then all of a sudden when the paperwork was done and the check was in an envelope on the table, we both got cold feet. My husband’s were related to money; mine were less pracical: All of a sudden some weird anti-newborn-baby plug in my brain has been UNplugged and I want to be pregnant after four years of swearing that parenthood is too difficult and complaining that people just aren’t honest enough about how hard it is.
So, we’re postponing the adoption for now and are going to see what happens with the pregnancy.
But the real issue is that I am so aware of these two selves of mine: one who believes that the best way to become a parent (for the whole world) is to adopt. I AM adopted! Why would I NOT want to experience the perspective of an adoptive parent and a biological parent?
And then there’s the adopted me, who has always desired to see more biology. That me thinks –right now — that I cannot live without procreating more biological children. It’s not rational at all.
But right now the rational self is not winning.
For months and months I felt that the universe was pointing us in the direction of Ethiopia. Now I don’t care what the universe wants. I want to make more blood relatives! And during all of that time that the universe was pointing, I cried all the time. I felt stressed, nervous, and somewhat trapped by our decision to adopt.
So now, after reading the full Bloom article, I am really unsure about which of my selves to follow. It’s not that I think we would ever regret adopting. I know first-hand the joys that adoption can bring to a family. It’s really just that I’m afraid that there’s a limited time for me to have biological children. If we were not both teachers, I really think I’d have to just do both (adopt & get pregnant). However, I also want to enjoy my life (which means not being strapped for spending money – neither adoption nor kids in general is cheap), and I want to be able to provide quality education for my children (which doesn’t have to be costly, but could).
In the past few years, I have been reading a lot about Buddhism to accompany my love of yoga. In particular, I read Pema Chodron. Nevertheless, I haven’t found a way to work meditation into my daily routine (other than the active meditation provided by yoga). I always feel really calm and clear-headed after my practice, but I never find answers per se.
So I thought maybe you could help me find a way through some of this mind f#^!*ing, as Ann Lamott calls it. Any book suggestions or quick fixes for the problem of how to expand a family that you do not even know?
i’m quite sure that if my partner and i had discussed whether to have children or not, we wouldn’t have; it would have taken more time than we had available and most likely led to a divorce. luckily, we were careless. and i have no regrets – quite the contrary, in fact.
i’m sure that becoming a parent has made me happier – it certainly cured my mid-life crisis. i’m not sure, however, that i would have reported being happy if someone had beeped me while i was trying to change a nappy. and not because the procedure is unpleasant or unhappy-making, but because i dislike being interrupted while doing something which requires my full attention (i’m one of nature mono-taskers).
i’m not impressed with the article, frankly. for one thing, bloom seems to equate happiness with pleasure – at least he does in the excerpt reproduced above.
thanks, bodhipaksa and kimberley. and thanks to maia, by the way, for sorting bodhipaksa out.
I immeadiately thought of what Sadara here articulated, that brookes here treats happiness only on the level of a fleeting temporary mood. Happiness as thought of as a fullness of life, as something deeper and lasting beyond the fleeting moment is not something that was tested given what has been described here.
There is a paradox here in the joy that comes when we suffer and deny ourselves for those we love. This may not be something that is that common in the west. In Christianity though, there is this concept that joy and suffering are tied together. The western church does not have a lot of experience with this or does not promote it (though my pastor preached on it a bit this sunday) but it is something that spoken of much in the underground persecuted church in the many nations where Christians are persecuted. A very vivid picture of this concept is painted in the book “Tortured for Christ” by Richard Wurmbrand who as a Jewish Christian pastor who suffered first under the Nazi’s and then under the Soviets in Romania. When I first read this book, I expected it to be depressing though triumphant. It was a very moving book with many grievious tales and yet it wasn’t depressing at all but testified to a people who had everything taken from them and yet they couldn’t be destroyed. As Wurmbrand described it, though they saw unspeakable evil in the Nazi and Soviet prisons, they also saw unspeakable beauties as they shared in God’s suffering and as God gave them the strength to bear horrific treatment.
Hi Kimberley,
I don’t think there are “quick fixes” to this kind of dilemma. This is the kind of situation where you either have to plunge in or take your time working our way through. Plunging in works if you’re pretty sure there’s enough integration behind your decision that the you who ends up adopting isn’t going to be full of regret for the “opportunity costs” passed up. It sounds to me that you’re being wise in putting the adoption on hold because you already know there’s a high likelihood you may have regrets.
Could it be that you’ve been putting yourself under pressure to adopt because you think you “should” — it being the “right thing to do” and you having been adopted yourself and all that?
Those biological urges can be, in some people, really overwhelming. I’ve not been prone to them myself, nor has my wife. That doesn’t make us better than other people, but I think it did clearly open up the option of adopting as being just as satisfying for us as having biological children.
A lot of Buddhists — especially women — have found themselves torn because they want to devote themselves full-time to Dharma practice* and to be free to go on retreat, teach, live simply etc, but at the same time they’ve had powerful biological urges to have birth. The prospect of having kids seems to put a spoke in the wheel of their dharma practice, but at the same time not having kids makes them very unhappy. Sangharakshita, who founded the tradition I practice in, advised women in that situation to go ahead and have children, to get that out of their systems, and to think about living a more full-time teaching/practice life later, once their children are a bit older. Maybe you’re in a somewhat similar situation — not that you’re interested in living a quasi-monastic life, but you have a conflict between a biological imperative and a vocation.
I wonder if maybe Sangharakshita’s advice fits your situation — have a kid biologically and then tackle adoption at a later date? You just don’t know how your financial situation might change in the future, and if adoption is something you find you do really want to do and it’s “meant to be” (not that I entirely believe in that) you can make it happen.
I offer this just as thoughts for you to try on emotionally for size, so to speak, not as “advice”.
* I know you can do “full-time dharma practice” in any family and work situation, but what I mean here is being able to devote oneself to a full-time vocation, being on retreat for extended periods, spending a *lot* of time teaching at dharma centers, and basically living a quasi-monastic existence.
I think your advice is just my size.
And I was kidding about a quick fix (sorta).
Thanks for taking time to respond. I’ve told you this before, but I really enjoy your blog.
Kim
“bloom seems to equate happiness with pleasure” I think this is the nub of it for me. Me and my partner adopted 2 children 2 years ago. I believe its improved our relationship whilst putting it under a lot of pressure. I believe I’m more content even though I have a lot less time for reflection. There’s so much I could say about these apparent contradictions but I’ve always been suspicious of the “pram in the hallway” argument (although we did actually avoid that!): its around not living my life solely focussed on my own wellbeing. For others this may simply not be an issue. For me it was…
Well, it makes sense to ask if there’s a quick fix. After all, there might be one!
Thanks for the appreciation. Usually these days I have between 100 and 200 visitors a day, and I often have no idea whatsoever whether they find my ramblings interesting or not.
I’m generally quite sensitive to the distinction between pleasure and happiness, but I didn’t pick up the confusion of terms that Sadara and Rob point to. I’m not sure if the confusion is there in the article and I’m just not seeing it, or whether you’re seeing something that isn’t there. Bloom does talk about the notion of children “giving us pleasure” but I took that to be a figure of speech because the surveys he’s referring to are “surveys of marital satisfaction,” which sounds like they were measuring something much broader than fleeting pleasure.
An added problem is what we mean by “happiness,” and although Bloom raises that question he bypasses it in favor or discussing what “I” means. Happiness is a term I’m ambivalent about, because it too can point to experiences that can be ephemeral or otherwise. Sometimes when I feel happy it’s a kind of emotional arousal, delight, and excitement that can be quite short-lived — perhaps a kind of mental pleasure. Other times when I say I’m happy I might mean that I have a sense of well-being — something that’s lower-key but much longer-lived. That kind of “happiness” can be more like a basic sense of well-being that might be interrupted by stressful events but is there in the background. Sometimes happiness can be more of a sense of bliss — a powerful sense of emotional joy.
I actually find it quite hard to talk about these terms — we (or I) use them so fluidly and sometimes interchangeably, and there are many other terms too: contentment, cheerfulness, satisfaction, equanimity — to name just a few.
But perhaps “marital satisfaction” is measuring something as narrow as pleasure. I haven’t looked at those surveys at all.
In some ways I’m happier since having adopted. I’ve learned to slow down more and to be more patient. I’ve found joy in taking care of Maia’s needs and in watching her become more of a person. In other ways it’s added stress — especially financial stress and sleep-deprivation. On balance I *think* it’s been good for my happiness, but it’s hard to be objective about it.
Sahamati: I had to look up the “pram in the hallway argument” that you talked about. I thought it was some kind of marital dispute about whose turn it was to bring the pram (that’s “baby carriage” in US-speak) inside! But thanks to Google I see it refers to a quote of Cyril Connolly’s: “The death of creativity is a pram in the hallway.” Perhaps that’s true for me to some extent. I can’t teach or lead retreats as much as I used to, and my practice is much more flat as a consequence, my spiritual perspective more limited. But at some stage Maia will be old enough that I can vanish for a week or two without it being a huge emotional blow for her.