I have a new post at Patheos in anticipation of Mother’s Day. It begins:
Yesterday I heard Betsy Stevenson, of the Wharton School of Business, talking about happiness and being a Mom. She said, on Marketplace, “There is an unhappy fact to ponder this Mother’s Day: Women with children are less happy than similar women without. The same is true for men. When people hear this fact they immediately suspect that happiness gains from children must exist somewhere. Aren’t people who are religious happier when they have kids? No. Aren’t people with kids much happier later in life? No. Is this only true for those in a specific education or income group? Nope and nope. So why do people have children if the data suggest they makes us less happy? There are two possible answers: People are making mistakes, or there is more to life than happiness.”
Stevenson doesn’t come to any satisfactory conclusions or explanations as far as I’m concerned. But her words made me think. Am I happier as a mother than I was as a married woman without children? Is my mom happier than she was decades ago, before her four kids came into her life?
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