Does having children make you happy?

After a discussion with my goddess-in-training sparring partner and housemate about the dream of being parents and the impact children would have on our lifestyles, she sent me a Newsweek article which declares it is a fallacy that having children will make us happier. It's not the first time I've come across this scientific conclusion - many studies have shown that parents tend to measure their happiness and life satisfaction lower than non-parents. But I do wonder about the premise of these studies.

I found an interesting take on it in this article on The Psychologist webpage, which asserts that it has more to do with our focus than our actual level of happiness. Parents tend to spend lots of time worrying about their children and this is what shows up when studies are done. When we think about a rosey future - be it a life-long relationship, being a parent, living in the Bahamas, getting the particular job we really want - we tend to focus on the positive aspects of that future possibility. Of course we don't focus on what's going to be difficult about it or how much work it's going to take. And when reality hits, we focus on the difficult things more than the positive.

It's like when I think about my current work. I have a dream job where I am surrounded by relaxed, supportive, friendly colleagues, with very little power struggle or hierarchical frustrations, where I am paid a decent salary to learn every day, do research and teach. Yet there are plenty of aspects of my work I find a challenge, or frustrating. Right now as I write this blog I am avoiding the preparation that the next subject I am to teach requires, because it is less inspiring than thinking about being a mother and everything that entails! But does that mean I am unhappy at my work? By no means! I can focus on the positive or the negative aspects and the net result will change depending on that. Meanwhile it is a part of a longer career path and overall I am very fulfilled, partly due to the very challenges and opportunitites to learn and grow.

Just as I imagine being a mother will have its ups and downs, and periods of a lot of hard work, yet it is part of something bigger. The biological and emotional call to be a mother has little to do with instant gratification or daily bliss and more to do with fulfilling something human, a call to another phase of adulthood, to a contribution to life and the world around me.

And that is not to say we should all sense and follow a biological or emotional call to be parents. Not everyone wants children. Also, I often have these kinds of conversations with women around me who feel that being a mother will mean sacrificing the full extent of their career. This of course depends on many factors including social infrastructure and flexibility in the workplace, as well as culture (see my post on why there are so few women in higher academic positions). But if it'a question of "what will make me happier - my career or being a mother?" I say the assumption is all wrong that we should be doing things based on a drive for some kind of intangible measure of happiness.

Surely being a parent is not about weighing up the hard work against the moments of reward. I would say the questions being asked in such studies are a bit skewed. Of course no-one enjoys the tasks associated with childcare. But can that be measured against the moments of insight into innocence? Or into how humans grow and develop from crawling, drooling dependent creatures to creative, independent, thinking beings? Or the moments of seeing life continue through you? Or the moments of pride, joy, self reflection, fulfilment? Or the moments as grandparents where it call gets repeated again?

Without the experience (yet) of being a parent perhaps I speak with a bit of a utopian perspective, but at least it's not one based on the disillusion that I will by definition be "happier" as a mother than if I don't have children. It's one inspired by a dream I had of sitting on the grass with my pregnant belly, watching my other young child play in the garden, my man sitting behind me with his legs either side of me and his big chest behind my back. Something essentially human and undeniably fulfilling was coarsing through me. That dream may or may not come true, but it is something that calls me just as much as my career aspirations do and my creative outlets do and the yearning I have to share my life with a partner who is my equal. Will I be happy or happier? I don't know. Will I be fulfilled at a deeper level? I believe so.

(PS - I'd be curious to see comments from anyone who is a parent!)