Does Fatherhood Make You Happy?
This short essay from psychologist Daniel Gilbert, published in Time Magazine on Fathers Day 2006, "Does Fatherhood Make You Happy?" is worth a read. Although being a dad is a complicated thing, I think most of us who are or were actively involved in raising our children would agree that yes, we enjoy it; it is a worthwhile and rewarding effort. But does it make us happy? Gilbert has studied the science of happiness, and has found that there is often a large chasm between the things we expect to make us happy and the things that actually do.
Psychologists have measured how people feel as they go about their daily activities, and have found that people are less happy when they are interacting with their children than when they are eating, exercising, shopping or watching television. Indeed, an act of parenting makes most people about as happy as an act of housework. Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people's overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact.
2 comments:
hmmm, did they measure the happiness of a nice big hug from our kids?
I know, sounds heretical. Gilbert kind of talks about that when he says:
"...the sublime moment when our 3-year-old looks up from the mess she is making with her mashed potatoes and says, "I wub you, Daddy," can erase eight hours of no, not yet, not now and stop asking. Children may not make us happy very often, but when they do, that happiness is both transcendent and amnesic."
If only parenthood were nonstop hugs and I wub yous!
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