It makes me wonder how they define "happy" to their poll participants.
I have been married for a lot of years, and we don't have kids. We wanted them, but it just never happened, and we were OK with that option too. To be honest, we were very conscious of how having children would change our daily lives -- in every aspect -- and while we knew that we would love the children, we weren't sure whether we would love the life. But then, no one ever is, ahead of time, are they?
Having children changes your body (at least the woman's), changes your self-definition, and changes your schedule. It means less sleep and more worries. You have to be concerned with a whole new world of dangers that never occurred to you before you were a parent. Balancing career and family time becomes an issue, and sometimes the "couple" gets totally lost in the process. With a divorce rate of 50% and stepfamilies as common as traditional families, it stands to reason that a lot of people are seeking their happiness down paths they didn't expect to be following.
So sure, it makes sense to me that couples without children may register "happier" on some sort of scale than couples who do. But if the next question on the survey would have been, "would you be happier without your children?" I'm sure that the answer would have been a big, strong NO for 99% of the survey-takers. So often, the key to a survey lies in the questions and how they were asked than in the respondants themselves.
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Susan,
It makes me wonder how they define "happy" to their poll participants.
I have been married for a lot of years, and we don't have kids. We wanted them, but it just never happened, and we were OK with that option too. To be honest, we were very conscious of how having children would change our daily lives -- in every aspect -- and while we knew that we would love the children, we weren't sure whether we would love the life. But then, no one ever is, ahead of time, are they?
Having children changes your body (at least the woman's), changes your self-definition, and changes your schedule. It means less sleep and more worries. You have to be concerned with a whole new world of dangers that never occurred to you before you were a parent. Balancing career and family time becomes an issue, and sometimes the "couple" gets totally lost in the process. With a divorce rate of 50% and stepfamilies as common as traditional families, it stands to reason that a lot of people are seeking their happiness down paths they didn't expect to be following.
So sure, it makes sense to me that couples without children may register "happier" on some sort of scale than couples who do. But if the next question on the survey would have been, "would you be happier without your children?" I'm sure that the answer would have been a big, strong NO for 99% of the survey-takers. So often, the key to a survey lies in the questions and how they were asked than in the respondants themselves.
Very thought provoking post!
April 14, 2009 - 9:20amThis Comment
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