Happier people:
Parents enjoy greater happiness and meaning in life than non parents
19 , May, ScienceDaily
Contrary to recent scholarship and popular belief, parents experience
greater levels of happiness and meaning in life than people without
children, according to researchers from the University of California,
Riverside, the University of British Columbia and Stanford University.
Parents also are happier during the day when they are caring for
their children than during their other daily activities, the researchers
found in a series of studies conducted in the United States and Canada.
These findings appear in a paper "In Defense of Parenthood: Children
Are Associated With More Joy Than Misery" which will be published in a
forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the
Association for Psychological Science."We are not saying that parenting
makes people happy, but that parenthood is associated with happiness and
meaning," explained Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at UC
Riverside and a leading scholar in positive psychology.
"Contrary to repeated scholarly and media pronouncements, people may
find solace that parenthood and child care may actually be linked to
feelings of happiness and meaning in life."Paper co-authors are S.
Katherine Nelson, a doctoral candidate at UCR; Kostadin Kushlev, a
doctoral candidate at UBC; Tammy English, a postdoctoral scholar at
Stanford; and Elizabeth W. Dunn, associate professor of psychology at
UBC.
The findings are among a new wave of research that suggests that
parenthood comes with relatively more positives, despite the added
responsibilities. The study also dovetails with emerging evolutionary
perspectives that suggest parenting is a fundamental human need.
Recent popular accounts have painted a portrait of unhappy parents
who find little joy in taking care of their children, "but the
scientific basis for these claims remains inconclusive," the researchers
wrote.
"If you went to a large dinner party, the parents in the room would
be just as happy or happier than the guests without children," Dunn
said.The researchers conducted three studies that tested whether parents
are happier overall than their childless peers, if parents feel better
moment-to-moment than nonparents, and whether parents experience more
positive feelings when taking care of children than during their other
daily activities.
The consistency of their findings across all three studies "provides
strong evidence challenging the widely held perception that children are
associated with reduced well-being.Among the findings:Parents are
happier when taking care of their children than while doing other daily
activities.Fathers in particular expressed greater levels of happiness,
positive emotion and meaning in life than their childless peers. This
finding requires further study, Dunn noted, adding that "the pleasures
of parenthood may be offset by the surge in responsibility and housework
that arrives with motherhood."
Older and married parents tend to be the happiest. "Our findings
suggest that if you are older (and presumably more mature) and if you
are married (and presumably have more social and financial support),
then you're likely to be happier if you have children than your
childless peers," Lyubomirsky said. "This is not true, however, for
single parents or very young parents."
As Dunn put it, "These findings suggest that parents are not nearly
the miserable creatures that we might expect from recent studies and
popular representations."
|