The National Catholic Register:
Having children makes you happier.
That’s the conclusion of a team of university researchers from the U.S. and Canada, who looked at data from thousands of couples and concluded that parents are happier than non-parents.
The study flies “directly in the face of conventional opinion,” said Catholic parenting expert Ray Guarendi.
But he worried that, with its purely naturalistic approach, the study would necessarily miss the point that religious people accept and embrace childrearing as “a gift from God.”
The researchers called their report, which was the result of three separate studies, “In Defense of Parenthood: Children Are Associated With More Joy Than Misery.”
They begin by expressing popular opinion on the subject, which is that “recent scholarly and media accounts paint a portrait of unhappy parents who find remarkably little joy in taking care of their children.”
But, when the team actually surveyed the research, they found studies on both sides of the issue, says lead researcher Katherine Nelson of the University of California, Riverside.
As for their own study, which was conducted by scholars at the University of California, Stanford University and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Nelson said, “We all got the same findings: It was a challenge to the popular view that parents were miserable. We found parents were at least as happy and often more happy.”
6 Comments
Le Petite Amour:
Does a mother give life to her child, or does the child give life to her mother (and father)?
Very good question.
And one thing I do know; a child literally gives life to its grandparents. Weeks, months and years added on...
And any child who grabs in his two little hands, the large hand of an adult, while looking up to him with loving, innocent and fully confident eyes – passes on to that person, life! How does that happen...
The Child, life! Life through love. Life... from life!
The expression “making love” when making a baby, is the most purely accurate expression that I know of. The two bodies in a marriage coming together as one. And making through their union, love - a child. Life giving love. Their own. Who brought these two people together? Was it the desire for each other? Or was it the child crying out, asking to be born? And irresistibly so! The sneaky little fella. Makes fools of us all - for its all about him, the baby. And he knows it. He knows that it is he - the giver of life! Le petite amour. And we are, at his service. And so gratefully so.
What does this have to do with marriage equality? If two guys want to get married, children will still be able to make their parents happy (or unhappy, as the case may be). What a strange, non-sequitur post.
I'll vouch for the article. Children complete a marriage between a man and a woman.
Flies directly in the face of conventional opinion? Yeah, that sounds about right. I know as soon as anyone I know has kids, all I ever hear about is how terrible they are. They always want to show you pictures of them, too, presumably to serve as a warning.
And I mean, it makes sense, what with the legal battles of gays and lesbians in so many states to make sure that if they have marriage, they can be exempted from ever having the responsibility to care for children. But research like this flies in the face of all that!
And yet NOM wants to make lives for children raised by gay mothers and fathers. Who is being selfish here?
@Andy King
"And I mean, it makes sense, what with the legal battles of gays and lesbians in so many states to make sure that if they have marriage, they can be exempted from ever having the responsibility to care for children. But research like this flies in the face of all that!"
This comment makes no sense whatsoever. Gay men and women have and adopt children. They do so selfishly. And you want to make it impossible to have the legal tools to protect their families. Who is being selfish here?