BC Council for Families

by Jennifer Dales
Director, Planning and Projects, BC Council for Families

The debate about how parenting impacts happiness is heating up, with the recent appearance in major media of a number of new articles exploring the topic. Some 24,000 readers, (it's growing daily), have recommended a story in New York Magazine called, All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting to their Facebook networks. The article has generated more than 600 comments so far on the New York Magazine website, and the discussion reveals that this issue has struck a nerve with the public.

Current research into parenting and happiness seems to reveal that happiness dips after the birth of a first child, and it gets lower if a parent has more than one child. This research shows fairly consistently that having children does not make people happier and leads to lower levels of marital satisfaction. Where the debate starts is in the interpretation of these findings. What does this all mean? Are children supposed to make us happy? Are we supposed to enjoy every aspect of caring for our children? Should we expect to be happy every moment of our lives?

Part of the reason that unhappiness and parenting go together may be all of the changes that make modern parenting more stressful than previous generations experienced. Lack of social support, isolation from extended families or networks of support, and a culture of fear and pressure to be super-parents may be turning parenting into a miserable experience. Another factor is the rising age of first time parents. Many new parents have enjoyed years of personal freedom and workplace accomplishments, making them less than satisfied with the hard work associated with caring for small children - diapers, laundry, the endless cleaning up of spills and toys, and so on.

One of the reasons parenting groups are so important is that parents have a chance to realize that they are not the only one facing the challenges of parenting. When parents realize that others are struggling with the same issues, it normalizes some of the stresses they are facing, so that parents are able to focus less on the no-fun aspects of parenting and more on the joyful part.

In a response to a similar article (Parenting and Happiness) which appeared in the online version of The Economist magazine, one reader noted that "instant gratification is not the same as a long term reward". A shift in focus from thinking about parenting as fun, to thinking of it as rewarding, changes the discussion immensely.