Imagine you’re thumbing through a newspaper and you stumble across this ad:
HELP WANTED – Young adults in the prime of their lives for a non-paying position with no benefits and no opportunity for advancement. On-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Full portfolio of demanding, fickle, and occasionally disdainful clients. Out-of-pocket costs of approximately $250,000 over the first eighteen years. Expertise required, but no training available. Non-negotiable, legally-binding contract enforced until time of death.
Yeah, right. Who in their right mind would even consider a job like that? Oh, wait – you already took that job. It’s called having kids.
I can hear your protests already. My kids are my greatest joy! And maybe that’s true. But there’s surprisingly little evidence to back that up.
Unlike marriage, which is one of the most consistent and measurable predictors of happiness, parenthood is a decidedly mixed bag. As a matter of fact, it seems to undermine the happiness that marriage brings.
Several studies have shown that happiness and marital satisfaction plummet immediately after having kids. They recover a little after the diaper years, but plunge to even greater depths during adolescence. They only recover to pre-child levels when the last child finally leaves home. That’s assuming, of course, that the marriage lasts that long.
Well, if having kids doesn’t increase our overall happiness, maybe it makes us happy in the moment. Researchers have looked at that, too. They asked people to report their level of happiness at random times throughout the day, and what they were dong at the time. On average, being with our kids brings about the same level of happiness as doing housework. That’s less than exercising, reading, or watching TV, but more than being stuck in traffic. Whoooeeee! Party time!
But if parenting doesn’t reward us with happiness, or pleasure, or fortune, or fame, what’s in it for us? We not only endure it – we actively seek it out. Why do we put up with the exhaustion, the sacrifice, the loss of freedom and the financial strain?
Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard professor and authority on the psychology of happiness, thinks he knows the answer. Parental bliss, he says, is a delusion that we inflict on ourselves. We do this, he says, for a couple of reasons.
The first is that we confuse cost with benefit. We see the tremendous sacrifices we make in order to have children, and we value those children accordingly. A diamond, after all, is just a rock – until you pay thousands of dollars for it. Then it’s the most precious thing you own.
The other thing we do, according to Gilbert, is inflate the pleasures of parenting because there’s nothing to compare them to. Remember that job description? No money, no energy, no free time. Even if the pleasures of parenthood are sparse, he says, they’re all we have left.
Depressed yet? When I first read this stuff, I didn’t completely buy it, but it was hard to dismiss. Then something happened that tilted the universe, and my perspective changed.
Last spring, a wonderful kid I knew died of a drug overdose. I went to her memorial service, and waited in a long line to pay my respects to her parents. But when I finally reached them, I was speechless. What they were going through was unspeakable and unimaginable.
During the service, I kept thinking to myself: This proves it. The case against parenthood was complete. Nothing could be worth that much pain. Then the girl’s mother stood up and began to speak.
She described the day her daughter was born, and what it felt like to hold her in her arms. She talked about the girl’s struggles: the demons and depression that wouldn’t go away. And then she talked about finding her child on the day she died.
“I know it sounds strange,” she said, “but I’m the luckiest person in the world. I got to be the first one to hold her, and I got to be the last.”
I know Dr. Gilbert is right about some things. Parenting isn’t some garden path, paved with rose petals and bliss. It’s hard on your marriage, hard on your body, and hard on your soul. It isn’t for everyone, and there are plenty of ways to live a happy life without it.
But I know something else: it’s the single best thing I’ve ever done. It’s the one time I’ve been able to love completely, with everything on the line. It’s my best chance to use that 12-ounce lump of muscle in my chest as more than just a pump. And when my life is over, and the hardest, craziest, most unforgiving job I’ve ever had is finally done, I’ll know one more thing.
This was the job I was meant to do.
