Newsweek explores the question. Alan Jacobs says it's the wrong question to ask, that if we're calculating happiness in such a way as to make having children count against happiness, then something's wrong with us. Excerpt:
It's interesting that we're more willing to do a cost-benefit analysis of having children than to do a cost-benefit analysis of eagerly participating in a culture of narcissism.
UPDATE: Megan McArdle , who is not married, thinks the idea that marriage and kids make you happy is a "noble lie," while Andrew Sullivan, who is married, says that he's been surprised by how much happier he is because of it.
I'm with Andrew, of course, By the time I got married, I was really sick of being single, and I didn't regret one bit giving up the autonomy of bachelorhood. Impending fatherhood, though, made me nervous. My sister, who married and started her family long before I did, told me not long before our first child was born,
"You and Julie are going to lose a lot. You won't be able to go do all the things you like to do now. You're either not going to have the time, or the money, or the energy. That part of your life is over now, and there's no sugarcoating it. But what you don't know is that another part is about to start. You really can't know what it's like to spend an entire Friday evening at home, just staring at your new baby, and to be happier than you ever imagined you could be. I can tell you this is going to happen to you, and you might believe me or you might not. But once you've lived it, you'll know what I mean."
So I lived it. I know exactly what she means. Now, with three kids of my own and 10 years of marriage behind me, I tell friends who are single, or who are married and contemplating children, that they really can't prepare for it. Both experiences are so life-changing that it's really hard to make someone who hasn't gone through it understand how much it alters your daily life. But if you go into both experiences with the right spirit, what you lose in terms of personal mobility and individual freedom will more than be made up for in the joy you receive back.
If you conceive perfect happiness as a constant state of maximized choice, then there's no way a spouse of children can be anything but a burden. But that's no way to conceive happiness.
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David J. White,
But at the age of 46 I've gotten really used to being alone.
This is a great point regarding happiness and marriage.
1) It's tough to marry late and have children. This is one of the interesting spinoffs of the marriage age getting later and later - there is simply too much past life to merge, and the different values and cultures of the modern era don't make it any easier. If one gets past 35 unmarried, half a life has been already lived, and there has to be some sort of law of diminishing returns to marriage here.
2) Besides, living alone is not so much different from modern marriage anyway (two people living together with their relationship independent of community and family with any union divisible upon a whim) is not unlike living with friends or roomates. I know many people (mostly men 35+) who never plan to marry, and for them it's all good...remove the family and the ties that bind, and why not? It's a sexual wonderland. Following this line of thought, it makes good sense how many people find homosexuality a legit form of marriage and, like Rod, believe a homosexual union can be compared to a modern marriage for happiness reasons without any qualification. The modern form of marriage and a homosexual relationship are akin - both are rooted in individuals and their personal happiness, not the family, extended family, or community.
"Following this line of thought, it makes good sense how many people find homosexuality a legit form of marriage and, like Rod, believe a homosexual union can be compared to a modern marriage for happiness reasons without any qualification." mdavid
I have mixed feelings here. It seems odd he'd use him as an example of marriage's benefits, but I kind of think this is getting weirdly obsessive.
Maybe he just forgot to put the word "civil" in "civil marriage." He was discussing some people who aren't at all religious. So we might be talking about whether civil marriage can bring good things or whether individuals believe it can.
Now mostly I think civil marriage is a nearly empty piece of paper authorized by a state that was created by a nest of Deists and Jacobins, (Or in the case of Massachusetts Puritans and Deists) Still for civil society purposes marriages contracted this way are generally called "marriages", for convenience, even if they are well outside of natural law.
For example I believe, from what I recall of Ivan the Terrible, that if you have three living ex-wives you can't remarry. (From a Catholic perspective one living ex-spouse is enough to render re-marriage invalid) Whether this means he's required to say Mickey Rooney's marriage of thirty years does not, in fact, exist I don't know. Rooney seems to believe he's married judging by these commercials I've seen on the TV. That he's mistaken is something I might believe, but it's a quandary.
This comment thread is great example of why people feel ostracized by the conservative movement, be it crunchy or not. Gay marriage isn't even the freakin' topic, and yet the moral crusaders come out from the woodwork to brow beat Rod for his choice of his words. This is just as bad as the PC thugs correcting our language. Garbage like this is why I moved away from being a Republican.
On to the REAL topic at hand:
When I was single I lived a great bachelor existence. Lots of dating, cool clubs, the life of the party, got to travel etc. I was truly happy. When I married, I found real *joy*. When I watched my wife give birth to our children (up to 3 at the moment), that joy became so intense that I can hardly contain myself. I'd much rather be at home with my wife and kids than anywhere else in this world. The things I will really remember will not be dinners at trendy night spots, but will be taking my children to the font to receive the sacrament.
Robb's is the prototype perfect post. On Beliefnet, anywhere circa 2008. Logical, linear, modern both in message and mind, and personally engaging and insightful. It is the exact tone that I find so utterly refreshing in this 20-something generation. It made my day.
This tone (in anyone of any age but widely represented by those born late 70s/early-mid 80s) is in every respect of his first paragraph solidly aware. Note how not one point he makes is by trouncing another's; his single life he was not saying was 'thinking I was happy'. He was happy and says so. BUT he found a joy, like Rod did, with his wife and children. Compare this with the usual ‘I was lost and now I’m found’ posts; not like he suddenly renounces every prior era of his life as he finds higher ground.
His impatience (disgust) with PC police on the left is as palpable as his with the hurling right rants re: 'gay agenda' et al. THIS is the guy whose family I wish lived next door. He is the wave of the future; devout at no one's expense. Threatened by no one else's religion, color, sexual orientation, gender. Happy to be happy being happy while being a responsible, objective observer of American values rather than an angry defender of worn out used-and-abused 'moral' veneers.
I love 2008. For all its fearsome faultlines, it is being changed by a highly educated alternative come-of-age generation that I think shows the savvy to balance intellect with enlightenment.
Wonderful post, Ron. My wife and I just had our first (a girl) in April, and it has brought us more joy than we ever thought possible. Of course we're sleeping less, we've only seen one movie since she was born (WALL-E), we have much less "free time". But it has all been worth it.
Thank you for so eloquently summing up the wonder and joy I feel when I look at our daughter, and refuting the utilitarian notion of happiness.
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