

Parenthood is worse than divorce, unemployment – even the death of a partner - veidr
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/08/11/the-most-depressing-statistic-imaginable-about-being-a-new-parent/

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Upvoter33
These studies are silly. How happy are you? Rate this from 1-10. There is more
to life than just how happy you are at a given moment. A good study would ask
people twenty years later what the most meaningful and memorable thing they
did was, and how important it was to them. I suspect being a parent would be
#1 on many lists (for those who had kids).

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lachesisdecima

      How happy are you? Rate this from 1-10.
    

Is there any way to quantify emotion? Emotion is subjective and you have to
ask people to rate their emotion somehow.

    
    
       A good study would ask people twenty years later what the most meaningful and memorable thing they did was, and how important it was to them.
    

People would then simply rationalise their investment in the children, right?
I believe this would be the, "Sunk Cost fallacy". The parents invested so much
time and effort into the child. Why would they suddenly denigrate their years
of back breaking labour? They would definitely view it in a positive light
down the road.

~~~
nrinaudo
It could also be, and I know that this is something of a radical opinion, that
being a parent makes (some) people happy? That the long nights and loss of
freedom are offset by the moments of pure happiness that a kid brings?

I mean, you appear to have about as much potential for emotion as a broken
toaster so this obviously does not apply to you, but the first smile, the
first time a baby catches your finger and hangs on to it as if his life
depended on it, the many times where you're quite obviously the most important
and delightful thing in his life, the feeling that at least for a little
while, you're endowed with godlike wisdom and wit to someone else... I'd take
all the stress and fear and tiredness of being a new father all over again to
experience these.

And I'm not saying that "down the road", I'm a relatively new father, my kid
is only 7 months. I realise same might consider this disqualifies me - I might
not capable of a rational opinion on the matter, being in the thick of it. In
that case yes, sure, if we disregard the opinion of new parents and that of
parents that have been parents for too long, being a parent is a horrible,
horrible experience that no one should have to endure.

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lachesisdecima
Hehe. I understand that the way I wrote my comment might have seemed tactless,
crude and crass. Apologies.

Please do not misunderstand me. I perfectly understand that people find babies
extremely cute. I do too. Hell, if we as a species did not, the both of us
would not be here writing comments.

Being a parent is indeed stressful, frightening and tiresome and I am glad
that you recognise this fact. I would not know this personally due to the fact
that I am not a father. However, I am self aware of my own actions. I have
caused stress and fear in my parents. This would be enough to throw a person
of any undertaking. However, children are cute; they are bundles of joy and
parents view their lives as more complete with kids. If I had any, I would
rationalise it the same way as any parent would. "It's my kid. He/She is so
cute. Look at it play".

However, parenting does come with an immense cost and people do rationalise
their suffering. Pointing that out was the intention of my comment. However, I
do not think kids are bad/malicious/horrible. They are great. They just
require a lot of upkeep.

Anyway, congratulations on having your kid. Things get a lot less stressful as
they age.

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heyogrady_
I'd love to see a follow-up where they access sleep-deprivation in the first
year of parenthood.

It's just anecdotal, but I've noticed new parent unhappiness seems to
correlate strongly with how long it takes until the kid starts sleeping
through the night...

~~~
veidr
Yep, but just about everything about parenting is anecdotal -- there's such a
tiny amount of actionable data out there. But then you have kids, and you have
to take a lot of _action_... so hunches, intuition, and anecdotes play a huge
role.

I think you are right, the sleep deprivation is the biggest thing -- and that
is what I was forewarned about by other parents, and certainly my experience
bore that out (my kids are 3 and 0.75 years old).

I am sure you could do a study of you found a cohort of people who for some
other reason were similarly sleep deprived, and you would probably see similar
negative net happiness.

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Delmania
I wonder how much the isolation and financial burden of modern American life
plays into this. The usual narrative is that in the past, not only were a
couple's parents involved in raising the kids, the couple also had a much
stronger involvement in the community, so members were able to help each other
out. But in the quest for home ownership and rampant consumerism, we've lost
that sense of community, and raising children has become a burden since we're
all living to work.

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DerekL
Modern American life probably had very little influence, because the study was
performed in Germany.

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lachesisdecima
Well I would not be too surprised at this fact. I mean kids are an absolute
burden. They require a lot of time and attention. Kids are going to be
shitting, crying and whining a lot of the time. All of that will definitely
cause a lot of emotional stress to the person. If not for biology, which
causes us to make irrational decisions (in a sane world, would anyone torture
themselves by having a kid and dumping $245000 on something. It simply is not
a good investment), nobody would be having any kids. Kids are a massive
emotional, psychological and monetary burden. I caused stress and tension to
my parents. If I have any, they will do the exact same thing to me. Nobody
should be surprised that this occurs. The scientific study seems to be a tad
useless. These are known facts.

