Keine Kinder zu haben ist nicht mit geringerem Glück verbunden, aber mehr zu haben, als man wollte, schon, wie eine aktuelle Studie im Journal of Personality zeigt.
Not having children isn’t linked to lower happiness, but having more than you wanted is
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Not watching your children grow up in a starving, burning world may also increase happiness
And for some people that number is 1
In the later part of life it is. For parents with kids, their happiness decreases until kids are out of home and then linearly increases and surpasses those who would never have kids over a whole lifetime.
I dunno, been trying for a year now and as a direct result of not having a kid, I am quite sad.
There are all kinds of expectations and norms in western cultures about what life is supposed to entail: getting married, having 2 kids, buying a house. Makes sense that people feel self doubt when they don’t achieve those goals
But people seldom talk about the costs and consequences of achieving those goals. Many marriages don’t make it because of the constant strain of parenting. Many children feel like they don’t get the attention that want or resources they need when they have to compete with siblings
My point is that it makes sense to want to achieve prosocial and common goals. But we should also cut ourselves slack when we can’t do so for reasons beyond our control. There’s no single right way to lead life
Can’t be unhappy about having too many kids if you never have them in the first place.
> The data is also specific to Germany, a country with unique family policies and distinct social expectations regarding parenthood.
Well, looking at my Life Expectancy – 10yrs below Germany’s 81.86yrs – i guess my happiness is moot.
Youngsters really go out of their way to construct reasons why they shouldn’t try to do something and so called studies like this aren’t helping any. The „journal of personality“ alone makes me skeptical but I come from the stance of soft sciences are just that: soft.
That tracks. After three surprises I’m tired boss.
That’s why the videos of wives showing their husbands a surprise positive pregnancy test when they’ve already got kids running around are so terrifying and not funny. You can literally see all hope of happiness vanish from their lives.
Im sure not having children when you really want them is also linked to unhappiness. People are happy when their life goes they way they want it to.
If you do want kids, how on Earth are you supposed to correctly work out how many kids you would be happy with before you have them?
If you don’t want kids, that’s easy maths…
Nah.
I was mentally destroyed for over a year when we were looking to get our 6th. The only one that we struggled to get. Then a few miscarriages, and when we finally got him, we had won the lottery.
3 years later, we were not looking to get any extra ones and it was the end of the world when we thought we had another one.
Yeah, what I dont get about this topic- there’s no social conditioning what so ever. There is no great question to whether you should or should not have children – it’s purely biological. The only reason your here is for the same reason. Feel free to not have children, but if your going around spewing about how the world sucks and it needs to be a better place, while simultaneously choosing to not have children out of convience you are part of the problem.
We’re in uncharted territory generationally which makes these studies moot. Millennials and GenZ will have far less kids than prior generations and far less disposable income.
This headline is so misleading. Is the person happy at 30 with no kids just as happy at 70? What about the person who felt they had too many at age 30 and age 70?
The study answers the first question in the opposite of the headline – people in the fertile range were more satisfied when they don’t have the amount of kids they wanted than people who were out of it. Which is to say that as people age and realize they didn’t reach their goals they become *less happy*.
For people who wanted 0 and got 0 there is no happiness difference between them and people who wanted and had 1, or 2, or whatever.
This sub is really not being very „scientific“ any more. This is just a clickbait title designed to placate people who want to hear the headline, nothing more.
We know. We the child free know. We tried to tell yall.
Reddit hates kids and it definitely shows
The phrasing of this is weird. Why mention the first part at all in the title?
Just say “study shows having more children than you wanted is associated with a happiness decrease.”
Why I can’t stand people who say to have another baby because you won’t regret it
One and done for us. And we are very happy.
Kid isn’t planning on having any. And is also quite happy.
Generalizing about any one group, culture etc is gross
Less people less problems is my philosophy. Given the world that is being created by the mammon worshipping crapitalists why would you want to have an innocent soul brought into this mess?