Comments on: Children Make Us Miserable

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:10:33 +0000

I think it can depends to some degree on what sort of temperament your child/children have, as to how they make you feel. We have a 5-year-old boy, who, right from the word go, had a VERY strong character, and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it was going to be so emotionally hard raising a child. The baby-phase was tough; we have no family around us, and our little boy was Colicky. The toddler tantrums were unbelieveable, and nothing we tried made them easier to handle, and even now at the age of 5 he can still reduce me to tears. Yes, he brings us joy, and we are a fun-loving family who spend plenty of quality time together and focus very much on our son’s emotional wellbeing, but there is no way we want any more children. Our marriage is important to us, and if we had any more, we would be more stressed than we are now with that extra responsibility, more tired, and we’d have less time together as a couple until they had grown up. But that’s not the only reason we don’t want any more; we feel that we don’t have to cave in to pressure from the rest of society that children SHOULD HAVE siblings. Half of my friends don’t even speak to their siblings, and a good friend of mine who was brought up and only child always says she had the best childhood ever. Adding one or more children to a family can (and I see it with friends who have more than one) add to everyday pressures and make parents (particulary stay-at-home mums) miserable. With one child we feel we have everything - a beautiful son, time for ourselves as a couple, and enough stress to contend with thank you very much! It sounds negative, but I don’t think that children are the be all and end all of adult happiness. I used to think they were, but now I have a child of my own I can totally understand why some people choose a child-free life.

By: Children from Hell

Children from Hell — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:43:39 +0000

My kids make me miserable. They don’t listen, they fight all the time, they don’t clean, the oldest is a hermit, the middle one is a trouble maker, and the youngest is just hyper. Yeah, I do love them with everything I have but they just don’t understand that money doesn’t grow on trees and they’re hard as hell to raise. They don’t understand that it takes sleep to work a graveyard job.

Oh, and the dad? Well, he pretends to be interested and “tries” to see them every other weekend and then blames all their problems on me.

I’m about ready to pull my flipping hair out!

By: Childless by Choice? « It’s All Endogenous

Childless by Choice? « It’s All Endogenous — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:52:26 +0000

[...] had fertility on mind lately for obvious reasons. I have been following the great Wilkinson-Caplan debates, am part way through Better to Never Have Been by David Benatar, and am taking a [...]

By: Nancy Lebovitz`

Nancy Lebovitz` — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:57:08 +0000

By casual cobservation, I think there’s a smallish proportion of parents and kids who are good for each other. They’re the ones worth studying.

By: Celine

Celine — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:42:24 +0000

Excellent discussion! I made my decision to be childfree shortly after college; 30 years later I still don’t regret it, and never expect to. But you are dead on target about pronatalist propaganda; I’ve been harangued by hairdressers, repairmen, and complete strangers because they seemed to think it was their sacred duty to make sure ALL women have children.

BTW, I’m with Jen about the notion of adopting at 45. It’s one thing to have a tail-end child at that age, and quite another to start the child-rearing process from scratch. Also, I was adopted by older parents, and it caused a lot of problems as I grew up; there was almost two generations’ worth of generation gap between me and my parents, and we fought constantly from the time I was 10 or 11 years old until I moved out of the house. I wouldn’t wish that on any kid, or on you either!

By: Jad

Jad — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:35:02 +0000

Renee:

Looks like a kid-centric society has done a very good job in brainwashing you. Pity.

By: renee

renee — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:22:17 +0000

While I agree that children are the root of a large amount of stress I think in the end having raised children and experiencing life with them is possibly the happiest and most fulfilling thing in the world. Adults whom I know who do not have children especially as they reach their later years are generally seem more depressed. My husband and I have six children and four grandchildren and we are truly happy that we have them and happy with our life. We have only one left at home and we are not quite ready for him to leave. I believe wholeheartedly that raising children is challenging and can be very difficult but the in the end you are far happier for having done it.

By: The Ambrosini Critique » Blog Archive » How to easily reject results from Happiness research

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:55:30 +0000

[...] Will Wilkinson is giddy over happiness research these days. One of the results he cited the other day was controlling for everything, kids make people less happy. [...]

By: eric

eric — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:42:44 +0000

I haven’t seen anything on parent-child smelling and preferences, but there has been lots of fun research giving women t-shirts of men, and analyzing what types of scents they like, and have examined how these preferences relate to their genes and menstrual cycle. This is why cologne sells–it works.

Look at those goosebumps on your arm. You are an animal.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:58:05 +0000

Eric, Maybe you want to believe that you can smell kin, but there is no evidence of it.

The issue with stepchildren is that often they are accepted as part of the price of the new spouse, but are really unwanted. But I was talking about adopting children one does want.

How many adopted children don’t look for biological parents? In the absence of the comparison, a few anecdotes establish nothing at all. And why are people looking for their bioparents doing this? Because they can smell them out there or because people like you insist that similar DNA is a source of meaning?

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:11:19 +0000

Will,

Ever heard of the phrase ‘red-headed stepchild’? Given many animals find their young based on olfactory sense, it seems reasonable to assume there are vestiges of this deep in our medullary processor.Plus, many adopted kids later in life invest a great deal in finding and bonding with their biological parents regardless of how pathetic they wer and are, many writing books about these experiences. While understandable, I always find these stories sad, in that even though they are trying to celebrate this journey and say its win-win, I can’t help but think it takes a bit from the persons who put so much time raising the kid. But these are powerful forces.

Barak Obama’s dad was basically a sperm donor, yet Barak chose, after adolescence, an identity more aligned with this mere 50% biological antecedent than his primary nurturers or his mother!

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:52:07 +0000

Eric, Humans have little or no biological capacity for detecting genetic closeness. (Even giving birth to a child doesn’t guarantee the women that it’s her offspring these days.) If it matters a lot to you, then it’s because you THINK it does. The actual human emotional attachment and bonding mechanisms are based in body contact, proximity, food-sharing, etc., and is incredibly labile. (Have you noticed how attached people are able to get to blankets, stuffed animals, pets, etc.) If you’re fixated on seeing yourself in a half-clone, or have accepted some kind of silly ideology of genetic perpetuation, then yes you will feel you are missing something if you adopt. Of course, people who don’t adopt are missing something entirely different.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:40:42 +0000

Will,

While adopting is noble and a very close substitute to having one’s own children, they are not identical substitutes. I think you are totally ignoring powerful forces that make genetic links stronger, both between parent and child, and co-genetic investors in children. To say, ‘he gets that from you’, is often fascinating, and to see similarities in innate proclivities and physical structures is very bonding.

Eric

By: Christopher Monnier

Christopher Monnier — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:29:33 +0000

>Safe, reliable birth control has only been available in the developed world for two generations (and still isn’t available in much of the world).

That might be why people have given birth to kids, but why do people raise them? Upon finding kids to be more work than they thought, why don’t humans eat their kids, for example?

By: jen

jen — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:23:22 +0000

I tend to think of things from the perspective of a once overwhelmed and very young mother, so I didn’t think about your point with regard to older men, but you’re right.

Outsourcing is what older men who sire children have done throughout time. If you don’t have a nanny to outsource it to, then the younger wife will do it. Sweet!!