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Post by raphael on Jul 13, 2009 16:59:57 GMT -5
So lets not have any? Does Having Children Make You Unhappy? By Lisa Belkin Children do not bring happiness. In fact more often they seem to bring unhappiness. That is the conclusion of one academic study after the next — and there are so many that it makes one wonder if researchers kept trying, hoping for a different result.
In the April edition of the online Journal of the British Psychological Association, researcher Nattavudh Powdthavee, of the University of York in Great Britain (whose own academic work concludes that there is no difference between the life satisfaction levels of parents and non-parents) summarizes the existing studies: parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyone-have-children/
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Post by manlyman on Jul 14, 2009 7:09:33 GMT -5
I can't imagine my life without my children. They have brought me immense happiness. This study is a bunch of crap.
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Post by bignana on Jul 14, 2009 11:04:59 GMT -5
My children brought me a lot of happiness in my life. But grandkids bring even more. Children sometimes bring unhappiness when they are adults. ;D
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Post by bret on Jul 14, 2009 12:13:57 GMT -5
I can't imagine my life without my children. They have brought me immense happiness. This study is a bunch of crap. Your experience doesn't negate the study as there are also happy people without children and unhappy people with them. I thought this part was interesting: It is, on the other hand, much more likely that we as parents will end up spending a large chunk of our time attending to the very core process of child care such as, 'Am I going to be able to pick up David from his school in time?' or''How do I stop Sarah from crying?' Most of these negative experiences are a lot less salient than the positive experiences we have with our kids, which is probably why we tend not to think about them when prompted with a question of whether or not children bring us happiness. Nevertheless, it is these small but more frequent negative experiences, rather than the less frequent but meaningful experiences, that take up most of our attention in a day. It should therefore come to no surprise to us that these negative experiences that come with parenthood will show up much more often in our subjective experiences, including happiness and life satisfaction, than activities that are, although rewarding, relatively rare.
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Post by manlyman on Jul 14, 2009 12:23:31 GMT -5
I say this study is a bunch of crap. Partially because of the first sentence: "Children do not bring happiness." That's a pretty broad and definite statement. Children can bring happiness.
Of coarse if you want to get really to the heart of the matter, no outside element can make you happy. Only you can make you happy.
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Post by raphael on Jul 14, 2009 12:30:23 GMT -5
Of coarse if you want to get really to the heart of the matter, no outside element can make you happy. Only you can make you happy.
And that's the bottom line why this study is crap. It's kind of like money. You can be filthy rich and be terribly unhappy. Good example would be Michael Jackson IMO.
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Post by manlyman on Jul 14, 2009 12:55:08 GMT -5
Of coarse if you want to get really to the heart of the matter, no outside element can make you happy. Only you can make you happy. And that's the bottom line why this study is crap. It's kind of like money. You can be filthy rich and be terribly unhappy. Good example would be Michael Jackson IMO. I don't know if Michael was terribly unhappy or not, but he was terribly WEIRD!
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Post by misinglink on Jul 14, 2009 17:15:21 GMT -5
If you have ever known the love for a child, then you know there is no greater joy.
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Post by bignana on Jul 15, 2009 8:22:49 GMT -5
Of coarse if you want to get really to the heart of the matter, no outside element can make you happy. Only you can make you happy.
That is something I have tried to get members of my family to understand.
If you have ever known the love for a child, then you know there is no greater joy.
That is a fact.
Exalts to both of you.
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Post by CoffeeShooter on Jul 15, 2009 10:03:42 GMT -5
If you have ever known the love for a child, then you know there is no greater joy.
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Post by bret on Jul 15, 2009 11:28:22 GMT -5
Of coarse if you want to get really to the heart of the matter, no outside element can make you happy. Only you can make you happy. And that's the bottom line why this study is crap. It's kind of like money. You can be filthy rich and be terribly unhappy. Good example would be Michael Jackson IMO. Wouldn't that support the study's findings? The study is saying that having kids doesn't guarantee happiness any more than having money guarantees happiness. Hard to argue with that. Where we might differ with the conclusion is when they say that having kids makes you unhappy. I think unhappy people are going to be unhappy whether they have kids or not. Same goes for happy folks. The bottom line is that we choose how we think. We can choose to be happy or unhappy. Bad shit happens to happy folks, too. It's just that they react to it differently than a miserable sonofabitch like myself would.
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Post by trueblue on Jul 15, 2009 11:43:38 GMT -5
I firmly believe in the fact that we are responsible for our own happiness. To depend on someone else to be happy never works out. I've always wanted a baby because I love them so much. It's not like I didn't know what I was getting myself into because I've been looking after babies since I was 12 years old. But now that my life has changed, I really enjoy peaceful quiet times and I look forward to travelling and just living.
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Post by manlyman on Jul 15, 2009 12:37:52 GMT -5
"It's kind of like money. You can be filthy rich and be terribly unhappy"
I'd like to give the being filthy rich thing a try. If I don't like it, I promise I'll give it back. I believe that while money can't buy you happiness, you could rent it for a while. ;D
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Post by bignana on Jul 15, 2009 19:33:30 GMT -5
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