Do kids make you happy? Does talking about kids make you happy?

Posted on Tue, May 11, 2010 : 4:46 p.m.

Do kids make you happy? Does talking about kids make you happy?

By Scott Beal

Soccer practice is canceled because of the rain: and so a small window of unscheduled time opens up on a Tuesday evening. Windows of unscheduled time seem increasingly rare. One keeps waiting for the world to calm down, the calendar to loosen, but stuff piles up. Appointments and tasks keep arising to fill in the gaps.Â

If it's not skating lessons, it's piano practice. If it's not Daisies, it's Brownies. If not logging time for the fundraising read-a-thon, then reviewing the packing list for the overnight school trip that the read-a-thon's meant to fund. And meanwhile there are still those 17 or 18 grown-up projects to catch up on once the kids are in bed.

I was talking to a friend last night, a doctor and a father whom I play soccer with. He mentioned that studies show that having children doesn't necessarily make people happier. This despite the platitudes we all hear when a new mother is expecting. You know how it goes: "being a parent is the most challenging and most rewarding thing you will ever do." That sort of thing.

I'm not saying the platitudes are necessarily wrong. I am happy as a parent, and I love my kids fiercely. But then, I was pretty happy before being a parent, too. Kids have made my life a lot different, but have they made it happier? That's a good question. I haven't thought about it too hard. There's only one right answer if you want to keep your sanity, so if you're going to ask yourself that question, you better find a way to say, "Yes." And maybe that's why the platitudes persist, despite the studies. By reassuring each other that parenting is the best and happiest choice, we help ourselves believe it.

Of course, kids tend to come up with moments that remind you why you got into this parenting business. Sometimes their timing is impeccable. When you're completely stressed out with appointments, deadlines, household management, your kids' mound of requirements and demands and your life's work and dreams seem to dangle by threads — kids come through with the goods. (Have we evolved with some childhood sixth sense about when such moments are needed, to keep our parents on our side?)Â

So it was that yesterday my youngest daughter brought me to the window to show me the baby squirrel standing single file behind its mother on a branch in our backyard. So it was that later she went to the basement and returned with a poem written in blue crayon about yo-yos: "Yo-yos are used to climb trees. Yo-yos are used to clean glasses. You eat yo-yos."

I saw a comment on an AnnArbor.com news story last week, complaining that "Annarbor.com should really stick to mothers telling stories about how cute their kids are." Is that all we're really doing here? Is that what this blogging business really boils down to? Ack, I hope not. Who wants to read about other people's cute kids? Parenting is both challenging and rewarding, like the platitude says. One hopes there's a use in sharing stories that reflect the range of challenges and rewards. One hopes we're not just kidding ourselves and angling for pats on the back.

Scott Beal is a stay-at-home dad and a poet. He'll perform along with several of his students at LITERAMA, a dynamic poetry show this Friday, May 14, at 7pm at the Neutral Zone.

image credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pi-p/ / CC BY 2.0

Comments

Stefan Szumko

Tue, May 11, 2010 : 4:42 p.m.

As my father-in-law says, "We become parents so we can have grandchildren." W.C Fields said, "I like children, boiled and fried." I say, "If it weren't for our children, then we wouldn't be parents."