(From The Deseret News, Saturday, March 19, 2011)
"Scientific studies have found that having children does not increase happiness. In fact, experts say it has the opposite effect. The more children you have, the less happy you are.
Children restrict freedom. Children require sacrifice. Children require work.
As Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University wrote in Time magazine, 'Studies reveal that most married couples start out happy and then become progressively less satisfied over the course of their lives, becoming especially disconsolate when their children are in diapers and in adolescence, and returning to their initial levels of happiness only after their children have had the decency to GROW UP AND GO AWAY.'" (caps added)
Okay, Steve and I have finished wiping the tears from our eyes by now. This article could not have come at a more appropriate (inappropriate?) time. We are smack in the middle of the adolescence of our last two children, with our oldest two in the beginning steps of independent living and the "grow up and go away" phase--which, by the way, brings with it a whole new set of joys, worries and potential sorrows. So, why do we have children? Why, why, why? We have children, as Timothy Dalrymple wrote in a blog post on Patheos.com, because "love overflows, they make us human, and they teach us to love."
Timothy Dalrymple: "Marriage teaches people how selfish they are. Children require selflessness on an even deeper level. The pure form of love is selfless love. Children are an instrument in the hand of God to teach us selflessness. Happiness is a cheap substitute for the full richness and dynamism of the human experience found in loving relationships."
I will try to remember that when one of my children ineviably does something that will drive both Steve and I to ask ourselves, "Why, why, WHY?"
At which point, hopefully, I will recall with great fondness how fun it is to watch them play a sport or an instrument, laugh out loud together at a theatrical play, try on clothes while squished in the same dressing room, try a new restaurant, watch a movie together late at night, or call for a quick visit and advice on dating, decorating, meals, etc., and--more importantly--help them answer that same question of "why?" when they have THEIR children!
