BUNDLE OF STRESS

An article in Newsweek magazine claims that the commonly accepted societal belief that having children will bring you happiness is nothing more than an urban (suburban, to be more accurate) myth. A review of several scientific studies concludes that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless. The research found that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child and doesn’t return until the last child has left home. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who conducted the largest ever survey of 13,000 American adults in 2005. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children.” (Newsweek)