This Paternity Paradox: Parents experience a decrease in their well-being with the arrival of a child, but still find happiness and satisfaction in life. A child means less time for sleep, meals or leisure; Something that could lead to dissatisfaction, but doesn’t.
“The experience of fatherhood and motherhood can also lead to a deeper form of well-being called eudaimonic well-being,” they explain. Trudy Meehan and Jolanta Burkefrom the university’s Center for Positive Health Sciences, who continues his article conversation: “It’s about the feeling of living a meaningful life, as opposed to short-term happiness.”
This eudaemonic well-being can be experienced by both men and women, although as Meehan and Burke detail, in the case of mothers it depends on how balanced parenting tasks are with their husbands. His conclusion is that happiness does not depend on the decision to have a child or not, but on whether one has control over the matter and whether one has the necessary support.
Various studies have examined whether not having children influences people’s happiness and life satisfaction. One of them, for example, analyzed the situation of 161 women who could not have children either because they could not find a partner or because of infertility. Their well-being did not differ from the rest, although 12% said they had no clear direction in life, 24% were psychologically rich, and the rest had a moderate level of well-being. Other research has concluded that fighting for a child increases post-traumatic growth. In contrast, studies of men who were unable to have children due to infertility showed that many experienced sadness, but this decreased as they got older. “Finding ways to rethink their identity and their role in society outside of parenthood helped many find meaning and satisfaction in their lives,” experts explain about the analysis.
However, S. A study conducted by Katherine Nelson, titled In Defense of Parenthood, concluded that having a child is not only strongly correlated with feelings of happiness, but also with longevity.
Nelson and his team based their analysis on the intersection of three previous surveys in which they asked about their level of happiness and satisfaction in life. The first of them revealed that those who had children showed higher levels of having a very positive life compared to the rest. Second, parents feel better in their daily lives because of their parenthood. And last, respondents with children expressed higher levels of positive feelings for the simple fact of caring for their children. The highest rate of happiness was reported by parents in all three studies.
