NY Mag on "Why Parents Hate Parenting"

This article appeared in the latest issue on Wednesday, and I'm already reading critiscisms. However, I found it to be insightful and worth the read. As someone who often imagines the perfect and complete happiness that a family will bring in the next ten years of my life, I also often reconcile this ideal with the experiences I had as a young person with much younger siblings and all the stress and time (and joy of course of course) that they brought to our family. Kids are work. And if you're not aware of this going in then good freaking luck mang. In her standup, Wanda Sykes references her friends with kids who say "Kids are work..but they're worth it.." as eyes trail off in another direction. Funny, and on point I suspect.

The article sites that as with most things that can be tied back to economics, Danish people have the happiest homelife. Healthcare, Education and Childcare are all paid for, and women are granted a paid year of maternity leave after having a baby. Essentially what they're saying is that it's not raising kids that make parents less happy, it's the related and accumulated stresses involved. And later they point out that those people who chose to opt out of child rearing report less happiness later in life, so again, kids are work..but they're worth it. Bigger picture, the parents referenced in this article experience plenty of joy and happiness on a grander scale, but day to day with a family is an investment that takes commitment, time, energy, money and love. "Is happiness something you experience? Or is it something you think?" I'm sure those with actual children can weigh in more heavily here, but bottom line to me is that in considering multiple studies on general happiness, family life, and daily stress, things never become the perfect and complete happiness that is easy to imagine. You create your own happiness, your homelife can be what you make it, and kids are work, but they're worth it. Also, NY Mag is too hip to endorse families.