I don’t think the research that can be done is sufficient. What you really want to know is the effect on happiness of having children on YOU where your category may be that you want children or it may be that you don’t want children. I think the subtlety of estimating the happiness of people who wanted children but didn’t get them against those who wanted children but did get them is too high. I think it is established by research that we rewrite our own history depending on how things go. So if you talk to childless people many of them will understate or even negate that they wanted children, because their childlessness will cause them to look for the good in wnat happened. And similarly on the other side, people who get children will include people who assume that since they got children they must have wanted them.
In my case, I deliberately set out, and spent years to get children. It seems unlikely to me that I would have been just as happy if I failed at my long term project, especially considering how much I like my children and how involving they are. I don’t know if this subtlety is captured in any studies.
Why is rationalization of one’s child-having status an issue for estimating their happiness? People are as happy as they are. Part of what determines that happiness is their rationalization of events and choices they’ve encountered. If childless people rationalize their situation and are just as happy as child-having people (with their own rationalizations), that looks like an answer, not a problem.
I don’t think the research that can be done is sufficient. What you really want to know is the effect on happiness of having children on YOU where your category may be that you want children or it may be that you don’t want children. I think the subtlety of estimating the happiness of people who wanted children but didn’t get them against those who wanted children but did get them is too high. I think it is established by research that we rewrite our own history depending on how things go. So if you talk to childless people many of them will understate or even negate that they wanted children, because their childlessness will cause them to look for the good in wnat happened. And similarly on the other side, people who get children will include people who assume that since they got children they must have wanted them.
In my case, I deliberately set out, and spent years to get children. It seems unlikely to me that I would have been just as happy if I failed at my long term project, especially considering how much I like my children and how involving they are. I don’t know if this subtlety is captured in any studies.
Why is rationalization of one’s child-having status an issue for estimating their happiness? People are as happy as they are. Part of what determines that happiness is their rationalization of events and choices they’ve encountered. If childless people rationalize their situation and are just as happy as child-having people (with their own rationalizations), that looks like an answer, not a problem.