Posted on 05/15/2006 11:45:12 AM PDT by HungarianGypsy
Hey, you moms and dads out there showing off the latest photos of your kids and bragging about their recent achievements. You might not want to be quite so smug: Parents are more depressed than adults without kids. Despite the joys you think parenthood may bring, a study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior reports that having children does not make you happier.
(Excerpt) Read more at eastvalleytribune.com ...
Propaganda.
I also understand that war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
You have to remember, some parents have children who are liberals.....it must be pretty depressing.
Ask these couples when they are in their sixties, seventies, and eighties if they wished they'd had children. It will be a different story then.
I have to agree with the article's premise that our society does not support family life, but I cannot believe that being childless actually makes one happier. With all it's ups and downs, I think that having a family is what life is really about.
My first child was born when I was only 20. Having a child kept me at home, or at work, while my friends all went down HARD on cocaine and other drugs.
Having children saved my life, in a sense.
Being a father also made me a much happier person. I wish I could have had many, many more children.
Married parents with minor children in the house did better than most. Married parents in general did better than single parents. Parents with noncustodial children and adult children at home report significantly higher symptom levels, the researchers said.
Seems contradictory to the headline.
"a study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior reports that having children does not make you happier."
They needed a study for that? I believe people without children are happier and probably much better off financially overall.
Bowing to peer pressure and keeping up with the 'Joneses' is always good for your stress level... -sarc
FREERIDERS are happy people!!!!
PING!
Any bets on the political affiliation of the stressed/depressed/without zest parents?
Let's read further:
Married parents with minor children in the house did better than most. Married parents in general did better than single parents. Parents with noncustodial children and adult children at home report significantly higher symptom levels, the researchers said . . . The researchers emphasized that they studied symptoms of depression — rather than a clinical diagnosis of depression.
Propaganda indeed.
You know I myself am really depressed because I have two beautiful daughters and a wonderful wife that I love to spend all my spare time with. It's killing me inside. If only I could do something more rewarding, like march in an anti-war protest or spend money on cover charges for trendy nightclubs.
I for one disagree. My life would be rather empty without my wife and children.
Excellent response Comrade! You must be well aware then that Big Brother is Watching you.
Could be that a parent tends to care and think more about the future... beyond our own life expectancy?
Instead of "me and now" it is "my family and 40 years from now."
This is not a bad thing, though.
When I think of all the people I know who are now entering their third decade of adolescence without every taking on any real adult responsibilities, I can see how the perpetual fratboy mentality might keep people of a certain level of mental development happy, I guess.
We could just be thinking too highly of the average postmodern citizen.
FREERIDERS don't have to put up with FREELOADERS
I'm happy for you and your wife.
Exhausted, yes.
Financially stressed, yes.
Aggrivated, yes.
Sad, nah.
And to the chagrin of some, we still have our voting rights.
Thanks!
We had a son. He died just shy of his fourth birthday due to complications from epilepsy.
Depressed? Certainly. Would I have missed it? No way.
I am so very sorry for your loss. I'm glad that you had those four precious years with him.
Thank you. We had a very difficult time - severe seizures, hospitals, developmental delays, etc. - but our little guy was the world to us and Mrs. Reb and I will always miss him.
Before we had him, we felt we were missing something important in our lives. We were not unhappy, just incomplete.
Only an educated person would be dumb enough to ask people if they are happy and then when the people say yes, tell the people that they just think they are happy because they are deluded by depression.
Condolences on your loss. I am sure your angel touched many lives in his short time here.
Looking at the situation philosophically, since marriage and children are necessary for the propagation of the species, marriage and childrearing must be an essential part of adult life. So, in general, it would be natural for married-with-children adults to be happier than single adults.
So I'm not buying what they're selling.
Well, Hell! Too damned late! And I am happy and pleased by the way mine turned out. We are old people now and the only child, a daughter, is now 39 and has a successful business.
We held the reins tight; no regrets. Suggest that the rest of you do the same.
ML/NJDADDY TAKES HEATHER TO THE OPERAMy wife and I have frequently discussed when it would be best to introduce our children (Heather, age 8; and Andrew age 4) to cultural activities which we enjoy. Foremost among such events is attendance at the Metropolitan Opera where we have been subscribers for twice Heather's years.If I had been asked a month ago I probably would have guessed that Heather would be 11 or 12 years old before she would see her first opera. Certainly I was in no rush; for two reasons. First, the opera is an adult activity and I would not want my child to disturb others in the audience. And second, I feared that a premature introduction could negatively color the child's impression of opera, possibly for life.
Almost by chance I taped the television broadcast of Turandot. I did so because we were scheduled to attend a Turandot performance a week later and I thought that the children might like to "see" the opera that their parents were going to see. They had watched parts of other broadcasts and, of course, operatic music is frequently played on our stereo. But the Turandot broadcast was different, perhaps because the story is relatively simple. (Princess Turandot will marry the first man to solve her three riddles, but any man who tries and fails has his head chopped off.) Heather and Andrew both watched the complete opera in one sitting. Heather seemed particularly touched by Leona Mitchell's performance as the slave girl Liu.
The morning after my wife and I went to see/hear Turandot, Heather was full of questions. Was the cast the same? Which was better: the performance we attended or the TV broadcast? She seemed so interested that I wished that she had been able to go with us and see for herself. I began to think about taking her to see the Saturday Matinee a week later.
During the week I played a Turandot recording on our stereo. The music was playing as we were having dinner. Matter of factly I asked Heather to tell me what was happening at several points and to my surprise she answered rather precisely. The next day I called the Met to see about getting tickets but the person I spoke to mostly laughed at my request for a pair of tickets. Tickets were not to be had. But now I was determined to take Heather. I would take a chance on getting tickets outside the house just before the performance.
Saturday dawned cold and clear. Heather got dressed up and I made a sign for her. It read, "NEED TWO TICKETS/PLEASE/(I LOVED IT ON TV!)" My wife packed a lunch for Heather and she gave me a list of other events in the city that we might go to if we could not get in to the opera. I wasn't interested in the list.
After driving into New York, we parked our car at the garage under the opera house and proceeded upstairs to the main entrance. Outside, an hour and a quarter before curtain time, Heather displayed her sign to the few early arrivers. They smiled approvingly but had no tickets to sell. The people with tickets were outnumbered by the people like us who were hoping to buy tickets. The scalpers thought that orchestra seats would be going for $200 apiece. I saw one scalper buy a $17 ticket for its regular price and turn around and sell it for $50 before the woman from whom he had purchased it was out of sight. The woman came back to berate the scalper and he explained to her that he was performing a public service. I wondered if I would need his "public service" but still I hoped to purchase tickets at the regular price from a subscriber who couldn't use his/her tickets that afternoon. After about ten minutes Heather was beginning to get cold and there still was not much traffic on the plaza, so we went inside to warm up. We walked back toward the garage and Heather displayed her sign to the trickle of people coming up from the garage. First there were more approving smiles but within five minutes we hit pay dirt. A nice couple who said they had a granddaughter Heather's age had four tickets and sold us the two they wouldn't be using. The seats were in row K in the side orchestra. Heather was going to see Turandot. [Ghena Dimitrova IS Turandot!]
We still had about an hour before the performance was to start; not quite enough time to have lunch at a restaurant but certainly enough time to enjoy Mom's Brown Bag delight back at our car. First, however, we went back up to the plaza for a couple of photographs of Heather triumphant, her sign, and the two tickets, in front of the Opera house.
After lunch we mingled with the growing crowd waiting to enter the house. Once inside we headed for the pricey Parterre boxes to do a little sightseeing before we went to our seats. An usher permitted us to examine an (as yet) unoccupied box and its anteroom. There was red velvet everywhere and Heather was impressed. More exploring would be done in each of the two intermissions but Heather wanted see where she was going to sit so we went down to the orchestra level.
I briefly reviewed the story of the first act with Heather as others filed in to their seats. The couple who sold us the tickets arrived and we spoke briefly with them but then the lights were going up. The "beheading scene" as Heather calls it was about to begin.
I tried to observe Heather's reaction to the clarity of the live music and the massive scale of the Zeffirelli production which cannot be transmitted on television. Her eyes never left the stage. She knew Leona Mitchell would be singing again and was clearly pleased by her performance (as was the rest of the house).
After the first act we climbed up to the farthest reaches of the family circle. It was not until we were as far from the stage as one could be that Heather became noticeably impressed by the large scale of the theater we were in. We explored each seating level on our way back down to the orchestra. I looked for other children as we walked about the house. My guess is that no more than 15 of the 4000 in the audience were under twenty years old; perhaps there were one or two others under ten. Heather began to worry that we would miss the beginning of the second act. I started to explain that gongs would sound seven and three minute warnings before the start of each act when we heard them sound. Now we hastened back to our seats and reviewed the second act action that was about to take place.
The second act begins in the colorful, but modestly scaled apartments of Ping, Pang, and Pong. There is little to warn of the grandeur to follow in the second scene of the act which takes place before the emperor's throne in the imperial palace. Even the great Zeffirelli would have had a lump in his throat if he could have seen my daughter's reaction as the second scene was revealed. Now it was time for the Calif to try to answer the three riddles. Everyone, including Heather, knows that he will answer correctly but still I can tell that she senses the tension (Puccini's music helps!) particularly while Calif struggles with the third riddle.
The second act ends and we go off for a tour of the exhibits on the level below the orchestra. There are many paintings but Heather is most interested in a photographic tribute to Zinka Milanov. She detects that the pictures were taken in some other opera house which was, in fact, the old Met. More questions arise. Were the Parterre boxes as nice in the old house? Why did they build a new opera house? I was never to the old Met but some others who remembered and who overhear the questions volunteer answers.
Now we head back to our seats. Heather is a mini-celebrity in row K. A number of the others sitting near us ask her what she thinks about the opera. She compares the first and second acts and makes some observations about the benefits of sitting in the orchestra as opposed to watching on television.
The third act might have been anticlimactic but it wasn't. Nicola Martinucci as Calif sings the famous Nussun Dorma, and Leona Mitchell sings her final aria. The darkness of the first scene gives way to a brief final scene in the brilliantly lit imperial palace. As the chorus sings its final praise of Turandot and Calif, gold flakes fall like snow and I can see each flake reflected in my daughter's eyes.
What a glorious afternoon!
That is so cute. Obviously, our experience wasn't as cultured. :-) Back in 2001 when the AZ Diamondbacks won the World Series there was a parade and a big ceremony in the stadium. Getting one of the free tickets for the stadium event was almost impossible if you didn't get out early enough. My then 7 year old had made a sign that read "God Bless America". He had put a lot of effort into it and was so proud. As we were heading to the parade, a man came along and said he really liked my son's sign and would he like to see the stadium event. He handed us enough tickets to get our family in, because he said he had some extras and did not need them. It was so fun for the children. Even the baby had fun.
Your response is one of the most thoughtful that I have read in a very long time.
Didn't say anything about spouses, just children.
You're so defensive about this whole subject...makes one wonder...
I have to admit, that's a nice story, but I am still looking forward to teaching my boy about guns, knives, swords and explosives. (And yes I still have all my fingers:) ). Maybe that's a little more lowbrow but what the heck.
"I wish I could have had many, many more children."
Ditto that! But I'm really glad I have the one I've got.
And she's pretty nice now, the hell of the teenage years is over. A few more bumps will come along the way, I'm sure, but at least she is pleasant these days!
If you don’t change a few diapers when you are young, there will be nobody to change yours when you are old.
Some of us don't want kids.
Some of us do.
Why are we arguing about what I want in my life?
Wait... Are you my mother?
Maybe that is part of the problem. Without a strong mother and father who are married and love one another the children will become lost and unruly.
Me, also. With my daughter in Catholic school, I see many large families (6-13 kids!) up close, and the large families ALL look and seem like they're having a great time. The children from the large families also seem much more mature and well-behaved, on average, than the children from smaller families.
Health issues and advancing age have limited us to two children, but I can say that having children and being a father (and husband) has been, without question, the most amazing and enriching experience of my life.
Then, by all means, share your speculations. I'm sure they'll be quite enlightening.
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