Aristotle wrote that happiness is our true goal. He also observed that no one should be judged to be happy until he is dead.

Children and the Pursuit of “Happiness”

by Bruce Frohnen

One of the few relatively good things about listening to National Proletarian/Public Radio is the insight it can give one into why our culture is dying. Case in point: a recent story on All Things Liberal/Considered on a study regarding whether children “make us happy.” It seems that researchers asked a group of working men and women with children about a long list of activities. Respondents were to rank these activities according to how happy they were when “doing them.” Spending time with the kid(s) ranked quite low—somewhere around vacuuming.

Being an “unbiased news source,” NPR’s reporter didn’t just leave it at that, or conclude that Americans (all of whom, apparently, belong to double-income spousal arrangements) are better off not having kids. No, the reporter “dug deeper” and found that we shouldn’t simply concentrate on the activities themselves. You see, (surprise, surprise) people somewhat misreport what makes them happy. For example, everybody, it seems, listed having sex near the top of their enjoyment list, but most actually engaged in the activity rather infrequently (too tired from all that working, perhaps). The optimistic upshot of the story was that children actually do make “typical” Americans happier than they otherwise would be—mostly. That is, small children (infants and toddlers) are a lot of trouble, and teenagers are frustrating, so they don’t “make us happier” than we otherwise would be. But, looked at “holistically” as part of sustained, daily life, there is a rather nice period, when the kids are in elementary school, during which having the little ones around adds to these “typical Americans’” overall happiness.

How nice.

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