One's enough

Countering the pro-natal propaganda wave

Posted by JMG (Guest Contributor) at 12:07 PM on 22 Apr 2007

Read more about: green living | population | parenting

Lo and behold, once again doing what's best for the planet (rather than, say, advertisers or your in-laws) turns out to be also the best thing for your own happiness.

From the story:

For scientists studying the subject, simply correlating parenthood and happiness can't answer this question, since happy people might be more likely to have kids to begin with. But a recent study that compared happiness levels in adult identical twins -- some of whom are parents and some who aren't -- may be getting to the bottom of the issue.

The study, headed by sociology professor Hans-Peter Kohler of the University of Pennsylvania, found that people with children are, in fact, happier than those without children. But such happiness gains differ for mothers and fathers.

In comparing identical twins, Kohler found that mothers with one child are about 20 percent happier than their childless counterparts; and while fathers' happiness gains are smaller, men enjoy an almost 75 percent larger happiness boost from a firstborn son than from a firstborn daughter. The first child's sex doesn't matter to mothers, perhaps because women are better than men at enjoying the company of both girls and boys, Kohler speculates.

Interestingly, second and third children don't add to parents' happiness at all. In fact, these additional children seem to make mothers less happy than mothers with only one child -- though still happier than women with no children.

For story: One's enough
6 Comments | Post a Comment

Although I think...

there is no doubt that having less children can be a good thing from an environmental standpoint, I think it's better if environmentally conscious people who value human rights and peace and justice have more kids and instill these values into their children. That's probably the best thing for our future.

J.S.

J.S. htt://voicesofreason.info

by jscorse at 9:46 AM on 23 Apr 2007

brothers, sisters, and close families

Interestingly, second and third children don't add to parents' happiness at all.

Sometimes additional children are wanted so that the first will have brothers and or sisters. Materially, they often happen simply as a consequence of the relationship between the husband and wife. Not all married couples feel that contraception is appropriate.

Evaluating children as if life was like picking favorites off a buffet table seems rather perverted to me.

I really appreciate Jason's above comment. It would be an evolutionary shooting in the foot for people who care about the environment to have very few kids to make up for the many kids being born to those who don't care about their ecological impact. It would appear in the short term that ignoring environmental responsibilities is a good strategy for reproductive success and therefore an indication of evolutionary "intelligence." Fortunately the world is more complex than that.

On the other hand, it may be harder for parents to teach values such as environmenal responsibility when both parents are at work outside the home all day, and the kids are raised by day care and school employees.

by Pandu at 10:44 AM on 23 Apr 2007

and then again ...

... there is always adoption. If you want a child, you do not have to have your own. There are lots and lots of unwanted children in the world. Why add to the population, just in order to have a child, when there is no need to?

On "instilling values": The problem there is, it is impossible to guarantee. Plato visits the question, "Can virtue be taught?," a few times, observing that Pericles, for example, a good man, could not teach his sons to be good.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:00 AM on 23 Apr 2007

How do children develop their values?

Jason:

Your comment assumes that prospective parents can expect to be able to successfully transmit their values to their children if they strive to do so. My Mom would probably laugh at that, as I bet lots of parents would. More importantly, that assumption isn't supported by the actual research on childrearing, from what I understand. In my opinion, Judith Rich Harris makes this point quite powerfully in her book The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do: Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More.

If we want ecological values to become the norm rather than the exception, I'm convinced we can only achieve it by changing minds on a broad scale, not by those with such values having more children.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

by John Fish Kurmann at 10:18 AM on 24 Apr 2007
[ Parent ]

adoption, teaching, and peers

No doubt adoption is a heroic solution to the problem of the biological father and mother being unable to raise their offspring. In popular Hindu folklore, even Krishna was adopted. (The bhakti tradition I follow maintains that Krishna who appeared to His "birth" parents in Kamsa's prison was a plenary expansion, and that Krishna in His original form never leaves Vrindavana, the home of the parents who raised Him. The fact that Krishna is never born makes the issue essentially moot.)

As for whether virtue can be taught, the only way Plato's remarks above make sense to me is to think of them as expressing the frustration at the fact that some people just seem strongly inclined to vice.

If it's true that parents cannot hope to successfully teach virtue to their offspring, and others can't teach them either, then that would certainly explain the state of the world today. However, I'm not willing to give up on teaching my children yet. Perhaps it just means that they learn more by example than instruction. In any case, I would expect that peers would have less of an effect on my homeschooled children. Indeed, peers in school is half the reason my children have their learning at home.

by Pandu at 11:19 AM on 25 Apr 2007

How to influence who your children become...

Pandu:

From what I understand, the most potent, though indirect, way parents have to influence the personalities and values their children will have is through the decisions they make which determine who their children's peers will be--where to live and what school, if any, to send their children to prime among them. By homeschooling your children, you are taking powerful action in this regard, though I'm an advocate of unschooling myself.

"You can never get enough of what you do not really want." - Huston Smith

by John Fish Kurmann at 6:15 AM on 26 Apr 2007
[ Parent ]

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