What REALLY makes mom happy?
by Claudia Broome

This week, there was an article in Newsweek that offered some scary food for thought. The article discussed a happiness barometer of parents vs. non parents. Many statistics were cited and several experts quoted. The most poignant, in my opinion, were the following: 

"...In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home...author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless...The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies...The National Marriage Project's 2006 "State of Our Unions" report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents..."

So ladies, what do you think? Honestly! If you listed the three things that make you happy, what would they be? Do your children really make you happy? I'm just curious! 

Submitted by Claudia Broome (view blog) on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 12:36

Comments

 

Happy as a Mother

I think that there is a difference between my children making me happy and being happy as a mother. Maybe it is best for us that our children don't make us happy because that would make us too dependent on them. I would say that I am happy to be a mother. The moment my older daughter was born I could feel a patience and restfulness enter into me that had never been there before. Not to say that I am the Mother Teresa of calm, but I certainly changed--for the better--once the responsibility to love, cherish, educate, feed, and care for my daughters became the foundation of my life. This is not to say that I live for them, but that role is now a part of my essence. Part of what makes me happy.

Laura, thinking about the ups and downs of as a woman, mother, married womanm, divorced woman, and daughter at www.rebelliousthoughtsofawoman.com.

Submitted by rebellious thinker on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 11:02
 

Happy because of what we are inside!

 

I so agree with you! Nobody is responsible for anyone else's happiness! Not husbands or children and the list goes on and on...Maybe the only exception is our dogs!!

www.ClaudiaBroome.com

www.LadiesDontQuitYet.com

www.ToHaveAndToHoldHostage.com

Submitted by Claudia Broome on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 11:10
 

  Three things that make me

 

Three things that make me happy are good writing, intimacy and somebody else minding the baby while I lounge around on the sofa sipping tea and watching Grey's Anatomy.

As for motherhood...

I think happiness is too simple a term to sum up for me the complex experience of motherhood. Yes, I felt immense joy with my son. I also felt immense rage and dissapointment and despair.

Sometimes the experience of motherhood uplifted me and made me want to dance and sing. Sometimes it left me wanting to kill myself and punching walls.  Happy is an easy word. Parenthood isn't. It's too bittersweet for that.

I am delighted my son exists. I would be devastated if I lost him. But happiness is too tame a word for something that wrings your heart out for better and worse. :)

Submitted by gleamy on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 11:10
 

WOW!

I couldn't have said it better myself!!!!

www.ClaudiaBroome.com

www.LadiesDontQuitYet.com

www.ToHaveAndToHoldHostage.com

Submitted by Claudia Broome on Wed, 07/02/2008 - 11:13
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