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Are you happy? Is your husband? Do you need to be happy to be happy? When I became a mom I didn’t expect to be happy. How could I? What I see, read about, watch on TV, follow on the blogs are a lot of stressed out working mothers. But it’s stark indeed to look at robust data that shows women are getting progressively less happy.
On the Huffington Post, Marcus Buckingham dropped two nuggets of data that are getting lots of ink: “a) women are less happy than they were 40 years ago, compared with men, and b) as women get older, they get sadder.” Using data over time from the General Social Survey as well as five other international studies, the study Buckingham cites, by Wharton’s Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, indicates that women’s self-reported happiness is lessening as men’s happiness is increasing.
In response Maureen Dowd wrote, “the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?”
The authors of Undecided write
“When women stepped into male-dominated realms, they put more demands–and stress-on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties–and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.”
And, I would add, many young women still worry about gardens, looks, and dinner parties. Men do too. As I wrote in a piece with Ellen Galinsky, the story hasn’t been written yet. We are all in a period of major gender role upheaval:
It is tempting to interpret Stevenson and Wolfers’ data as fodder for the popular argument that feminism and the Women’s Movement of the 1960s and 1970s somehow betrayed today’s women. But when we look at 30 years of workforce data, we see gender roles are still truly in transition, and more so, it seems, with each passing year. This transition breeds disequilibrium as women gain more responsibility to contribute to family income while retaining the major share of family work responsibilities. Men are changing too, and reporting their fair share of stress. Like most things, the picture is complex.”
Actually (in my sample of one) since I had a kid I’m a lot happier. My ambition, like all my waking hours, is contained by real strictures and that, in turn, makes me focus. I have more boundaries and I like that. I do, however, feel like I’m inventing my life as a worker and a mother and a wife each day. But it’s an adventure. My husband is a different story- he definitely seems to feel more role conflict than I do- and I think this drives some unhappiness. Indeed, Buckingham mentions that “men's work-life conflict has increased significantly from 34% in 1977 to 45% in 2008, while women's work-life conflict has risen less dramatically and not significantly from 34% to 39%."
But our shared chaos as a family, wanting to bang our heads against the wall sometimes while trying to figure it all out is, ironically, something that brings us together, and that makes us happy.
Rita Arens notes too her husband totally pitches in and, “If I were coming home from working a full-time job and then doing everything? Hell, yes, I'd be depressed. How many women is this happening to? I can only speak to my immediate social circle, but the working couples I know seem to share household chores quite a bit, or else they outsource them.”
Still Joan Williams, who is a pioneer in this field, gives us pause as she writes,
“So, to sum it up, why do women start out happier and get bluer as they age? They start out believing in equality. And then they discover the scoop. In this society, the most dependable path to equality is to die childless at thirty. Before you hit the maternal wall, before those depressing children arrive, before you have to prove yourself 900 times to get what a man got after 90, before you are called a bitch when you do what they men do.”
Joan, I’m happier now because my expectations have changed, and my ambition is more focused. I don't know yet if it is diminished; I don't think so. By the time I was three months pregnant, I was prepared to be a frazzled working mom, I was prepared to get mommytracked. The fact that I’m not yet is actually a pleasant surprise every day. And that makes me really happy.
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