The first study makes no conclusion that parenthood is the causative effect. It actually speculates if this is because people with higher rates of psychological distress are less likely to become parents.

I couldn't read the full text of the second, but likewise the conclusion does not imply causation.

I'm a parent, and have experienced significant 'psychological distress' as a result of having children. Every time I read a comment from someone advising people to have children for happiness reasons, it triggers me.

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somenameforme a day ago | parent [-]

You're right. Not only did the first paper not imply causation, they literally did not even consider it. They didn't consider that fulfilling our most critical and primal instinct, in an activity that [generally] creates psycho-emotional bonds like no other, might have positive psychological benefits. Does not not strike you as odd?

There's a practical issue with social science. Very near to 100% of researchers (from the US at least) share a common ideology, frequently to a fairly radical degree, and it regularly leaks into their research. You can even see this in the abstract of the paper. They show data indicating that parents have dramatically lower rates of mental illness than the general population and their conclusion? "Serious psychological distress is fairly prevalent among parenting adults." So for these sort of papers, I generally find their discussion and conclusions quite irrelevant, but the data is generally sound, so long as it's not overtly cherry picked.

I'd also add that the fact that positive psychological effects (in the second study) were not observed in childless couples seems to largely falsify the hypothesis that the psychological benefits of parenting were simply an observation of people with psychological issues being unable to have children in the first place.

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And yeah, having a child can be terrifying at times. My youngest recently went through roseola and we spent days in the hospital with him after his fever briefly spiked just under 107F/41.6C. That is sheer terror - holding your child who's running so hot that he's literally uncomfortable to hold against your body. Yet they have also changed my life, worldview, and overall psychological state in an unbelievably positive way on the whole, and I would (and do) wholeheartedly recommend them to any and every person who can provide a reasonably stable household with two loving parents.

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munksbeer a day ago | parent [-]

> Does not not strike you as odd?

Not really. What struck me as odd was someone citing papers as evidence for their opinion that having children increases your happiness, when the papers drew no such conclusion.

It's great that it has worked out that way for you. Sadly, I have a different experience, but life happens. If this makes any difference to you, I don't know, but let's move on.

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somenameforme 20 hours ago | parent [-]

I cited the papers' data which are unquestionable, not the sociologists' opinions on why that data might be, which are extremely questionable.

I know you said you'd prefer to move on, but if you could share when/how things went south for you, that could be beneficial others to learn from, myself not the least.

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munksbeer 12 hours ago | parent [-]

>I cited the papers' data which are unquestionable, not the sociologists' opinions on why that data might be, which are extremely questionable.

You've added your own opinion on what the results might mean, and the message you're conveying is that the results support your opinion and that the actual researchers opinion is "extremely questionable".

I'll leave it to other readers to decide on how they interpret this. I know this is a bit of a silly side-track discussion, but as I say, I get triggered when I see people advocating having children as a means to happiness. I think this is careless, because children deserve to be brought into the world for the right reasons, and would be parents should be fully informed.

As you asked for my perspective, now having children, I can 100% say I was happier at every stage of my life until my first child was born. Some people just aren't compatible with the extreme stress and hardship of raising children, sad as this is for me to say. I wish I was you, and posting happily online that children have actually made my life so much better. Please don't mistake that as a lack of love for my children. I have learned what unconditional love means, how I would literally die for them, and I work daily to be the best dad I can be. I sometimes come home from work when they're in bed, asleep and curl up with them because I missed them so much during the day. But overall, it hasn't been good for my mental health and happiness. About 8 months in I had to go to therapy, because I didn't understand why I was not feeling what the online dads told me I should be feeling (eg. you). I ended up nearly suicidal and was medicated in the end. I have never come anywhere close to anything like that in my life before (and I'm in my 40s).

But the context here is important. Six years on and I also understand that our experience may not have been typical. We know that our eldest has some form of neurodivergence. Probably ADHD, since I was medicated for ADHD as a child. Possibly more on the ASD spectrum. He has extreme anger, extreme sensory issues, defiance, non-stop extreme meltdowns, and more. My wife and I are always at the end of our tether and our relationship is in the pits trying to figure out how we each deal with it. The youngest child is suffering because he needs attention, but our eldest is all consuming.

And we are not even having the worst time of it of the parents we know in our neighbourhood.

Please just remember, everyone is on their own journey, good or bad, but perhaps advocating children as a means to happiness is something to be more cautious about.

That said, amazing what it has done for your life, and best of luck with the journey!

	▲	somenameforme 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's difficult to see how the sociologists opinion could even possibly be valid given the data provided in the 2nd that non-parental couples do show the same psychological benefits, particularly for men, as parental couples. Though again, obviously this is on average. We've definitely been fairly fortunate, or at least not unfortunate. Our youngest did go through a brief phase of colic and that was quite intense, moreso for the inability to help sooth him than for the effects itself. I can only imagine how it would have been if similar, let alone more intense, issues persisted. Thanks for sharing and I wish you and your family the best of luck going forward.