I see a lot of different opinions here, from very positive to very negative.

I think the answer is, it's both.

When I was an employee sometimes I was happy, like when a promotion was lurking, and sometimes I was unhappy and stressed, when getting fired, when facing deadlines, ....

But when I started working for myself the amplitude of emotions became way stronger, every week I would fluctuate between feeling doomed forever or feeling like a genius.

Life with and without kids is the same: The emotional highs of having kids are way higher than anything I experienced without kids, but sometimes the lows are very low.

People can also have very different experiences because kids can be very different.

My kids have been really easy, no big problems, but sometimes I see other parents dealing with really serious issues with their kids.

It starts with babies, some of them sleep easily while other cry all the time, to teenagers who can be nice kids with no problem at school to being called to the director's office all the time and have to seriously worry about their future.