The Joys of Parenthood, Reconsidered
Sociologists find that as a group, parents in the United States experience depression and emotional distress more often than their childless adult counterparts. Parents of young children report far more depression, emotional distress, and other negative emotions than non-parents, and parents of grown children have no better well-being than adults who never had children. That last finding contradicts the conventional wisdom that empty-nest parents derive all the emotional rewards of parenthood because they’re done with the financially and psychologically taxing aspects of raising young kids. These research findings, of course, fly in the face of our cultural dogma that proclaims it impossible for people to achieve an emotionally fulfilling and healthy life unless they become parents. And that’s a problem, because the vast majority of American men and women eventually have children, yet conditions in our society make it nearly impossible for them to reap all the emotional benefits of doing so.
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online coverage
Who Says Kids Make You Happy?, Newsweek, July 7-14, 2008 issue.
[...] Contexts contributor Robin Simon graced the pages of Newsweek recently to offer some comments on the debate [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 8:35 am[...] Check out this past Sunday’s episode of ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,’ on National Public Radio where one of the quiz questions references the work of Contexts Magazine contributor, sociologist Robin Simon. [...]
July 16th, 2008 at 11:23 am[...] Simon, for example, was featured in Newsweek, among other media outlets, after her piece on the stresses of parenting—also excerpted in the Utne Reader—appeared in these pages last spring. We were [...]
February 17th, 2009 at 11:05 am