The article cites longitudinal studies showing randomly selected couples are happier before they have kids and after kids leave the house than while the kids are home. It shows a significant portion of randomly selected parents would rather do chores (e.g., grocery shopping) than spend time with their kids. Neither of those is adequately explained by selection bias.
Selection bias may explain why childless couples, on average, are happier than couples with children. But not any of the dozens of corroborating data points presented in the article.
Don't forget cognitive dissonance: if you have paid a price for something, you have to tell yourself it was worthwhile, or you would feel like an idiot. Hence I am not sure if statements of parents about their happiness can be believed.
Much better to measure these things indirectly (without a questionnaire). I don't know how the cited study did it.
Agreed, happiness has been proven to be subjective. Paraplegics are happy 1 year after their disability causing accident, so wouldn't parents of newborns be the same? It's not a change in circumstances that makes the paraplegics happy, they're still disabled, they didn't magically gain the ability to walk and just not mention it so they keep getting disability. No the paraplegics happiness is subjective, they become happy being a paraplegic just as a parent of a newborn will become happy being a parent.
It's also safe to assume you'll only be happy for a year after your kids leave, and this likely explains the newlywed syndrome that they're happy for the first year and then reality kicks in.
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wrong. See http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/06/selection_bias_1...
You're wrong.
The article cites longitudinal studies showing randomly selected couples are happier before they have kids and after kids leave the house than while the kids are home. It shows a significant portion of randomly selected parents would rather do chores (e.g., grocery shopping) than spend time with their kids. Neither of those is adequately explained by selection bias.
Selection bias may explain why childless couples, on average, are happier than couples with children. But not any of the dozens of corroborating data points presented in the article.
Don't forget cognitive dissonance: if you have paid a price for something, you have to tell yourself it was worthwhile, or you would feel like an idiot. Hence I am not sure if statements of parents about their happiness can be believed.
Much better to measure these things indirectly (without a questionnaire). I don't know how the cited study did it.
Agreed, happiness has been proven to be subjective. Paraplegics are happy 1 year after their disability causing accident, so wouldn't parents of newborns be the same? It's not a change in circumstances that makes the paraplegics happy, they're still disabled, they didn't magically gain the ability to walk and just not mention it so they keep getting disability. No the paraplegics happiness is subjective, they become happy being a paraplegic just as a parent of a newborn will become happy being a parent.
It's also safe to assume you'll only be happy for a year after your kids leave, and this likely explains the newlywed syndrome that they're happy for the first year and then reality kicks in.
Going further with this, it also subtly screws up the kid when the kid feels he is responsible for his parents' happiness.
This study shouldn't be that surprising. It is adequately explained by Fruedian/Jungnian psychological theories.