Happiness and children for senior citizens

Yesterday I blogged about how child-free women are happier.

Some commenters suggested that children only make you unhappy while you’re raising them, but then they bring great joy to your life when they’re adults.

To help answer this important question, I prepared charts for respondents 65 or older. I figure that by the time you reach that age, your children are independent.

Statistics for MARITAL = 1(MARRIED)
Cells contain: -Row percent -N of cases		HAPPY
		1 VERY HAPPY	2 PRETTY HAPPY	3 NOT TOO HAPPY	ROW TOTAL
CHILDS	0: NONE	46.6 182	46.0 180	7.4 29	100.0 391
	1: ONE	48.6 229	45.1 213	6.4 30	100.0 472
	2: TWO	50.0 438	43.6 381	6.4 56	100.0 875
	3: THREE	44.1 304	49.4 340	6.6 45	100.0 690
	4: FOUR	50.0 230	43.4 200	6.6 30	100.0 461
	5: FIVE	45.0 91	45.5 92	9.5 19	100.0 202
	6: SIX	40.9 47	48.3 55	10.8 12	100.0 114
	7: SEVEN	49.8 38	41.0 31	9.2 7	100.0 76
	8: EIGHT OR MORE	46.3 58	46.0 58	7.7 10	100.0 126
	COL TOTAL	47.5 1,617	45.5 1,550	7.0 239	100.0 3,406

Statistics for MARITAL = 2(WIDOWED)
Cells contain: -Row percent -N of cases		HAPPY
		1 VERY HAPPY	2 PRETTY HAPPY	3 NOT TOO HAPPY	ROW TOTAL
CHILDS	0: NONE	26.5 121	56.8 259	16.7 76	100.0 456
	1: ONE	26.4 138	54.5 286	19.1 100	100.0 525
	2: TWO	26.5 186	57.6 404	15.9 112	100.0 702
	3: THREE	26.4 146	55.2 304	18.4 101	100.0 551
	4: FOUR	28.7 97	53.4 180	17.9 61	100.0 338
	5: FIVE	30.6 57	54.1 101	15.3 29	100.0 188
	6: SIX	29.5 36	52.1 64	18.4 23	100.0 123
	7: SEVEN	23.0 18	57.5 45	19.5 15	100.0 78
	8: EIGHT OR MORE	21.9 32	60.5 89	17.5 26	100.0 147
	COL TOTAL	26.7 831	55.8 1,733	17.5 543	100.0 3,107

As we see from the charts above, children cause a minor increase in happiness for married older respondents.

I thought that children might be especially important for widowed older respondents, because perhaps their children might keep them company or give them emotional support after their spouses die. But very surprisingly, children provide no happiness benefit to the widowed unless they have at least four of them.

Comments

[Tim Lundeen]

Thanks, interesting, and very small differences. Do you know the statistical significance of these numbers?

The major change is for widowed vs still married, obviously. Not sure what you can do about that one.

I concur with Tim. You should calcuate the odds ratios and the 95% confidence intervals with each comparison. I would also recommend doing some sort of overall error rate comparison to see if any of it is really significant.

[mickslam]

Well,

This is something strange. I have kids. My opinion on this is pretty simple.

Kids can make you much, much happier. The happiness that you experience is really far more fulfilling than what you might guess it would be. This sensation/emotion is so powerful that it must be on the level of genetic programming. At least it was for me. I'd never experienced anything like it. Every man with a good wife who loves her kids knows he is forever a secondary concern, after experiencing this for himself.

I am not overstating this feeling.

Now, here is why it doesn't show up in the numbers.

Most people have very little ability to judge happiness. They simply don't know if they are happy or not. This is not a failure of introspection, but rather one of perspective. We can only experience our own emotions, and don't know what others feel, except in estimation. Ya - I know - all Sartre and stuff, but there is a truth to this thinking, and this particular area is one where this lack of outside perspective is very apparent. Theres more to say on this, but if you haven't thought it, you won't care, and if you have, I have nothing new to add.

Was I happy before I had kids? Yes. But now...

However - kids are difficult and annoying mostly. As much as you love them, they are a royal pain in the ass on a day to day basis. It's really quite miserable.

Until they do something so totally cool and mindblowing that you spend the next 3 hours or days thinking about it. Like when my 4 year old kid played baseball with me for the first time on Friday, with me as the 'all time pitcher', just like I did with my dad, and my dad did with my grandpa.

Do you remember the phrase, 'random positive reinforcement'? An equivalent term would be 'raising kids'

[rose]

I'm an older woman with grown kids. Am I happier or unhappier? Neither. One kid gives me happiness and the other gives me grief. Either way, I'm quite contented.
If I'd had no kids I'd be just as contented as I am now since happiness is an attitude more than anything else.