Children are a Gift to Society and Proven to Make People Happier
I have been synthesizing two lines of happiness research.
People who give more are more likely to report that they are very happy.
People who have children are more likely to report that they are very happy, even though children typically diminish their marital happiness.
I think it is very fruitful to think of raising children as a gift, a gift to society.
Giving the gift of raising children should make it more likely that you will be very happy.
This seems to be evidence that having children is a gift to those that have them rather than to society. Not saying they are not a gift to society, just questioning the logic here.
Hmmm . . . nope, still not gonna have any.
Research also shows that self-reports are unreliable. People say they have a certain level of happiness. But then if you make them rate their happiness periodically throughout the day over the course of several weeks or longer, it turns out that the amount of happiness they experience is substantial less than what they say when they rate their overall happiness.
In other words, lots of people say they are happy but experience little happiness.
What this suggests to me is that people rationalize their choices, especially the irreversible ones.