Want to be happy? Don't have kids!

I am battling within myself over this issue. I've tried to come out with a good, practical and sensible reason to have kids, other than God's ordinance. Not that I have anything against people having kids, nor the kids themselves. In fact, I love kids, correction, I love babies. As I re-visit this issue, I want to confess, there isn't a single day which pass without me giving a good thought about it. Whenever we ask couples who have children, fundamental questions like why have children, almost always we get this answer quite unequivocally; it's very rewarding.

I have personally pondered over this word, "rewarding" over and over again. What does it mean by that? Rewarding in what manner? What will children give us? What will do they for us? This life alone have enough problems by itself, can children alleviate them? I also hear that children bring much joy to us, in what sense?

Finally, an article in the newspaper came to my attention. The headings read exactly like the title of this blog. Harvard University psychology professor Daniel gilbert talked about marriage first, how it was marriage that will make us happy and not money. Then he moved on to state that children will only make us sadder, in fact, the more children we have, the sadder we are likely to be. He continued on by stating that studies in the US and European over the past 10 to 15 years showed people's happiness did spike while they were expecting a baby, but it sharply plummeted after the child was born. It takes another big hit when the child reaches adolescence and finally our happiness will only come back to us when the child grow up and go away. To me, I guess that only happens provided that the child does well in life and does not give the parents any problems or worries.

The one analogy Professor Gilbert gave, somewhat answered my question on the meaning of the word "rewarding". He compared having kids to buying a pair of Armani socks. When people own them, they can't stop teling you they are the best socks, the most amazing socks. Perhaps, the reason for that is because they paid almost a hundred bucks for it. Surely, it must be a good socks, no doubt about it!

So true. You wouldn't want anything bad to occur after your purchase, would you? Especially if it involves so much money! Surely, psychology play a role here. Because you invested so much effort, energy, money, time, attention, blood and tears to have children, surely, they must bring us some joy or happiness. As Professor Gilbert puts it, what kind of idiots would we be to devote all of that to the rearing of our young if they'd didn't bring us some happiness??

In fact, this is a point of no return if we have kids. It's not like purchasing something and keep it if satisfactory. We can undo the making of kids. We have no choice but to accept it for all its worth. If they are good kids, perhaps you'll say it's all worth it. What if they are brats, rascals, disobedient and hopeless bunch of kids? How can they be worth it?

Then when the arguments not winning, people bring in religion. That it's a blessing to have children? What kind of blessing can that be when all your kids give you is nothing but heartache?

Well, perhaps, that satisfy my question of how rewarding can children be? If you think about it, that is actually not the right word to use, especially if their children are a handful. You can only use that word, when you reach an old age, having raised good and successful in their own ways kids. Not when your kids are still crawling. With this, I came to a conclusion that when people say all the good things about their children, it all boils down to this; ownership. This is also the very basic instinct of survivalship.

People made children themselves (with God's help, of course!), so it's quite an achievement to finally own someone of your flesh and blood. You would protect anything that's of your ownership, you would say all sorts of nice things of everything you own. Else, you wouldn't own them. Everything you own, must be good and perfect in your eyes.

Finally, my point of view on how kids affect our happiness, is slightly different than the mentioned article. Happiness is a choice. Kids don't make it worse nor better. I do agree kids can make it worse, if they are little rascals. But if you have good children, they are really to die for. Raising kids is challenging, especially if you want to produce good kids. But hey, what isn't challenging in this life?

Therefore, I shall wait and let God intervene. If He's willing, we will get a child soon. Else, it shouldn't make any difference to our happiness now.