After reading multiple reviews of Keith Richards this weekend, I was well primed for this article on Slate. (Thanks, Jeremy S.)
Shankar Vedantam explains why parents have children, despite the fact that studies show that happiness levels drop after kids arrive. Sure, the first time could might be a mistake. But then we keep having them, even after we experience diaper changing, midnight vomit sessions, and car seat struggles. Why makes us do this irrational act of producing progeny?
But when parents think about parenting, they don't remember the background stress. They remember the cuddle and the kiss. Parenting is a series of intensely high highs, followed by long periods of frustration and stress, during which you go to great lengths to find your way back to that sofa and that kiss.
We have a name for people who pursue rare moments of bliss at the expense of their wallets and their social and professional relationships: addicts.
That sweet, un-asked for kiss by a child is a high. And we kiss junkies keep pursuing that perfect moment even though the rest of the week is filled with stress.
Apt. 11d 
This is a problem with the happiness research, which is otherwise pretty useful — it (and the slate article) is completely insensitive to the fact that people need meaning in their lives, and for many people raising children, and the relationships with them, and the growth that is called forth by raising them are core parts of what gives meaning. Not for everyone, sure. But for many.
None of this is to deny that children are hard work, frustrating and put a strain on a marriage. My third has put immense strain on both me and my marriage, and I’m still not sure that either will recover fully. But part of the reason that children are so stressful is that we make them so — there’s not much you can do about the first 2 or 3 years, but a key stressor for me has been carting around the older kids to their many scheduled activities, all arranged by their other parent who spends too much time at work to do any of the carting around, all with a boisterous and whiny toddler who doesn’t want to be in the car any more than I do and is less restrained about showing it. They really don’t need to be doing all these activities — they could sit home and watch TV or play with friends like I did.
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I recommend Adam Philip’s book On Kindness on this subject – this kind of reductive analysis ignores the fact that it is pleasant to be kind.
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But part of the reason that children are so stressful is that we make them so — there’s not much you can do about the first 2 or 3 years, but a key stressor for me has been carting around the older kids to their many scheduled activities, all arranged by their other parent who spends too much time at work to do any of the carting around, all with a boisterous and whiny toddler who doesn’t want to be in the car any more than I do and is less restrained about showing it. They really don’t need to be doing all these activities — they could sit home and watch TV or play with friends like I did.
I don’t know if I would follow anon’s comment all the way towards where I think it’s heading, but this comment alone suggests something that ought to be kept in mind as one reads all these reports about the stressfulness/unhappiness/difficulty of parenting: namely, its connection to class expectations. Be a slacker parent, adopt more egalitarian and less ambitious view of how you are to arrange your life as a parent and your children’s lives as children, and things change. Not that all the stresses disappear; of course not. But in my experience and observation, more than a few of them do, and that’s worth remembering.
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Bryan Caplan says go for the kisses: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/11/the_science_of.html working really hard at parenting does them little good and makes them permanently mad at you.
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