Tenderized Meat

Wouldn’t you rather eat, nap, exercise, or watch TV instead of breaking out the baby wipes to clean Junior’s ass?

Yes, this question sounds like a no-brainer, but apparently most of the world needs scientific proof. Thankfully, Reason Magazine delivered the goods.

“Economists have modeled the impact of many variables on people’s overall happiness and have consistently found that children have only a small impact. A small negative impact,” reports Harvard psychologist and happiness researcher Daniel Gilbert. In addition, the more children a person has the less happy they are. According to Gilbert, researchers have found that people derive more satisfaction from eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television than taking care of their kids. “Indeed, looking after the kids appears to be only slightly more pleasant than doing housework,” asserts Gilbert in his bestselling, Stumbling on Happiness (2006).

The story goes on to explain how most parents simply delude themselves into thinking that their crumb crunchers are fountains of happiness simply because they are expensive and, quite frankly, it’s the cool thing to say in public.

So the next time your girl starts having delusions of kid-having grandeur, keep this research in mind. To read this intriguing article in its entirety, visit Reason Magazine.

Tags: Children, Daniel Gilbert, Kids, Reason Magazine

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 9:26 pm and is filed under News, dating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.