Parenthood More Depressing Than Death of Spouse

Researchers Rachel Margolis and Mikko Myrskylä, examining how the experience of becoming a first-child parent affects the likelihood of having additional children, found that 73 percent of participants expressed decreased happiness after their first child, compared to 27 percent who reported no change or an increase in happiness.

Friends and family automatically assume that the new parents must be busy with their child and hence they give them their ‘due space.’ However this is a negative effect as stated by the study. “While rising childlessness is often discussed as a cause, it remains widely unrecognized that more and more couples in Germany have a first child, but not the second one they had initially wanted”.

However, the promised silver lining is that a different study of 16,000 parents have reported a much bigger overall satisfaction with their lives later on.

In the study, more than 70% of parents reported a decline in happiness following the birth of their first child.

In spite of the popular opinion that a child brings more happiness to a couple than anything in the world, a few researchers beg to differ.

The findings are likely to be eye-opening for some policy-makers who are concerned about low fertility rates in their countries and suggest that governments should consider giving additional support to new parents.

The study offers insight into why, among Germans, there’s such rampant incongruity between most couples’ purported desire for two children, and the country’s actual birthrate, since 1983, of just 1.5 children per couple.

The researchers say their findings remained even after accounting for potential confounding factors, such as parents’ income, marital status and place of birth.

Firstly, it would be reasonable to surmise than an improvement in the delivery of maternity services could positively impact the likelihood of a woman choosing to have two or more children. Second, complications during the birth also appeared to shape their decision to not “go through it again”. This, in turn, leads to the isolation of the new family, which has to deal with all the problems on their own.

“There is more or less a taboo regarding the wellbeing of new parents,” Professor Myrskylä said. They are cute and they make odd little noises and even though they cannot communicate with us clearly you can always tell that they are thinking something. I remember how in the early months, like many new parents my husband and I desperately sought any sign of emotional connection from our infant daughter-the hint of a smile, the “laugh” that was probably a hiccup.

Now what pollster would ever ask the public: “Which is worse?” The same can’t be said for unemployment, divorce (usually) or the death of a spouse.