Of course those don’t show up on “our” happiness list. That has no bearing on whether children makes us happy or not since the author only asked to list items that were purchased and most didn’t purchase their children. However I will note that adoption was listed on the happiness list.

I think people are making illogical assumptions or didn’t read the article that JD linked to.

interesting question!

I believe that it’s not possible to make a general statement on whether money makes people more or less happy. Money comes with a whole set of new elements that may have good or bad impact on our happiness, and depending on how susceptible we are to every one of them, the conclusion will go one way or the other (i.e. different from person to person).

I recently made an effort to provide a more comprehensive picture of what these ad- and disadvantages are. I invite you to have a look at http://www.spreadinghappiness.org/2009/08/money-how-much-should-we-strive-for-it-to-become-happy/ and tell me what you think!

Thank you,

Nick

Typically, for the unprepared, bigger money buys bigger problems. Just 10% more money will solve all their problems, which it might very well do. But they don’t realize that it comes with another set of largely unique problems for them to deal with.

A high school classmate of mine won the Powerball, to the tune of $50m, of which they got $17m. Being a machinist and sort of solidly in the middle of the clue spectrum, he was doomed from the beginning. Suddenly he was “the rich guy” and didn’t fit in with his blue collar friends any longer, not to mention being asked to pay for everything. But he was also not in a social position to handle living in a world befitting his wealth. I’m sure he was a fish out of water when it came to hanging out with “the rich folk”. At our reunion there was a profound sadness in his eyes that showed that he was in limbo. Thankfully his classmates were simply his classmates and expected nothing more, nothing less. A coupla years later he ended up dying of leukemia, a problem his money could not fix.

omg – my new favorite quote!!!! awesome! And so completely true… my choices make ME happy but are unlikely to do the same for someone else.
thanks for sharing, jeremy!

BTW, I thought Kevin’s comment was good. If no one found wealth impressive, what would you do with it? Does a large home make you happy if no one is in it? By the same thought, if you are a family of 8, would you be happier in a larger home?

I’ve found that children are great mirrors for seeing a reflection of how you feel and act. Frightened children have worried or scary parents. Noisy children often have parents that are noisy, or ignore them until they get noisy…

I love my son – he’s smart, playful, energetic, and talkative to the point of being annoying. We’re having another child soon. But I perfectly understand people who don’t want them, for now or forever.

As a wise Scotsman once said, “If we all liked the same thing, there’d be a shortage of haggis.” :-O

Why is that shallow? Is it shallow to prefer zucchini to tomatoes? I consider kids an expense and not a source of happiness, which is why I’m not having any. That doesn’t make me ‘shallow,’ it’s just a matter of preference. No way am I spending that much for something that spends so much time screeching. I think raising kids sounds boring and repetitive at best, and migraine-inducingly annoying at worst. There are plenty of parents who will tell you exactly the same thing. Sorry if you don’t like the truth, bud, but don’t criticize people who aren’t afraid to tell it.

I’m sure friends and family make people happy, but as they are not possessions or experiences that people bought they didn’t make it on the lists.

In fact, if nine out of ten of them that you see don’t even belong to someone who really is wealthy, then nine out of ten times the person wearing a Rolex is someone who lacks self-discipline with money and has problems abusing credit. That would actually put a negative spin on the person wearing the Rolex – it makes them look like a wannabe.

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I think there’s a “human” element to the material possessions. For instance, nobody is born wanting a BMW. It’s learned. And why would anyone want a status-symbol car like a BMW? The answer is in the question itself: it’s a status symbol.

But what assigns value to a “status symbol?” People. If nobody thought BMW’s were cool, would you still want one? If cruising down Main Street in a Lamborghini didn’t turn heads, would we covet it as much? If people’s jaws didn’t drop when they walked into your 6,000 sq. ft. mansion, would you desire it as much?

A lot of the things on the “possessions” list simply serve to elevate someone above their peers, or evoke envy or class distinction, which themselves are emotions and experiences. If you bought a Rolex, would you remember how accurate it was, or would you remember the 10 comments per day it elicited? People crave attention, and some of these expensive status symbol purchases are at least partially motivated by a desire for attention moreso than an actual legitimate desire for the object itself.

I think that although these things can make you happy, the problem probably is that a lot of people get them because they think they have to.
Think about it. If you have kids only because you think perfect family have to have kids, of course you’re not going to be completely fulfilled. If you have kids because you want kids, now, that’s a completely different story.

It’s all about ads all around us. My wedding was the happiest day of my life so far, but I barely spent anything on it. I didn’t invite the extended family I’ve never met just because it was “the proper thing to do”. I invited my close family and friends (and my husband’s) and we went bowling, pooling, and played arcade games. It was wonderful.
A big, traditional wedding would have been more stressful (and, let’s face it, boring) for me, so I didn’t do it. Some people look at my wedding pictures and it feels like they pity us not to have had a grand wedding. But we didn’t have a wedding for the pictures, and if I had to go back I wouldn’t change a thing.

I think it’s important to do things we know will make us happy and fulfill them. I know families with lots of kids who are extremely happy. I know families with no kids who are extremely happy, too. They wouldn’t trade with each other, and they shouldn’t. We’re all unique, we don’t have to follow the “perfect family” model if it’s not meant for us.

JD, I’m not sure you should have left out the part of the original post where its author related that the most “distinctive” expensive purchases were drugs, psychotherapy, a week in a mental hospital, and repeatedly filling and emptying a wine cellar. Though those also seem very NYC, to be sure.

I was referring to his funny riff about people and their accumulation of stuff – how they get a bunch of stuff, and then have to go out and buy bigger houses so they have more room for their stuff. Yeah he was a bit of a pottymouth but he sure had a way of shining light on things.

Yet it is also to the benefit of a niche to have some members *not* reproduce. Those members provide benefits to the offspring of others, since they are not distracted with providing for offspring of their own. The childless sibling can help his niece or nephew with college costs. The childless entrepreneur can build a business which creates jobs for the grown children of other people. The childless taxpayer helps pay for schools, but doesn’t fill a seat in the classroom with his own child.

I think it’s really more important, for a culture to survive, that all its members be self-sufficient and productive. A thriving, productive culture will also attract those from outside itself who want to assimilate and be a part of it. Simply adding to your own numbers doesn’t do much good if you’re adding deadbeats.

“I bet people with children will agree with me. Those without children I prefer if they didnt make comments”

Wow, so you presume to speak on behalf of all parents (in direct contradiction to the survey in question), and refuse to listen to anything that non-parents say? If this is your idea of open-minded, I’d HATE to see what you were like when you regarded yourself as close-minded. I only hope you aren’t raising your children to share your biases.

There’s an unspoken rule that a parent can NEVER publicly admit they wish they’d never had children. You can see it permeating the comments, yet it’s undeniably manifest in the anonymous comfort of the survey.

As a child-free married man (by choice), I find this widely-ignored dissonance fascinating.

I also spent $6,500 on a rare Rolex Milgauss Green Crystal Saphire. I wear it almost everyday and am very happy to see it. If i made less than $85,000/yr, I’d probably not feel happy b/c 6.5k is a big chunk of my income, but b/c I make 5X that amount, I only feel happiness.

So, with regards to things, it’s about buying things you can easily afford. It’s when people buy things, and have tremendous guilt and burden, that starts making people unhappy.

Can I point out that the people who didn’t put children on the happiness scale ARE PARENTS? Not childless people? And also, by making that comment, you are showing you are STILL as closeminded as you were, albeit about the other side now.

I’ve also seen what happens to children whose parents see them as a burden (or worse) rather than a gift. I wish more people felt the same way you do and no child would be unwanted or abused.