Think having children will make you happy?

Although not originally written with the aim of testing for the effects of focusing illusion on happiness in mind, Clark and colleagues (2008) did just that. In their seminal paper that examines the long-run dynamics of life satisfaction across changes in different life events, they found that there is a significant increase in life satisfaction for both males and females one year before the birth of their child – which is also present at the year of child’s birth – before dropping beyond zero within one year of the new arrival. Both males and females then go on to experience significant unhappiness for the next four years before being ‘just’ content about parenthood – they become no less happier than when they were childless all those years ago.

Why do we have such a rosy view about parenthood? One possible explanation for this, according to Daniel Gilbert (2006), is that the belief that ‘children bring happiness’ transmits itself much more successfully from generation to generation than the belief that ‘children bring misery’. The phenomenon, which Gilbert says is a ‘super-replicator’, can be explained further by the fact that people who believe that there is no joy in parenthood – and who thus stop having them – are unlikely to be able to pass on their belief much further beyond their own generation. It is a little bit like Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. Only the belief that has the best chance of transmission – even if it is a faulty one – will be passed on.