Editor's Choice

July 2010

A subject close to my heart and the cause of many sleepless nights has been the recent addition to the family earlier this year – our baby daughter. I thought I was coping until I read this month that starting a family won’t make me happier. I must say it’s a bit late now!

New research reported by the Independent, suggests that having children makes parents unhappy and that none of the mothers and fathers feels able to admit it. It seems that the pressure of parental perfection is making parents spend three times the amount of time with their children than our parents did.

This issue of time comes up again in a cheery article in the Mail, which claims unsurprisingly, that if you put in too many hours in work, your relationship at home will suffer. Again, the Mail runs with the story about new research on the wellbeing benefits of a holiday. According to the researchers, if I go away on holiday to forget the pressures of time at work, it’ll take a mere two days on my return before I’m back to square one.

So what does all this tell me about the policies and practice needed to improve wellbeing? One answer might be to stop reading the Mail of course! But another, harder nut to crack is the issue of lots of things to do and not enough time to do them. This was raised last month by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing as they launched a report on the ‘time crunch.’ One recommendation was to redress the balance between home life and the demands of work.

Maybe its not that children are bad for your wellbeing per se. But being a parent with not enough time to enjoy them isn’t going to help. That must be true about anything – work, relationships or other interests.

But the last word must go to the author of the research about parenthood and happiness, Dr Powdthavee. He is getting married next year and hopes to become a father one day. "The thought of children makes me happy," said Dr Powdthavee. "Plus, we're hardwired to reproduce. That fact has nothing to do with happiness" .... and who said romance was dead?