Motherhood has made me unhappy
Motherhood has degraded my level of happiness.
I am pondering this as I watch a large, fat, whiskery fish prowl the pebbly bottom of an aquarium. It is 6:45 a.m. and I am at Yale-New Haven Hospital in the pediatric surgery unit, waiting.
Social scientists have found almost zero association between having children and happiness, said Dr. Nattavudh Powdthavee, of the University of York’s Department of Economics and Related Studies.Studies from Europe and the USA found that parents report significantly lower levels of satisfaction than people who haven’t had children.” – Science Daily.
Eight weeks ago, I sat in this same room, transfixed to an exit door, waiting for doctors to repair a break in my son’s right femur by drilling four metal dowels through his skin and into his bone. “They think it’s broken,” my husband said over the cell phone, and I pictured my son with a thigh-to calf-length cast, embellished with Cub Scout patches and 8-year-old signatures in bright Magic Marker. I didn’t picture drilling and I didn’t picture surgery, but, after all, it was just a broken leg. It could have been worse.
The belief that ‘children bring happiness’ transmits itself much more successfully from generation to generation than the belief that ‘children bring misery,’ reports Daniel Gilbert (2006). The phenomenon, chich Gilbert says is a ‘super-replicator’ can be explained further by the fact that people who belief 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.”—The Psychologist.
Since my son’s accident, he has been transported daily to school by a small, squat bus that carries about four children, three in wheelchairs, to school. One of the children has a wheelchair far more elaborate than my son’s. It cups around his neck and braces his two skinny arms. My son, 8, knows the child’s name but says the child rarely speaks.
Using data sets from Europe and American, numerous scholars have found some evidence that, on aggregate, parents often report statistically significantly lower levels of happiness (Alesina et al, 2004), life satisfaction (De Tella et al., 2003), marital satisfaction (Twenge et al, 2003) marital satisfaction (Twenge et al, 2003) and mental wellbeing….—The Psychologist.
Every day, since my son’s initial operation, we must clean his four “pin sites,” which crust with dried blood and other fluids. Cleaning these sites is essential to prevent infection Every day, when we do this, my son screams, cries and begs us to stop. We do not stop. We keep scrubbing.
At the physical therapy center, where my son goes twice weekly, I watch a brawny man hold the hand of a four-year-old girl with a floppy body. I do not know what is wrong with the girl, but she walks as if made of rubber. I watch the man walk her to the car and when she stumbles, as she does frequently and spasmodically, the man swoops her up with a reflexive, arching tug at once inelegant and gorgeous.
In the few moments when my son was reduced to tears by his condition, I try to explain to him the difference between finite and infinite. I tell him that his injury will mend, but that some children are afflicted with damage that will only worsen. I tell him that the only value to being in a wheelchair is that he will now understand what it is like for other children who are consigned to them for so much longer.
In the waiting room of the pediatric surgery unit, a tall, thin man walks in with an infant no bigger than a bag of oranges. A blonde woman in a red parka straggles behind him, struggling with a diaper bag. They are young and attractive and their child sleeps peacefully against the man’s chest. I remember what it felt like to hold my son across my chest that way and the mixture of hope and fear and elation that went with it. I jostle my son’s chestnut hair and pull him toward me. Is it happiness that makes my heart race or is it the surge of adrenaline and anxiety that has turned my life into a constant prayer?
In a pediatric surgery unit on an early morning in October, it is difficult to tell. I feel certain I will be happy when they wheel my son out of the recovery room, the pins removed from his leg. But perhaps I will only feel relief and hold happiness, once again, at bay.
contact: Tracey@traceyosh.com