kids dont make you happy

there has just been a conference on "causes of happiness" at the convention centre in sydney
key note speaker was a guy called Daniel Gilbert
He is a psychologist at Harvard Uni who has written a book called "Stumbling on Happiness"

Looks very interesting. Have ordered it from the library

His main idea is that we try to predict what will make us happy and then when it happens it is usually a big disappointment

check out what he says about kids

......If I'm thinking of having a child, I can ask friends, or siblings, or even my parents if they think it's a good idea. Chances are, most of them will tell me to "go for it" because motherhood is one of the great joys of life. Survey data, however, does not bear this out....

As Gilbert reports,

careful studies of how women feel as they go about their daily activities show that they are less happy when taking care of their chil-dren than when eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television.

this tallies well with what an old guy at the gym said.

His children have mostly been a source of misery for him.
One of them is 32 and doing a PhD and always wants stuff and has problems of one kind or another.

LOL