When I say that raising my sons is the best thing I’ve ever done, I’m not saying that they gave me pleasure in any simple day-to-day sense, and I’m not saying that they were good for my marriage. I’m talking about something deeper, something having to do with satisfaction, purpose, and meaning. (View Highlight)
A propósito de que la felicidad no es la única métrica sobre la que es pertinente evaluar la calidad de vida.
It’s not just me. When you ask people, “In the bigger picture of your life, how personally significant and meaningful to you is what you are doing at the moment?” parents—both mothers and fathers—tend to say that their lives have more meaning than those of non-parents. (View Highlight)
When we gauge our own previous experiences, we tend to remember the peaks and forget the 99 percent of mundane awfulness in between. Our memory is selective. Making a distinction between day-to-day experience (the experiencing self) and our reflective sense of how our lives are (our remembering self) (View Highlight)
Most parents love their children, and it seems terrible to admit to yourself and others that the world would be better if someone you loved didn’t exist. More than that, it’s not just that you feel compelled to say that you are happy they exist—you are happy they exist. After all, you love them. This potentially puts you in an odd state.
- You don’t regret having children.
- You might admit that your life would be better without them. In (View Highlight)
I think the answer to our puzzle, then, is attachment. The love we usually have toward our children means that our choice to have them has value above and beyond whatever effect they have on our happiness and meaning. (View Highlight)