Actually, Kids Make You Happy

180 alert!

Less than a year ago, parents were buried under an avalanche of studies that concluded kids don’t make you happy. In fact, these studies showed that people raising kids reported lower levels of happiness — life satisfaction, marital satisfaction, and mental well-being — than their childless counterparts.

Oh, and that lower level of happiness? Never. Goes. Away.

Okay, but now out of the U.K., the Journal of Happiness Studies reports that not only do kids not lower their parents’ level of happiness, they actually raise it — a little bit with the first kid. Even more with the second. And (I’m looking at you, Baby Earl!) significantly more with the third!

There’s a catch, though. Continue reading »

Would You Marry When Kids Told You To?

My perma-crush on actor dad Johnny Depp just suffered a big blow. In a run down of Hollywood couples who are happily unmarried (most of them parents), The Frisky quotes Captain Jack Sparrow himself saying he’ll marry long-time love and mother of his kids Vanessa Paradis “if the kids want us to.”

Sweet? I guess, but what’s the point? Continue reading »