Adding to the benefits of parenting a recent study has revealed that parents feel greater levels of happiness and meaning in life as compared to those who have no children.
Parents also felt happiness when they are caring for their children than during their other daily activities. The study was done in the US and Canada.
"We are not saying that parenting makes people happy, but that parenthood is associated with happiness and meaning," the journal Psychological Science has reported Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside as saying.
"Contrary to repeated scholarly and media pronouncements, people may find solace that parenthood and child care may actually be linked to feelings of happiness and meaning in life,” said Lyubomirsky, according to a California statement.
Recent popular accounts have shown a portrait of unhappy parents who find little joy in looking after their children, "but the scientific basis for these claims remains inconclusive," the researchers concludes.
"If you went to a large dinner party, the parents in the room would be just as happy or happier than the guests without children," study co-author Elizabeth W. Dunn, associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, Canada has been quoted as saying..
The study observed that especially fathers experienced greater levels of happiness, positive emotion and meaning in life as compared to childless fathers.
"Our findings suggest that if you are older (and presumably more mature) and if you are married (and presumably have more social and financial support), then you're likely to be happier if you have children than your childless peers," Lyubomirsky said. "This is not true, however, for single parents or very young parents."
"Parents are not nearly the miserable creatures that we might expect from recent studies and popular representations," Dunn said.
--with inputs from IANS
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