children will take care of you, someday?
Lamumba
Joy of parenthood is a fantasy: Psychologists say cost of children
forces mothers and
fathers to convince themselves it's worthwhile
By Fiona Macrae
Most parents say they wouldn’t have it any other way.
But according to scientists, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
A walk in the park? Children cause parents financial hardship, eat up
their time and cause
untold worry... but mums and dads insist they are worth every penny,
wrinkle and grey
hair... but they would say that according to scientists
Bringing up a child in the 21st century is so expensive parents have no
option but to tell
themselves it is all worthwhile, they say.
In times gone by, there was no need to idealise parenthood because
children would begin
working at an early age and provide for their parents.
But today this ‘reward’ is not as likely. So parents have to invent
other justifications
for the trials of having children, the Canadian researchers say. For
their experiment, the
psychologists gave three groups of parents passages about the economic
cost of parenting
to read.
One group was given sheets that focused on the financial layout and
included a U.S.
government calculation that it costs £120,000, on average, to raise a
child.
Others were given the same figure but told that parents are often more
financially secure
in old age because their children support them.
The remainder read a passage that had nothing to do with costs.
The men and women, who all had at least one child under 18, were then
questioned about how
much they idealised parenting.
They were asked whether they believed it possible to be truly happy
without having
children – and whether parents are happier and more satisfied with their
lives than
childless couples.
Finally, they were asked to rate spending time with their children
against meeting friends
or their partner and how much time they hoped to spend with their
children on their next
day off work.
Those who read about the financial hardship idealised parenting the
most. They were more
likely to say they enjoyed spending time with their children. This group
also said that
they intended to spend more time with their children on their day off,
the journal
Psychological Science reports.
A similar experiment using different parents backed up the theory that
mothers and fathers
idealise parenthood to justify the costs of bringing up a family.
The researchers, from the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, said: ‘The
motivation to
rationalise the costs of parenting apparently not only increases
parents’ idealisation of
parenthood, but also leads them to believe that spending time with their
children is more
rewarding than other activities. This belief then motivates parents to
want to spend more
time with their children.’
They say the belief is likely to have gained currency as parenthood has
become more
costly. Put bluntly, today’s children leave home later and have
expensive tastes – making
it more important for parents to justify their existence.
Cynical as the theory is, it may have its advantages.
Wray Herbert, of the Association for Psychological Science, said: ‘We
may be uneasy
thinking of our families as dollars and cents but bank accounts don’t
lie. If knowing the
bottom line makes us want to spend more time on kids instead of, say, TV
or golf or work,
that sounds like a healthy bargain for all involved.’
However, Siobhan Freegard, of the parenting advice website Netmums, said
that if
parenthood was as bad as the study suggests, most couples would stop at
one child.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1362784/Psychologists-say-
cost-children-forces-mothers-fathers-convince-worthwhile.html
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It sounds much better in French, but then, everything does.
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Karma, What a concept!