Prof: People Without Kids Happier

by Tom Miller

Crap. The secret is out. This is really something that you’re not supposed to tell people that haven’t had kids yet. But, according to News.co.au, Harvard educator Daniel Gilbert done spilled the beans.

In a speech to the ‘Happiness and its Causes’ conference in Sydney, Gilbert said, “In reality … children do seem to increase happiness as long as you’re expecting them, but as soon as you have them, trouble sets in.” Cripesicord, dude doesn’t pull any punches. Gilbert goes on to compare having kids to purchasing really expensive socks and sums up with his argument with the statement (and we’re paraphrasing) that people like having kids because they don’t know any better. This mirrors the results of a similar study at Essex University.

There is hope, though, Prof. Gilbert uses his science to show that married people are generally happier than unmarried people. It doesn’t seem to matter if the people are dating, single, widowed, or divorced; they’re less happy than those happy loving couples that make it look so easy, that make it look so fine. So, if you’re scoring at home (or if you’re by yourself), science says that marriage is fun and kids are a pain but we gotta repopulate the Earth somehow and it can’t be only irresponsible teenagers and bored celebrities doing it.