Why having kids is awesome

I have a year-old and a 7-year-old. They will model on your actual behavior, right down to the flaws and tics and things you'd probably prefer to change. You stay at home because going out is difficult and the outcome unknown.

You may even be near your spouse, but not present with them as you tend to a baby amidst your exhaustion. This can feel suffocating. Neither can my wife. We have terabytes of pictures to prove we existed before my son was born.

For you. If I didn't have kids I'd feel weird or guilty about always keeping that stuff around. There's other stuff, like finding joy in weird little words they use, teaching them to do stuff that's really cool, and watching them explore. Life's just a lot more joyful because of them.

But the snacks. For real. My son 'works out' with me every day. He flexes in the mirror if he isnt wearing a shirt because daddy did it. He has an old phone, which he stomped through the house yelling in it, waving his arms around and glaring Im trying to model the behavior i WANT him to imitate.

He makes me a better person. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. From figuring out remote learning to getting up in the middle of the night to tend to a sick kid, there are "a lot of constant low-level stressors in parents' lives," Glass says. Depression and anxiety tend to be higher among actively parenting adults. Stress doesn't automatically disappear once kids grow up and become self-reliant.

A study found that older parents are happier than nonparents only if their kids have moved out. The price of having the strong emotional connections people have with their kids is a lot of worry and concern, Glass says. During the pandemic, the "price" of having kids has been compounded by the fact that millions of women with children have been pushed out of the workforce due to increased demands at home.

Money is a major factor that affects parental happiness. In a study , researchers found that when they removed financial difficulties from the equation, having children did increase happiness. In her anthology, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed , Meghan Daum wrote that the complexities that make people decide to have or not have children are endless. After my father died last year, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Navigating her recovery during the pandemic has certainly given me a taste of what parenting is like—keeping someone safe who is too vulnerable to do things on her own.

Being child-free during the pandemic also means running the risk of losing sight of the bigger picture. Having children can give you a daily, front-and-center reason to fight for a healthy and safe future. Some parents are welcoming the additional time they are getting to spend with their families. In a moment like this, it can be hard to convince yourself to get out of bed.

With kids who wake up early, you have no choice. We speak as though there is one good plot with one happy outcome, while the myriad forms a life can take flower—and wither—all around us. The life we can all build together after that is yet to be imagined.