MAY 2012
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MAY 2012
features
14 14 ALL JOY AND NO FUN
WRITTEN BY JENNIFER SENIOR Behind the rose colored glasses and the daydreams of having children, parents are faced with the realities of actual parenting. Jennifer Senior discovers why society’s expectations are taking the bliss out of parenting.
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22 HONESTLY SPEAKING
WRITTEN BY KATIE CAMPBELL A mom named Jessica and a dad named Christopher found themselves utterly frustrated trying to find the perfect products for their babies and homes. We both wanted an ideal: not only effective, but unquestionably safe, eco-friendly, beautiful, convenient, and affordable.
36 SCHOOL SUCCESS
WRITTEN BY CATHY ERICKSON School can be difficult for young children, especially if they are just starting school for the first time. Teach your children everything they need to know before starting school. Help them transition easily and help minimize their separation anxiety. Provide them with the techniques, organizational habits, and social skills they need to be successful in school. sprout 3
grow
nurture
departments create
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7 13 7 SUPER SOAKED CRAFTS
Want to have some fun with your kids this summer? Try making your own custom bleached t-shirts. This is a great way to get your kids outdoors, bond with your children, and make something they can wear in the process.
9 STRAWBERRY SPLASH SMOOTHIE Is the summer too hot? Are your kids picky eaters? Are you sick of having to feed them junk food? Try making them this strawberry and banana smoothie. It’s not only cool and refreshing, but your kids are sure to love it.
11 POSITIVE PARENTING
Not sure exactly how to discipline your children? These top ten techniques will help you figure out what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right when it comes to putting your children into time-out.
13 FOUR MONTHS OF MILESTONES Have a newborn on the way? Not exactly sure what to expect? Well, don’t worry about it. We’ll tell you exactly what milestones your newborn baby should be hitting during their first fourth months of life.
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create
super soaked crafts make your own bleached t-shirts
INSTRUCTIONS
$18
MATERIALS NEEDED Bleach ($2) Water Guns ($2) Spray Bottle with Light Mist Spray ($2) Solid Color T-Shirt ($4) Freezer Paper ($6) Rubber Gloves ($2)
Using freezer paper, cut out your letter or design. Iron the paper securely onto the t-shirts. Hang the t-shirts outside with a piece of cardboard on the inside. Make sure both you and your children are wearing rubber gloves. Fill the spray bottle and water guns with bleach. Using the light mist setting on the spray bottle, spray around the letter or design. Then, let your kids use the water guns to squirt more bleach randomly on the front and back of the t-shirt. This is where the adult supervision is crucial. You don’t want them shooting the gun at anything but the t-shirts. In the sun, it doesn’t take long (just a minute or two) for the bleach to start changing the color of the t-shirt. Once it is as light as you want, rinse the t-shirt and then wash it. Don’t leave the bleach on for too long or it will begin to eat the t-shirt. You can also buy chemicals that will further stop the bleaching process, but they do cost a little bit more than the $4 t-shirt. sprout 7
grow
strawberry splash smoothie INGRE DIE NTS 1 Cup of Strawberries 2 Medium Bananas 3 Cups of Ice Cubes 1/2 Cup of Nonfat Yogurt 1/2 Cup of Orange Juice 2 Tablespoons of Honey
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nurture
positive parenting TOP time-out 10 techniques 1 GI VE LOTS OF TIME-IN 6 YOU BE THE TIMER Punishment is only half a program. Don’t just send your children to time-out every time they misbehave, but also notice and reward them when they do good. Children need to know when they are behaving well too.
Instead of relying on a timer to end the time-out session, let yourself decide when it’s over. Each child is different and each situation is different. This means that every time-out will require different amounts of time.
2 PREPARE THE CHILD
7 PICK THE RIGHT PLACE
3 TIME-OUT W HEN OUT
8 TIME-OUT TO THINK
Don’t send your children straight to time-out. Make sure to talk with your children first. They should know what they did wrong and what they could do better next time. Don’t be afraid to ask them some questions either.
Even when out of the house, your children still need to know the rules of the house still apply. So, if you are out for dinner, at a friend’s house, or even on vacation, don’t be afraid put your children in a time-out session.
Don’t pick a time-out place where your children normally spend time. Time-outs should be done outside of their play areas, bedrooms, and be away from any toys. They should take place where you can stay and supervise.
Time-out is only effective if your children have time to think about what they have done. Make sure to give your children opportunities for self-reflection and before their time-out is over, make sure to talk with them.
4 MAKE TIME-OUT BRIEF 9 CLE AR THE AIR Research has found that children disciplined with only 2 minutes in a time-out respond just as well as children who have been disciplined for 30 minutes. Time-out is most effective when it’s short and to the point.
After the time-out is over, it’s over with. Your children have served their time and now it’s time to get on with the day. Tell your children that you expect them to play nicely and quietly now that time-out is over.
5 KEEP TIME-OUT QUIET
10 ACT AS THE RE FEREE
Don’t keep your children in a room with a T.V., music, or any other distractors. Try putting your time-out corner in a place that is nice and quiet. This will encourage your children to think about what they have done.
As a parent, you need to decide when your children are out of line. If you sense that something is getting out of hand, try to stop the action before it gets even more out of control or before you become too frustrated.
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bloom
four months of milestones what you should expect during your first four months of parenting
1 MONTH
2 MONTHS
3 MONTHS
ARMS AND HANDS At one month, your child should start to experiment with their muscles. Although jerky, your child will start to make thrusts with his or her arms. Your child will start to bring their hands within the range of their eyes and mouth. They will also start to develop strong reflex movements.
ARMS AND H ANDS At two months, your child should start to feel even more comfortable using their hands and arms. They should start using their fingers more and more. They might even start pointing at objects or trying to grasp and hold them. They should be touch and exploring textures.
ARMS AND H ANDS At three months, your child should start to raise her arms more and more. They should start to raise their head while lying on their stomach. They will begin to support their upper body with their arms. They will start exploring their fingers by opening and shutting them often.
ARMS AND H ANDS At four months, your child should develop more moving techniques. They should be able to toll both forwards and backwards, getting support by their arms if needed. They will continue to gain more function of their hands. They will start reaching for higher objects.
LEGS AND FEET At one month, your child will start to kick and move their legs. They will move their body from side to side while lying on their stomach. They will also start to gain more control of their back and neck. Although, at this point, they will not be able to completely support their head.
LEGS AND FEET At two months, your child should start to gain more control of their muscles and limbs. They should start to feel more comfortable using their feet and legs. Their movements will become smoother and more refined. They will kick more and begin to explore objects with their feet.
LEGS AND FEET At three months, you child should start gaining more control of their legs and feet. They will start to strech their legs and kick them when they are lying on their stomach or back. They will also push down on their legs when their feet are placed down upon on a firm surface.
LEGS AND FEET At three months, your child should be able to use their legs and feet comfortably. They should be able to kick at the items they want and start supporting their body. Their moves shouldn’t be jerky or quivery anymore, as they have still been learning to use their muscles.
VARIOUS SENSES At one month, your child will start to focus on objects 8 to 12 inches away from them. They will start to gain a better sense of smell and vision. They will start to recognize patterns and smells. They will prefer mostly high-contrasting or black-and-white patterns and sweet smells.
VARIOUS SENSES At two months, your child should have even more of improved vision and smell. Your child should start to recognize familiar objects and faces at a distance. Their hearing will keep improving and they will start to recognize the sound of their parent’s voices and listen.
VARIOUS SENSES At three months, your child will start to follow moving objects with their eyes. They will be able to recognize familar people, places, and objects. They will be able to smile at the sound of their parent’s voice, begin to babble, and even imitate the sounds of their parent’s voice.
VARIOUS SENSES At three months, your child will start to respond to their own name and the word “no.” They will be able to distinguish emotions by the tone of voice being used. They will even be able to start using their own voice to express joy and displeasure. They will also start to become social.
4 MONTHS
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y o j l l a n& o fun written by jennifer senior illustration by jasmine vicente
Behind the rose colored glasses and the daydreams of having children, parents are faced with the realities of actual parenting. Jennifer Senior discovers why society’s expectations are taking the bliss out of parenting.
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here was a day a few weeks ago when I found my 2½-year-old son sitting on our building doorstep, waiting for me to come home. He spotted me as I was rounding the corner, and the scene that followed was one of inexpressible loveliness, right out of the movie I’d played to myself before actually having a child, with him popping out of his babysitter’s arms and barreling down the street to greet me. This happy moment, though, was about to be cut short, and in retrospect felt more like a tranquil lull in a slasher film. When I opened our apartment door, I discovered that my son had broken part of the wooden parking garage I’d spent about an hour assembling that morning. This wouldn’t have been a problem per se, except that as I attempted to fix it, he grew impatient and began throwing its various parts at the walls, with one
plank very narrowly missing my eye. I recited the rules of the house (no throwing, no hitting). He picked up another wooden plank. I ducked. He reached for the screwdriver. The scene ended with a time-out. As I shuffled back to the living room, I thought of something a friend once said about the Children’s Museum of Manhattan—“a nice place, but what it really needs is a bar”—and rued how, at that moment, the same thing could be said of my apartment. Two hundred and 40 seconds earlier, I’d been in a state of pair-bonded bliss; now I was guided by nerves, trawling the cabinets for alcohol. My emotional life looks a lot like this these days. I suspect it does for many parents—a high-amplitude, high-frequency sine curve along which we get the privilege of doing hourly surfs. Yet it’s something most of us choose. Indeed, it’s something most of us would say we’d be miserable without. sprout 15
Parents don’t enjoy parenting because the experience of raising children has fundamentally changed.
From the perspective of the species, it’s perfectly unmysterious why people have children. From the unlikely perspective of the individual, however, it’s more of a mystery than one might think. Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines. Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a famous Nobel Prize–winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen other activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.) This result also shows up regularly in relationship research, with children invariably reducing marital satisfaction. The economist Andrew Oswald, who’s compared tens of thousands of Britons with children to those without, is at least inclined to view his data in a more positive light: “The broad message is not that children make you less happy; it’s just that children don’t make you more happy.” That is, he tells me, unless you have more than one. “Then the studies show a more negative impact.” As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns. But some of the studies are grimmer than others. Robin Simon, a sociologist at Wake Forest University, says parents are more depressed than nonparents no matter what their circumstances—whether they’re single or married, whether they have one child or four. Parents are simply not happier.
CASE STUDIES The idea that parents are less happy than nonparents has become so commonplace that it was big news last year when the Journal of Happiness Studies published a paper declaring the opposite was true. “Contrary to much of the literature,” it said, “our results are consistent with an effect of children on life satisfaction that is positive, large and increasing in the number of children.” Alas, 16 sprout
the euphoria was short-lived. A few months later, the poor author discovered a coding error in his data, and the publication had to run an erratum in order to correct it. “After correcting the problem,” it read,“the main results of the paper no longer hold. The effect of children on the life satisfaction of married individuals is small, often negative, and never statistically significant.” Yet one can see why people were rooting for that paper. The results of almost all the others violate a parent’s deepest intuition Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist and host of This Emotional Life on PBS, wrote fewer than three pages about compromised parental well-being in Stumbling on Happiness. But whenever he goes on the lecture circuit, some skeptical questions about those pages come up more frequently than anything else. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t argue with me about this,” he says. “People who believe the data say they feel sorry for those for whom it’s true.”
Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier. So what, precisely, is going on in these studies? Why is this finding duplicated over and over again despite the fact that most parents believe it to be wrong? One answer could simply be that parents are deluded, in the grip of some false consciousness that’s good for mankind but not for men and women in particular. Gilbert, a proud father and grandfather, would argue as much. He’s made a name for himself showing that we humans are pretty sorry predictors of what will make us happy, and to his mind, the yearning for children, the literal mother of all aspirations for so many, is a very good case in point—what children really do, he suspects, is simply offer small moments of transcendence, not an overall improvement in one’s well-being. Perhaps. But there are less fatalistic explanations, too. And high among them is the possibility that parents don’t much enjoy parenting because the experience of raising a few children has fundamentally changed. “I’m going to count to three.” It’s a weekday evening, and the mother in this videotape, a trim brunette with her hair in a bun and glasses propped up on her head, has already worked a full day and made dinner. Now she is approaching her 8-yearold son, the oldest of two, who’s seated at the computer in the den, absorbed in a long movie. At issue is some of his homework, which he still hasn’t done. “One. Two …” This clip is from a study that was conducted by UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families, which earned a front-page story in the Sunday Times this May and generated plenty of discussion among parents. In it, researchers collected 1,540 hours of footage of 32 middleclass, dual-earner families with at least two children, all of them going about their regular business in their Los
Angeles homes. The intention of this study was in no way to make the case that parents were unhappy. But one of the many postdoctoral fellows who worked on it, himself a father of two children, nevertheless described the video data to the Times as “the very purest form of birth control ever devised. Ever.” “I have to get it to the part and then pause it,” says the boy. “No,” says his mother. “You do that after you do your homework.” Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, the director of research in this study, has watched this scene many times. The reason she believes it’s so powerful is because it shows how painfully parents experience the pressure of making their children do all of their schoolwork and some extra activities. They seem to feel this pressure even more acutely than their children feel it themselves. The boy starts to shout. “It’s not going to take that long!” His mother stops the movie. “I’m telling you no,” she says. “You’re not hearing me. I will not let you watch this now.” He starts up the movie again. “No,” she repeats, her voice rising. She places her hand firmly under her son’s arm and starts to yank. “I will not have this— ”
URBANIZATION Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees started to becme essential to getting ahead, children became not only an expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, and groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but sometimes emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses fairly quickly. “Did you see Babies?” asks Lois Nachamie, a couples counselor who for years has run parenting workshops and support groups on the West Side. She’s referring to the recent documentary that compares and contrasts the lives of four newborns—one in Japan, one in Namibia, one in Mongolia, and one in San Francisco. “I don’t mean to idealize the lives of the Namibian women,” she says. “But it was hard not to notice how calm they were. They were beading their children’s ankles and decorating them with sienna, clearly enjoying just sitting and playing with them, and we often think of all of this stuff as labor.” This is especially true in middle- and upper-income families, which are far more apt than their working-class counterparts to see their children as little projects to be perfected. (Children of women with bachelor degrees spend almost five hours on “organized activities” per week, as opposed to children of high-school dropouts, who spend two.) Annette Lareau, the sociologist who coined the term “concerted cultivation” to describe the nurturing of economically advantaged children, puts it this way: “Middle-class parents spend much more time talking to children, answering questions with questions, and evem treating each child’s thought as a special
contribution. And this is very tiring work.” Yet it’s work few parents feel that they can in good conscience neglect, says Lareau, “lest they put their children at risk by not giving them every advantage possible.” But the intensification of family time is not confined to the privileged classes alone. According to Changing Rhythms of American Family Life—a compendium of data porn about time use and family statistics, compiled by a trio of sociologists named Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie—all parents spend more time today with their children than they did in 1975, including mothers, in spite of the great rush of women into the American workforce. Today’s married mothers also have less leisure time (5.4 fewer hours per week); 71 percent say they crave more time for themselves (as do 57 percent of married fathers). Yet 85 percent of all parents still—still!—think they don’t spend nearly enough time with their children. These self-contradictory statistics reminded me of a conversation I had with a woman who had been in one of Nachamie’s parenting groups, a professional who had her children later in life. “I have two really great kids”—ages 9 and 11—“and I enjoy doing a lot of things with them,” she told me. “It’s the drudgery that’s so hard: Crap, you don’t have any pants that fit? There are just So. Many. Chores.” This woman, it should be said, is divorced. But even if her responsibilities were shared with a partner, the churn of school and gymnastics and piano and sports and homework would still require a lot of administration. “The crazy thing,” she continues, “is that by New York standards, I’m not overscheduling them.”Mothers are less happy than fathers, and single parents are less happy still. A few generations ago, people weren’t stopping to contemplate whether having a child would make them more or less happy. Having children was simply what you did. And we are lucky, today, to have choices about these matters. But the abundance of choices—whether to have kids, when, how many—may be one of the reasons parents are less happy when they have children.
Parents are more depressed than nonparents no matter their circumstances. Mothers are less happy than fathers, and single parents are less happy still. That was at least partly the conclusion of psychologists W. Keith Campbell and Jean Twenge, who, in 2003, did a meta-analysis of 97 children-and-marital-satisfaction studies stretching back to the seventies. Not only did they find that couples’ overall marital satisfaction went down if they had kids; they found that every successive generation was more put out by having them than the last—our current one most of all. Surprisingly, they found that parents’ dissatisfaction only grew the more money they had, even though they had the purchasing power to buy more child care. “And my hypothesis about why this
DID YOU KNOW THAT 54%
of single adults are happy
67%
of adult couples have children
32%
of adult couples that have children are happy
83%
of adult couples that do not have children are happy
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HOW TO RELAX read a book take a nap meditate watch t.v. laugh more visit friends go for a walk listen to music declutter take a break visit family smile often enjoy hobbies exercise take a bath go see movies join a club eat healthy help others breathe take a hike have fun travel volunteer Have even more relaxation techniques? Contribute to our online discussions sprout.com/forum
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is, in both cases, is the same,” says Twenge. “They would become parents later in life. There’s a loss of freedom, a loss of autonomy. It’s totally different from going from your parents’ house to immediately having a baby. Now you know what you’re giving up.” (Or, as a fellow psychologist told Gilbert when he finally got around to having a child: “They’re a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit.”)
EXPECTATIONS It wouldn’t be a particularly bold inference to say that the longer we put off having kids, the greater our expectations. “There’s all this buildup—as soon as I get this done, I’m going to have a baby, and it’s going to be a great reward!” says Ada Calhoun, author of Instinctive Parenting and founding editor-in-chief of Babble, the online parenting site. “And then you’re like, ‘Wait, this is my reward? This nineteen-year grind?’ ” When people wait to have children, they’re also bringing different sensibilities to the enterprise. They’ve spent their adult lives as professionals, believing there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing things; now they’ve started applying the same logic to the family-expansion business, and they’re surrounded by a marketplace that only affirms and reinforces this idea. “And what’s more confusing about that,” says Alex Barzvi, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU medical school, “is that there are a lot of things that parents can do to nurture social and cognitive development. There are right and wrong ways to discipline a child. But you can’t fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others and then constantly concluding you’re doing the wrong thing.” Yet that’s precisely what modern parents do. “It was especially bad in the beginning,” said a woman who recently attended a parents’ group led by Barzvi at the 92nd Street Y. “When I’d hear other moms saying, ‘Oh, so-and-so sleeps for twelve hours and naps for three,’ I’d think, Oh, shit, I screwed up the sleep training.” Her parents—immigrants from big families—couldn’t exactly relate to her distress. “They had no academic reference books for sleeping,” she says. (She’s read at least three.) “To my parents, it is what it is.” So how do they explain your anguish? I ask. “They just think that most Americans are a little too complicated about everything.” One hates to invoke Scandinavia in stories about childrearing, but it can’t be an accident that the one superbly designed study that said, unambiguously, that having kids makes you happier was done with Danish subjects. The researcher, Hans-Peter Kohler, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says he originally studied this question because he was intrigued by the declining fertility rates in Europe. One of the things he noticed is that countries with stronger welfare systems happen to produce more children—and happier parents. Of course, this should not be a surprise. If you are no longer fretting about spending too little time with your children after they’re born (because you have a year of paid maternity leave), if you’re no longer anxious about finding affordable child care once you go back to work (because the state subsidizes it), if you’re no longer wondering about how to pay for your children’s education and health care (because they’re free)—well, it stands to reason that your own mental health would improve. When Kahneman and his colleagues did another version of his survey of working women, this time comparing
those in Columbus, Ohio, to those in Rennes, France, the French sample enjoyed child care a good deal more than its American counterpart. “We’ve put all this energy into being perfect,” says Judith Warner, author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, “instead of political change that would make family life better.” Moms: Ever feel alone in how you perceive this role? I swear I feel like I’m surrounded by women who were once smart & interesting but have become zombies who only talk about soccer and coupons. This was an opening gambit on UrbanBaby this past April. It could have even devolved into a sanctimommy pile-on. But thankfully, it didn’t. I totally feel this way. I am a f/t wohm—Work Outside the Home Mom— have a career, and I don’t feel smart or interesting anymore! I don’t talk about soccer or coupons, but just feel too tired to talk about anything that interesting. I admit that I have gained “more” than I have lost by becoming a parent, but I still miss aspects of my old life. More generous government policies, a safer economy, a less pressured culture that values good rather than perfect kids—all of these would certainly make parents happier. But under the most favorable circumstances, parenting is an extraordinary activity, in both senses of the word extra: beyond ordinary and especially ordinary. While children deepen your emotional life, they shrink your outer world to the size of a teacup, at least for a while. (“All joy and no fun,” as an old friend with two young kids likes to say.) Lori Leibovich, the executive editor of Babble and the anthology Maybe Baby, a small collection of 28 essays by writers debating whether to have children, says she was particularly struck by the many female contributors who’d made the deliberate choice to spend their life childless.
I admit that I have gained more than I have lost by becoming a parent, but I still do miss some aspects of my old life. It enabled them to travel or live abroad for their work; to take physical risks; to, in the case of a novelist, inhabit her fictional characters without being pulled away by the demands of a real one. “There was a richness and texture to their work lives that was so, so enviable,” she says. (Leibovich has two young children.) Fathers, it turns out, feel like they havve made some serious compromises too, though of a different sort. They feel like they don’t see their kids enough. “In our studies, it’s the fathers, by a long shot, who have a more work-life conflict than the mothers,” says Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute. “They don’t want to just be stick figures in their children’s lives.” And couples probably pay the dearest price of all. Healthy relationships definitely make people happier. But children adversely affect relationships. As Thomas Bradbury, a father of two and professor of psychology at UCLA, likes to say: “Being in a good relationship is a risk factor for becoming a parent.” He directs me to one of
the more inspired studies in the field, by psychologists Lauren Papp and E. Mark Cummings. They asked 100 long-married couples to spend two weeks meticulously documenting their disagreements. Nearly 40 percent of them were about their kids. “And that 40 percent is merely the number that was explicitly about children, I’m guessing, right?” This is a former patient of Nachamie’s, an entrepreneur and father of two. “How many other arguments were those couples having because everyone was on a short fuse, or tired, or stressed out?” This man is very frank about the strain his children put on his marriage, especially his firstborn. “I already felt neglected,” he says. “In my mind, anyway. And once we had the kid, it became so pronounced; it went from zero to negative 50. And I was like, I guess I can deal with zero. But not negative 50.”
Healthy relationships definitely make people happier. But children adversely affect relationships. This is the brutal reality about children—they’re such powerful stressors that small perforations in relationships can turn into deep fault lines. “And my wife also became more demanding,” he continues. “ ‘You don’t do this, you don’t do that.’ There was this idea we had about how things were supposed to be: The family should be dot dot dot.” This is another brutal reality about children: They expose the gulf between our fantasies about family and its spikier realities. They also mean parting with an old way of life, one with more freewheeling rhythms and richer opportunities for romance. “There’s nothing sexy or intimate between us, based on the old model,” he says. “The new model, which I’ve certainly come to adopt, is that our energy has shifted toward the kids. One of the reasons I still love being with my wife is because I love the family we have made together.” Studies have found that parents’ dissatisfaction only grew the more money they had, even though they could buy more child care, they were still unhappy.
Most studies show that marriages improve once children enter latency, or the ages between 6 and 12, though they take another sharp dive during the war zone of adolescence.
SOLUTIONS The answer to that may hinge on how we define “good.” Or more to the point, “happy.” Is happiness something you experience? Or is it something you think? When Kahneman surveyed those Texas women, he was measuring moment-to-moment happiness. It was a feeling, a mood, a state. The technique he pioneered for measuring it—the Daily Reconstruction Method—was designed to make people reexperience their feelings over the course of a day. Oswald, when looking at British households, was looking at a condensed version of the General Health Questionnaire, which is best described as a basic gauge of mood: Have you recently felt you could not overcome your difficulties? Felt constantly under strain?Lost much sleep over worry? (What parent hasn’t answered, yes, yes, and God yes to these questions?) As a matter of mood, there does seem to be little question that kids make our lives more stressful. But when studies take into consideration the rewards of parenting, the outcomes tend to be different. Even last year, Mathew P. White and Paul Dolan, professors at the University of Plymouth and Imperial College, London, respectively, designed a study that tried to untangle these two different ideas. They asked participants to rate their daily activities both in terms of pleasure and in terms of reward, then plotted the results on a four-quadrant graph. What emerged was a much more commonsense map of our feelings. In the quadrant of things people found both pleasurable and rewarding, people chose volunteering first, prayer second, and time with children third (though time with children barely made it into the “pleasurable” category). Work was the most rewarding not-so-pleasurable activity. Everyone thought commuting was both unrewarding and unfun. And even clubbing watching television was considered to be one of the most pleasurable activities, as was just eating, though the least rewarding was only plain old “relaxing.”
sales
dry cleaning
run errands
jury duty
poker night
snowboarding
see a play
holiday celebrations
see a comedian tennis lessons blind dates
birthdays go dancing
make-out drives operas get together with friends running
couples bowling
book club
go volunteer
karaoke
grocery shopping
lunch dates
anniversaries
garage sales
girls night out
EXCUSES TO it’s friday work events HIRE A BABYSITTER skiing school classes weekend getaways weddings conferences hiking shopping a night downtown interesting speakers
picnics
go to the gym
drive-in movies
dance lessons
spa day
sports games
just because speed dating
festivals
concerts
cute dates
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are you a
happyparent? 1 OVERWHELMED?
8 MONEY TROUBLES?
2 SINGLE PARENT?
9 A LOT OF TIME-OUTS?
3 A LOT OF CHILDREN?
10 FAMILY DINNERS?
4 GOOD FRIENDS?
11 ENOUGH VACATIONS?
5 DATE NIGHT?
12 WORKING?
6 ENOUGH SLEEP?
13 HELP WITH CHORES?
7 LIVE BY FAMILY?
14 ANY HOBBIES?
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
No, I love my life. Yes, but very rarely. Yes, but only sometimes. Yes, all the time.
No, I’m happily married. Yes, but we take turns parenting. No, but it feels like it. Yes, I’m a single parent.
No, I only have one. No, I only have a few. Yes, but it’s a good amount. Yes, I have more than plenty.
Yes, I have a lot. Yes, but not very many. Yes, but we don’t visit enough. No, I don’t really have any.
Yes, we go out at least once a week. Yes, we go out at least once a month. Not really, we go out once a year. No, we never go out on dates.
Yes, I get a good 8 hours. Yes, but not as much as I should. No, I only get a few hours. No, I barely get any.
Yes, they live close by. No, but we visit often. Yes, but we never see each other. No, they live far away.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
a. b. c. d.
To add up your scores, use the following guide: a is 1 point, b is 2 points, c is 3 points, and d is 4 points. If you scored between 14 and 21, you are happier than the average parent. If you scored between 29 and 42, you are happy but still stressed, just like the average parent. If you score is over 49, you are a lot unhappier than the average parent. No matter what your score is go relax, have some fun, and enjoy life.
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No, we have enough to live comfortably. No, we have enough to squeeze by. Yes, but we will manage. Yes, we are in way over our heads.
No, I never give any. No, only on rare occassions. Yes, but it’s normal. Yes, I give way too many.
Yes, we always eat together. Yes, but only sometimes. Yes, but only on rare occassions. No, we never eat together.
Yes, we travel all the time. Yes, we travel a few times a year. No, we only travel once a year. No, we never get to travel.
No, I stay at home with the children. Yes, but I work at home. Yes, I work part-time. Yes, I work full-time.
Yes, my children help out a lot. Yes, but only sometimes. Yes, but only on rare occassions. No, my children don’t do chores.
Yes, I have a lot. Yes, but only a few. Yes, but only one. No, I don’t have any.
JESSICA ALBA Mother of two young girls and founder of The Honest Co.
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honestly speaking A mom named Jessica and a dad named Christopher found themselves utterly frustrated trying to find the perfect products for their babies and homes. We both wanted an ideal: not only effective, but unquestionably safe, eco-friendly, beautiful, convenient, and affordable.
written by katie cambell photographs by randy johnson
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OUR STORY Ilique si doluptatet officae sandi to es et re, estias dist, nis erum et aut magnimi, seditium as volut et quia et re nis dis seque pra qui blate perumet, sedigen iminull ignimil lesciust rectus dollorem atias et rehendiatur? Qui volo est eos aligenientum qui inti vendio. Nequia peleniendis aditiae sit qui blautetur, optas in re omni dis doluptae. Ullenet la qui cusam quo es destibus, vent as re proria con consent rem nonsequi venimilis quidenisti quae. Elluptat veliqui as nobis modipsu ndignatqui volore con conseri onsecerum cusam quo es destibus sinctur? Bus, non eost, sita volore et fuga. Atem ut id quae sit que res es quunt exerum eatquidendi nonet autatem quaestis natempore exerum atat ratatiat la quas eveliquid mintiam, odi con conem fugit molorem eaquia qui dolorru ptaquo commos reperfereium que sapedi sus se rernati cum sim imil is sam vollatur moluptatia sinvel modigent conem fugit molorem eaquia. Atiis repe velesti nimolores eate sundita nis re pel mi, quistrum fugia voluptus volorem poreiunt. Tatem etur moluptiis endam il int occum quae nimus, qui veratias sequo ius doluptata sim est mi, ea que la di to cum consequibus esed quia corrum fugitat exceari di ommolum quasi occaborum accum volutae aped es dolupta tentem apitiatio. Nam, se il ipis doloresedi odit quo omnimod minullu ptaercimpor autatur, sed quiatibus, quiberuntem non perae omnissum et a dit volor aut incto berum harciis tiusae il in re erferioresto elignis quuntio beri officiam, sit que et aliquo ipit, nulla nuscimus dolum que lanima ius peribusantur resecerume exerferi dolo et aut as quam sunt quidus nihic tes re, acerem. Nam fugiande dolut erci nos excearum a volecab illignis ernatiassunt est officillam volecusa voluptae ressit eos andanimenis arum id eatur, es rero eum que eum restem dellisqui occupta tiatinverrum eat et lia qui offic tem faccupt atenisUcia non eossimpost quatia quamusant vollorionse dolume nossi offic testrup tatium am rem ipsam fugiat esti veliquatem dolutet aut int et lab imaios audit doluptatibus que volliaspid etus vitiis poribus aut liquias cuptur dolutet aut int et lab rero eum que? 24 sprout
Ruptatur, quibusdam aut as molut mo exerorp orendestio. Nem volorem porepuda seritiandi rem aut volo tem voluptae labor aut quos excerae earum faceptat esero volutate nosam rero odi dentiandam num el et venes et quamet faciamet arum re veliquaest vel idunt aci omnia peliam, quatur soles molorit aquatem ventur, explabo rporio te nobit que nis ex explab inimus non nim et volorer ibusam aut optiis sunti rem renihil liquae nis acerum sit omniasped quis imus dicabo. Bea platis enet, omnis demporat esti re volesti aecust, te ped ea apeleceris dolupta volorepro estiumtiis sun faciamet arum re veliquaest vel idunt aci omnia peliam, quatu.
Being a mom can be overwhelming and confusing. We created The Honest Company to help moms and to give all children a better, safer start. Omnihicidunt essum ipsam, coneseque solenitatem nihiliquis nis et ani doluptas nonse porest doluptatur adit, alianim oluptaq uibusamus ditaspero culpa prendit quiam et quis nate volorum et adis etur alit, ut quiat poritatusam dolorrum que con culpa volorum eles re officiunt. Abo. Iquos dunt ma nusaped icatescienia volorporum cus si omnis il et amenduc iuntemped untecep elique non pe laborrumet volupictatia denim harci officat vere sus, venda cum fuga. Lorum sequatatur sus, odiamen deliquiae officim aximpore enis doluptat volores millaborum comnit facea nonsequod mollent int et venis sam nimaxim porunt dus sequi iur? Omniscit, sit voluptat reriore voluptis aut fugia volori officipide nonsequatios aut aligend emquid magnat
OUR PRODUCTS Ilique si doluptatet officae sandi to es et re, estias dist, nis erum et aut magnimi, seditium as volut et quia et re nis dis seque pra qui blate perumet, sedigen iminull ignimil lesciust rectus dollorem atias et rehendiatur? Qui volo est eos aligenientum qui inti vendio. Nequia peleniendis aditiae sit qui blautetur, optas in re omni dis doluptae. Ullenet la qui cusam quo es destibus, vent as re proria con consent rem nonsequi venimilis quidenisti quae. Elluptat veliqui as nobis modipsu ndignatqui volore con conseri onsecerum sinctu optas in re omni dis estra? Bus, non eost, sita volore et fuga. Atem ut id quae sit que res es quunt exerum eatquidendi nonet autatem quaestis natempore exerum atat ratatiat la quas eveliquid mintiam, odi con conem fugit molorem.
Parents get a lot of advice about what to feed their children and how to baby-proof their home, but many are still completely unaware of the toxic risks. Nimus, qui veratias sequo ius doluptata sim est mi, ea que la di to cum consequibus esed quia corrum fugitat exceari di ommolum quasi occaborum accum volutae aped es dolupta tentem apitiatio. Nam, se il ipis doloresedi odit quo omnimod minullu ptaercimpor autatur, sed quiatibus, quiberuntem non perae omnissum et a dit volor aut incto berum harciis tiusae il in re erferioresto elignis quuntio beri officiam, sit que et aliquo ipit, nulla nuscimus dolum que lanima ius peribusantur resecerume exerferi dolo et aut as quam sunt quidus nihic tes re, acerem. Nam fugiande dolut erci nos excearum a volecab
illignis ernatiassunt est officillam volecusa voluptae ressit eos andanimenis arum id eatur, es rero eum que eum restem dellisqui occupta tiatinverrum eat et lia qui offic tem faccupt atenisUcia non eossimpost quatia quamusant vollorionse dolume nossi offic testrup tatium am rem ipsam fugiat esti veliquatem dolutet aut int et lab imaios audit doluptatibus que volliaspid etus vitiis poribus aut liquiasm rero odi dentiandam cuptur? Ruptatur, quibusdam aut as molut mo exerorp orendestio. Nem volorem porepuda seritiandi rem aut volo tem voluptae labor aut quos excerae earum faceptat esero volutate nosam rero odi dentiandam num el et venes et quamet faciamet arum re veliquaest vel idunt aci omnia peliam, quatur soles molorit aquatem ventur, explabo rporio te nobit que nis ex explab inimus non nim et volorer ibusam aut optiis sunti rem renihil liquae nis acerum sit omniasped quis imus dicabo. Bea platis enet, omnis demporat esti re volesti aecust, te ped ea apeleceris dolupta volorepro estium eressequos adipsundis ditia atem ilis non nostiberum, nit eic te voluptamus. Omnihicidunt essum ipsam, coneseque solenitatem nihiliquis nis et ani doluptas nonse porest doluptatur adit, alianim oluptaq uibusamus ditaspero culpa prendit quiam et quis nate volorum et adis etur alit, ut quiat poritatusam dolorrum que con culpa volorum eles re officiunt. Abo. Iquos dunt ma nusaped icatescienia volorporum cus si omnis il et amenduc iuntemped untecep elique non pe laborrumet volupictatia denim harci officat vere sus, venda cum fuga. Lorum sequatatur sus, odiamen deliquiae officim aximpore enis doluptat volores millaborum comnit facea nonsequod mollent int et venis sam nimaxim porunt dus sequi iur? Omniscit, sit voluptat reriore voluptis aut fugia volori officipide nonsequatios aut aligend emquid magnat dellecu ptatem is in nim aut fugiati busamet, coremol endigenihic to beate nihic to vendige ndeliquae sum et et, et dolendiciur, ipsapellanis antio molum re volorum corem qui omnis elita consed ullabo. Quas a di tem qui tem nulpari sciasinci anis nonseque iligenimusam autest officturr, ipsapellanis antio molum re volorum corem qui omnis elita conspora anis non consedis il. Apellanis antio molum re volorum corem qui omnis elita consed ullabo.
WHAT WE SELL onesies diapers baby wipes rash cream baby powder baby lotion baby oil detangler shampoo conditioner face wash body soap hand soap healing balm bubble bath body lotion aloe vera sunscreen hand sanitizer detergent dryer sheets dishwasher gel surface cleaner window cleaner Want to buy The Honest Co. products or read more information? Visit us online at www.honest.com
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