I was happier before

“I think I was probably happier before I had kids,” a friend told me the other day, and it surprised me, because she's a loving mother who takes pride in her parenting, someone who seems to find real pleasure in her kids.

“How so?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said.  “I just had more freedom.  More time.  More chance to do the things that make me happy.”

I didn't have much to say at the time, because I certainly agree with her in a way, but there was some part of what she was saying that I felt wasn't true, even if I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

In one sense, she's perfectly right. Children take up a tremendous amount of time, energy, money, and just about everything else that we could otherwise spend on things that we enjoy more.  If the choice is between reading a book with a cup of coffee or changing the fourth diaper of the day, we all know which we'd prefer.  If it's between having a romantic evening with our spouse or tending to yet another child's ear ache, there's no real contest.

And yet, I wouldn't trade those things. I willingly choose to change the diapers, tend to the ear aches, make the lunches, drive to the activities, and everything else parenting involves. It may not make me happier, at least not in the sense that I'm doing things I like to do. It does, however, make me more fulfilled, in the sense that I'm doing things truly worth doing.

I'm not going to argue that parenting will make you happier. It almost certainly won't.  I am going to argue that it's still worth doing, one of the things most worth doing in the world.

Luke Hill is a stay-at-home father of three boys, aged nine, seven, and three.  He has fathered, fostered, adopted, or provided a temporary home for kids anywhere between birth and university.  He has taught college courses, adoption seminars, camp groups, Sunday School classes, rugby teams, not to mention his own homeschooled kids.