Jezebel 
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New York, 10:56 PM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/27/09
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10/27/09
I am shocked -- SHOCKED! -- I tell you. And yes, to my sinister onion of a heart, children=occurrences. #children
10/27/09
10/27/09
They looked at data that included a happiness question over 15 years. They were not asking, "So, now that you have a kid, how happy are you?" #children
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10/27/09
My best friend in Grade 1 had 16 siblings and her mother seemed happy to me. Could never call anyone by their right name, but happy. #children
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10/27/09
Some people like to talk about how happy they are all the time. They have status updates and albums devoted to their happiness. Often these albums are full of pictures of ultrasounds or babies. Sometimes, dogs or pictures of a girls' trip to NYC!.
But sometimes you meet these people for lunch and they have this look in their eyes that's aggressively and desperately happy and you answer their happiness-filled anecdotes with awkward non-sequiturs. If someone came along with a happiness survey, they would totally score higher than you would, with your "how am I still hung over on Thursday from Saturday" or "Anyone remember the show Living Dolls?" status updates.
But you probably wouldn't want to trade lives with them. #children
10/27/09
10/27/09
Huh. I guess all my friends who divorced once they had toddlers and babies in the house must not have gotten their Happiness Memo.
I could imagine, however, that a married couple who both share the attitude that having a herd of children is a desirable goal might actually get happier with each new addition. #children
10/27/09
10/27/09
But as a parent who has been happily married to the same person for a couple of decades, I can verify that we are out there.
I just feel strongly that blanket prescriptions for any particular life choice amount to a bunch of hooey.
Life: it's not one-size-fits-all. #children
10/27/09
On the other hand people who don't want kids and don't have them will be happy and people who don't want kids and have them will be unhappy.
Maybe each study just got the wrong groups of parents/kidless people. #children
10/27/09
That being said, I can't imagine having 3 children let alone 18, nor do I think it is a reasonable assumption that herds of children are the source of marital bliss. Happy people with lots of children does not mean that all those children are the source (or the only source) of the happiness. I doubt Dr. Angeles managed to isolate this single factor without other variables complicating things. That's why all a study like this claiming to have the final word on human behavior and the solution to well-being are to be taken with a grain of salt if not dismissed entirely: 1. It was published in something called the "Journal of Happiness Studies" (for God's sake, really? Journal of Happiness Studies"????) and 2. Correlation does NOT equal causation. #children
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From his bio...
"Dr. Angeles, who has performed over 100 "Butterflies in the Stomach"-ectomies, has also successful removed the Breadbasket without touching the sides of the "stomach." He believes happiness is probably located somewhere near the Funnybone, but KNOWS that the Ankle Bone's Connected to the Knee Bone."
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