Emily Writes first book Rants in the Dark is "definitely not a parenting manual".

Numerous studies, reports and research papers have reached the same confounding conclusion: people with children are not as happy as those without.

Confounding because most of us believe – or want to believe – that children enrich our lives: give us a sense of purpose and meaning. Complete us. That's why we have them, right?

Some people travel a long, hard, road to become pregnant, while others spend years looking for a partner with whom they can raise a family. Then there are those who want it so badly they decide to go it alone.

So why, when we get what we thought we always wanted, are we unhappy?

READ MORE:

* When parents regret having children

* Children a gift that keeps giving

* Are you happier with kids?

THE HAPPINESS PENALTY

In the last 18 months alone, three studies looking at parental wellbeing in the developed world have been enough to put anyone off having kids.

A 2015 report published in American journal Demography found that the effect of a new baby on a person's life in the first year is worse than divorce, unemployment and even the death of a partner.

JASON DORDAY/FAIRFAX NZ Dr Sarah Oxenbridge is an expert on why parents struggle with balancing work and home life.

A YouGov survey conducted last year found that one in five German mothers regretted parenthood, with 44 per cent saying parenthood had a negative impact on their professional careers. And a 2016 report in the American Journal of Sociology, which examined comparative data from 22 OECD countries and two international surveys of wellbeing, found that parents in more than half the countries experienced a "happiness penalty" compared to non-parents. New Zealand came in at a reasonably woeful 18 (Australia was ranked 15).

It wasn't all bad: in the top eight ranked countries – Portugal, Hungary, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France and Russia – parents reported being happier than non-parents.

But that left 14 countries where the childless were happier than those with kids.

So what accounted for the happiness gap? Co-author of the study and professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Jennifer Glass, wrote that what they found "astonishing" was that their data provided a clear and simple answer.

"The negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations," she reported.

"And this was true for both mothers and fathers. Countries with better family policy 'packages' had no happiness gap between parents and non-parents."

Over email, Dr Glass added: "Parents are mostly workers these days, and need significant labour protections if they are to perform their roles as parents satisfactorily as well. Generous government-paid sick and vacation leave, as well as childcare assistance, were the policies that most affected parental happiness, while having positive though smaller effects on the happiness of non-parents as well. This suggests a win- win situation for nations with the foresight to protect family time and make childcare affordable."

And the country that ranked last? The US.

Recently, the US Department of Health and Human Services reported that childcare is considered unaffordable in 49 of 50 US states (where it costs more than 7 per cent of a family's annual income). The US and Papua New Guinea are the only countries that do not guarantee paid maternity leave.

ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ Wellington blogger Emily Writes is a kind of a Jedi Master Yoda for mothers.

Although New Zealand's parental leave policy is around the OECD average – primary carers may be entitled to 18 weeks of parental leave payments – and our 20 hours of free early childhood education for over three-year-olds is nothing to be sniffed at, we still fall far short of countries like Sweden with its 480 days' leave for new parents. Each parent is allocated three months of that leave, with the balance split however they choose (for 390 days they receive 80 per cent of their normal pay, with the remaining 90 days paid at a flat rate).

For many New Zealanders, being a two-income family is a necessity. Growing Up in New Zealand, New Zealand's contemporary longitudinal study of around 7000 babies, found that while the median leave that mothers wanted was a full year, 45 per cent were back in paid employment within nine months. Most (71 per cent) said they returned to work because they needed the money.

Of course, jobs aren't just about the money. Many surveyed also said that they "enjoyed working and wanted to return to paid work". Working allows you to continue with a career that you strived to establish, return to a job that you find stimulating and challenging, and have grown-up conversations that have nothing to do with trains, fairies, naps or poo.

WORK/LIFE BALANCE

Working may also make you a better parent. A 2014 study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies analysed 35,000 families and found that women who work 15-24 hours per week believed their job improved their time with their family and made them better parents.

But the research showed a tipping point; women's positivity drops off significantly as the number of work hours increases, going into negative territory when work takes up more than 35 hours a week.

But as Auckland mother-of-one Anna* discovered, finding part-time work was not easy.

"I was going a bit insane at home with a small child and I needed to use my brain, but I couldn't find any part-time work that paid enough to make it worth paying childcare – all the roles seemed to be incredibly junior.

"I would have been happy to take a part-time job that was of a lower status than what I was used to. It wasn't about ego or career advancement, but it simply didn't pay enough to make it worth it. For a while there I did manage to work part-time as a freelancer but I was basically taking the money from the job I was being paid and handing it to childcare. It was pointless."

ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ Emily Writes with her two kids Eddie (4) and Ronnie (2).

After looking for a couple of years with no success she made the decision to return to work full-time.

"I found it really difficult to balance with having a small child. I felt unfair putting her in childcare for long hours but it was either don't work at all or work full-time. They seemed to be the only options.

"Now, I have to work because, financially, we couldn't get by on only my husband's salary as the cost of living here is so expensive."

MORE AND MORE PARENTING

We now spend more hours working than ever before, which might lead to the assumption that we spend less time parenting. Ironically, we spend more time doing that as well.

A 2016 American study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that between 1965 and 2012, all but one of 11 Western nations showed an increase in the amount of time both parents spent with their kids.

Mothers' average daily childcare activities increased from 54 minutes to 104 minutes per day, while fathers' time with children nearly quadrupled – from just 16 minutes per day in 1965 to 59 minutes a day in 2012.

Among university-educated parents, the increase in time spent with kids was even more pronounced.

This can be partly explained by current social and cultural ideas of attentive, sustained and intensive nurturing. And research encourages parents to spend heaps of time with their kids; a new UK study, for example, found that the time spent by mothers with their children has a marked influence on their early development, particularly between the ages of 3 and 7.

From the moment your child is born there are pressures, expectations and an entire industry designed to help you be a "good" parent.

There are parenting classes, sensory classes, swim classes, baby massage classes and toddler rock.

You must prepare wholesome, unprocessed healthy food from scratch (I once spent a long afternoon peeling frozen grapes for fear my daughter might choke on the skin) – and that's just in the first year.

Then the demands grow with your child; ferrying them to endless sports games, clubs, social events, primary school discos and Pokemon hunts. Join the PTA, fundraise relentlessly and host extravagant birthday parties with entertainers, ponies and a present for every single child playing pass the parcel.

Some of this stuff is good for kids and much of it isn't, but guilt is an extremely effective motivator.

But might there be a downside to all this intensive nurturing? Today's kids are far less independent – due, in part, to our anxieties around safety.

For mother-of- three, Sophie Capernaros, worrying about how to keep her children safe is her biggest challenge as a parent.

"I find it really, really difficult to help them foster their own independence while allaying my anxiety about keeping them safe. What sort of world have I brought these kids into? And had I really thought about it, would I still have had children?"

Capernaros' nine-year-old-son wants to walk the 10-minute journey to school by himself, but she can't bring herself to let him.

This is despite the fact that at age eight she was walking twice the distance to her school in south London.

"It's a different time."

To make space for all these modern parenting demands, it's parents' personal time that is being sacrificed. Industrial relations research consultant Sarah Oxenbridge says that she is seeing large numbers of working parents on the verge of burnout.

"They feel like they are not doing either job well. They are spending less time on themselves and they are not engaging in the kinds of restorative or leisure activities [they once did], and I think that's why they're so miserable."

She's spoken to many fathers who are juggling long working hours with spending time with their kids, and the things that used to bring them joy – such as sporting activities and reading books – they no longer have time for.

YODA FOR MOTHERS

So what are we to do, we tired and time-poor parents who muddle along doing our best but fretting that it's never enough? Perhaps the answer lies in taking it all a little less seriously. Wellington writer and mother-of-two, Emily Writes, is a kind of a Jedi Master Yoda for mothers – if Yoda wrote hilarious, pervy film reviews and swore a lot. Two years ago she wrote her first blog post: "I'm grateful, now f... off", as a response to people who tell you to be grateful for your children when you are having a miserable time.

It immediately catapulted her into the hearts of world-weary mothers and kicked off her writing career. Her first book Rants in the Dark ("it's definitely not a parenting manual") is released at the end of this month.

Emily is a breath of fresh air in a world overrun with Instagram mums who have curated perfect-looking lives with perfect-looking children in perfect-looking homes, with absolutely none of them covered in s....

"What I found is that there are so many other people who think: 'I love this, but I hate it too, at times'," she says on the phone from Wellington.

"And none of that makes you a bad parent. But I think we somehow got caught up in this thing about being parents that are blessed and you know, every second is a gift and cherish every moment and all this bulls... and it's just like, no, it's life.

"It's messy and it's chaotic and it's beautiful too, but God, it's not great every second. And that's no reflection on how much you love your child."

*Names have been changed