True or false: A person can never be truly satisfied in life without experiencing the joys of ?

If you thought “true,” you might not want to read a new study by researchers Richard P. Eibach and Steven E. Mock. In a paper just released in Psychological Science, Eibach and Mock review evidence to suggest that the often touted emotional rewards of parenting are a myth. Instead, they cite evidence that the real payoffs of parenting include a downturn in emotional well-being, a lowered frequency of positive feelings, and a higher frequency of negative emotions (like when Junior turns over his dinner bowl with a loud yucch). Children also seem to lower their parents marital satisfaction whilst raising mom 'n pop's levels of . Adding insult to injury, the authors note that all these benefits come at a cost of approximately $200,000 per child. And Eibach and Mock don’t even mention the much more important non-monetary costs of parenting: the year of lost sleep, the thousands of dirty diapers to change, the ranting and raving of the terrible twos (which really last until about age 5), the period of adolescent disdain in which junior rolls his eyes up to the ceiling at every stupid thing you say (with periods during which almost everything you say qualifies as a stupid thing), followed by drugs, , , and loud rock 'n roll playing in the basement.

So, how to explain the fact that many people (including yours truly) do in fact report that being a parent is the most fulfilling part of their lives? Eibach and Mock turn to Festinger’s theory. You remember that from intro psych, right? If you have to undergo a severe initiation to join a group, you rate it more positively than if you undergo a mild initiation. If you receive a paltry payoff for a task, you rate it as more intrinsically satisfying than if you are well-compensated. What could be a less well-compensated task than parenting? As mom used to eloquently express it: “After all I’ve done for you kids, this is the thanks I get?”

The researchers conducted a pair of clever experiments to test the role of dissonance in parental satisfaction. Consistent with predictions from dissonance theory, they found that emphasizing the costs of parenting led to a paradoxical increase in parents’ tendency to agree with idealized statements such as: “Nonparents are more likely to be depressed than parents.” and “There is nothing more rewarding in this life than raising a child.” They also found that thinking about the many costs of raising a snot-nosed brat led parents to want to spend more time with said lovable tot (of course, they used more objective language, with no references to brattiness or snotty noses).

Now, I find this pair of studies dissonance-arousing for several reasons. For one, I have two sons, one aged 33 and one aged 6. I estimate that I spent more than that average 200 Grand on the Number One Son, and that I will spent still more on Numero Dos (so far, Lego costs alone could pay for a college ) Besides the money, I spend a lot of energy, waking up at night worrying about how both of them are doing, about their lives will turn out, and about whether they are happy. I even worry that if I worry too much about them, I’ll have a heart attack and won’t be around to worry about how they are doing anymore.

And despite all the costs, I’m a big parental idealizer. I am one of those people who proclaims that being a parent has been the most rewarding part of my life, and I honestly believe it. I also honestly believe that I love my sons, and enjoy their company, more than anyone else I could imagine. In a paper that got a lot of press last year, I argued that “parenting” should replace “self-actualization” at the top of the revised hierarchy of human motives. And in my upcoming book titled Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life (due in your local bookstore next month), I suggest that one key to a meaningful life is taking care of your family.

At the same time, my wife pointed out a big inconsistency in my parental attitudes just the other day. When I talk to a younger colleague or a grad student who thinks it would be a great idea to have children, I always say: “NO! Don’t do it! It’s nothing like a Kodak ad, and you have no idea how costly it is until it’s too late!”

Dissonance Driven Commitment: It’s Not for Everyone

So, how do I account for my own inconsistency in this regard. And how do I continue to justify my own feelings of love and life satisfaction associated with my sons? Well, here goes: Having children is not like other costly relationships you’ll have in life. Dissonance can only go so far in boosting your felt satisfaction with friends, lovers, coworkers, or other members of that cult you joined that incorrectly predicted the end of the world. If your friend gets too costly, you may well find a new friend. If your coworkers are a pain in the ass, you may seek a new job. If your spouse gets too costly, you may stick around (especially if there are kids), but you might also just file for and move to Australia. Most of the people in Festinger’s classical study of the end-of-the-world cult simply quit the cult (they're the ones we don’t talk much about in the textbooks)

But with children, you don’t quit the cult, and you don’t move to Australia. Not only do you stick with them and continue to love them, but you ironically increase your commitment when they increase their needs. Why the special form of dissonance reduction for our kids? Here I think we need an evolutionary perspective – thanks to inclusive fitness and parental investment, our parents, and theirs, were designed to increase their commitments as their children’s demands went up, and we inherit those costly mechanisms along with the $200K they invested in us. I advise my younger colleagues to hold off and enjoy a childless life for as long as they can because the commitment-inducing mechanisms don’t start working until your child is born and looks up at you with those big crying eyes. And while other people are contributing to overpopulation, those of you who hold off can still afford a ski vacation in Banff.

Reference:

Eibach, R.P., & Mock, S.E. (2011). Idealizing Parenthood to Rationalize Parental Investments. Psychological Science, 22, 203–208.

Related Posts:

Rebuilding Maslow’s Pyramid on an Evolutionary Foundation.

Pyramid 2: Don’t Judge a Scientific Idea by It’s Press Release.

Why Don’t Kids Make Us Happy? By Sonja Lyubomirsky