{"id":19,"date":"2010-05-07T13:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-07T13:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html"},"modified":"2010-05-07T13:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-07T13:28:00","slug":"being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html","title":{"rendered":"Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a new post at Patheos in anticipation of Mother&#8217;s Day. It begins:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Yesterday I heard Betsy Stevenson, of the Wharton School of Business, talking about happiness and being a Mom. She said, on <a href=\"http:\/\/marketplace.publicradio.org\/display\/web\/2010\/05\/06\/pm-having-kids-makes-you-less-happy-stevenson-commentary\">Marketplace<\/a>, &#8220;<em>There is an unhappy fact to ponder this Mother&#8217;s Day: Women with children are less happy than similar women without. The same is true for men. When people hear this fact they immediately suspect that happiness gains from children must exist somewhere. Aren&#8217;t people who are religious happier when they have kids? No. Aren&#8217;t people with kids much happier later in life? No. Is this only true for those in a specific education or income group? Nope and nope. So why do people have children if the data suggest they makes us less happy? There are two possible answers: People are making mistakes, or there is more to life than happiness.&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/>Stevenson doesn&#8217;t come to any satisfactory conclusions or explanations as far as I&#8217;m concerned. But her words made me think. Am I happier as a mother than I was as a married woman without children? Is my mom happier than she was decades ago, before her four kids came into her life?<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family:verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#222222\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height: 20px\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family:verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#222222\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height: 20px\">To keep reading, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/Religion-Portals\/Mainline-Protestant-Blog.html?cURL=http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/mainlineportal\/?p=355\">here<\/a>. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family:verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#222222\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height: 20px\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a new post at Patheos in anticipation of Mother&#8217;s Day. It begins: Yesterday I heard Betsy Stevenson, of the Wharton School of Business, talking about happiness and being a Mom. She said, on Marketplace, &#8220;There is an unhappy fact to ponder this Mother&#8217;s Day: Women with children are less happy than similar women&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a new post at Patheos in anticipation of Mother&#8217;s Day. It begins: Yesterday I heard Betsy Stevenson, of the Wharton School of Business, talking about happiness and being a Mom. She said, on Marketplace, &#8220;There is an unhappy fact to ponder this Mother&#8217;s Day: Women with children are less happy than similar women&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-07T13:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful? - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful? - Thin Places","og_description":"I have a new post at Patheos in anticipation of Mother&#8217;s Day. It begins: Yesterday I heard Betsy Stevenson, of the Wharton School of Business, talking about happiness and being a Mom. She said, on Marketplace, &#8220;There is an unhappy fact to ponder this Mother&#8217;s Day: Women with children are less happy than similar women&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-05-07T13:28:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html","name":"Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-05-07T13:28:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-05-07T13:28:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/05\/being-a-mom-less-happy-more-joyful.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Being a Mom: Less Happy, More Joyful?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}