Happier People?

I read my news on Yahoo every morning, probably like most people do now.  I think only the elderly read the newspaper or watch television news anymore.  Anyway, I was looking at the news the other day and I read an artical that said recent studies have shown that adults without children are happier than adults who have children.  It further stated that adults with older children are happier than adults with younger children.  I have been pondering this for days now, and I think that they need to look at several things...not just happiness level.  Because I can’t really argue with the whole not as happy statement, and where I can't speak for every parent, for me I am not as happy on the whole.  I was a far "happier" person before I had children, but my life felt a little empty, like something was missing.  After I gave birth to Casey my life began feeling fulfilling, I feel that my life has purpose and I have a reason to move on through it.  So I am thinking that they also need to look at how fulfilling people who don't have children feel their lives are.  I know that there will always be those people who consider children to be too much of a burden to have, but I think that most people with children will say that they feel a greater self-fulfillment than those without children.

                 They said that we parents of younger children are also more stressed, and I will happily get on that band-wagon!  I am more stressed than the people I know who don't have children...but lets be fair, they don't have to worry about the health and well being of another person or persons.  I think the majority of my stress comes from worrying over my children's health and what I should or shouldn't be doing with them.  I worry and lose sleep over everything...Yes, I know children have been growing up on this earth for over 6,000 years and they have all been fine, but these are my children and I am responsible for them to God...I have to return them someday!!  I also think that mother's find things to worry about...we look for the stupidest things to worry about.  For example:  I was recently reading an article about my daughter's health condition that was listing out some new findings, one of which was that they found that females with this condition have an extremely low chance of being able to breast-feed their children.  And here I am one day crying over having to explain that to her someday in the future...although there is some argument as to whether or not I should tell her at all.  This is the stupidest thing in the world to worry about, but here I am in distress over it.  Parents also have to worry about the safety of their children...ALL THE TIME!!  Heaven help us who have stairs in our houses or hard wood flooring or fireplaces...because HOLY CRAP, do you have any idea what kind of trouble a child can get into in a fireplace?!  We have a gate at the top of the stairs, a gate at the bottom of the stairs, a locking clip on the fireplace, at least 12 cupboards in the house are child proofed, and every outside door has 3 locks including one at the top where Grandma practically has to get a chair in order to get outside the house.  I know you are all thinking that this is all a little excessive, but trust me these are all very necessary, otherwise we mothers who find things to worry about will never get any sleep!!  One night about a month or so after we moved into the house I got up at 2 am to pee (I was pregnant at the time) and I noticed that the light downstairs was on, being that only my parents are normally downstairs at 2 am I was curious and went down to see what was going on.  I find my Miss Casey sitting downstairs on the couch watching the news…yeah this is why we have 3 locks on all the outside doors.  So yes, in my opinion we parents of young children are under an astronomical amount of stress, and not just during the day at a job…no, our stress runs 24/7!

I have watched, over the last 5 years, couples younger than us say that they don’t want to have children, even couples in our church.  I have heard all varieties of reasons for this:  “I can’t give up my job to have kids”, “staying home would just drive me crazy”, “kids are too hard”…the list is almost never ending.  I wonder if this is why they are so much happier…because they have decided that they are doing the easier job by going through life without the hope of posterity.  I will someday sit at my childrens’ high school graduation and may be if they graduate from college, and I will cry my happy tears and wonder what those people who never had children have to be happy about now.  Who will look after them in their elder years of life?  Who will come visit them when their partner has died and all their friends are gone?  Is that what a fleeting moment of happiness now brings them in the future?  I think that I will keep my kids and my stress, and I will keep the joyous moments I have in the middle of my stress filled days.  I have a 1 year old who is learning to talk and plays with the dog.  I also have a 4 year old who is getting ready to start Kindergarten and is sitting next to me eating her fruit snacks out of a toy truck she is playing with.  I sit with a smile on my face and enjoy the small quiet moments in between the screaming and fighting, because this is what makes life full and worth living! 

Mr Barkley and his boy, Ryan

The first thing you should know here is that I grew up watching all those cartoons and shows that now have parental warnings on the front of their dvds.  Like Sesame Street, Loony Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Rocky and Bullwinkle.  I am told that kids today don’t know what is real and what isn’t, and so should not be allowed to see these “fantasy” type things.  Whatever!!  But this is a discussion for another day and another blog…I am here to talk about Mr Peabody and Sherman as a start to this entry…

I would hope that everyone who is reading this knows that I am speaking of “Mr Peabody’s Improbable History”, which was a short played during The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.  If you are unfamiliar with this cartoon, then you should either look it up on hulu or order it from Netflix, and after you have watched it consider yourself educated.  I will give a brief synopsis of the first episode.  Mr Peabody was well educated (Ivy League schools) and spent time working for top officials…then he discovered that his life was missing something.  He looked around to see that other dogs had boys, and decided that he should get a boy too.  With much deliberation in court, it was decided that if a boy could have a dog, then there was no reason that a dog couldn’t have a boy…and so Sherman became his boy.  Upon taking Sherman home, it was discovered that an apartment was no place for a boy…a boy needed room to run, and so he invented the WABAC machine to take him on historical adventures.  This is the premise for Mr Peabody’s Improbable History…and the beginning of an observation.

A little over 6 months ago we bought a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel puppy, who we named Barkley.  My son was around 8 months old at the time, and when we brought him home they saw each other…they were both very curious about the other.  I set Ryan on the floor and Barkley came up and they touched noses…and in that one touch and smell Barkley adopted his boy.  From that day forward he has been Ryan’s protector and pillow, and I have never worried about the two of them together.  As Ryan started to crawl, Barkley was always a little way ahead of him to urge him forward.  When I would lay Ryan down to sleep, whether on the floor or on the couch, Barkley would always lay down beside him.  There was once when Ryan was on the bed with my husband and I, we were letting him explore a little and I don’t think Barkley approved, as when Ryan got within a foot of the edge of the bed he would plant himself between Ryan and the edge and would very often fall off in his attempt to keep Ryan on the bed.  As Ryan is now walking Barkley runs with him, they steal toys from each other and run away hoping the other will chase them.  I am not sure if it was Barkley running around, or Casey running around that encouraged Ryan more into walking early.  He started walking at 10 months, and was playing chase by 11 months old. 

Ryan shows love by backing himself up to you and then sits on you…whatever is available, lap, head, arm, tummy, or leg.  This is what he does to Barkley…he backs himself up to him and plops himself right next to him.  He hugs him in the morning after he wakes up, and Barkley just sits there and lets him do it.   Barkley has started becoming almost impatient with me in the  mornings of late…if I don’t get up fast enough after he hears the boy wake, he will come up and stand on my chest.  Then when I open the door he bounds into Ryan’s room and right up to his crib to smell him, and after I get him out and put him down Barkley has to thoroughly smell him to be sure I have the right boy…they hug and greet each other, only then can we move forward through our day.  While Ryan is in his high chair eating Barkley sits or lays on the floor beneath his chair waiting ever patiently for Ryan’s donations to his cause, and Ryan has been very purposeful in his feeding him lately.  These two will be friends for all of Barkley’s life; they love each other like no dog and boy I have ever seen.  Truly this is Mr B (as we call him) and his boy.