Did you know that there is actually a whole battalion of researchers studying intensely the question of whether becoming parents makes people happy or miserable?!

Many of these said researchers actually believe that we parents are a sorry lot! They argue that while having kids is good for the human species in general, at individual levels, having children makes most people miserable. And they have collected an exhaustive amount of data from surveying actual parents to support this claim!

A few other researchers on the other hand, counter this argument by showing that while having kids does place a lot of demands on parents, parents derive deep and immense level of joy from parenthood.

So, which claim is true?

Honestly, I don’t care.

What I’m interested in is finding out why some parents are happier, and how you and I can guarantee that we will be among those parents who report being filled with joy and not misery!

So, I dug into the research a little more and this paper in particular — a detailed meta analysis of literature referencing over 270 papers! — was very helpful.

It seems to me that there are two key factors that separate the “happy” parents from the “miserable” ones. By intentionally adopting these factors into our lives, we have a much better chance to be on the happy-to-be-parents side of the fence.

OK, here we go –

#1 Happy Parents Focus on What Having Kids Means to Them Rather than the Day-to-Day Highs and Lows [Read more…]

Close your eyes and focus on the darkness for a minute….

Please, seriously, just try it… what you’ll gain from this little exercise is well worth feeling silly for a bit.

For many people in this world, that is the daily reality. Every minute. Every day.

If one of them were to stop by and offer you a million dollars for your eyes, for your ability to continue reading, for your ability to see this world and watch your kids grow up… would you?

And yet, have you ever really appreciated your ability to see?

The Entitlement Trap and the Attitude of Gratitude

Like many of you, I’ve always felt jaded about sayings like “count your blessings” or “be thankful for what you have” and so on. When I heard or read that I should be thankful for my ability to see or walk or whatever, I mentally rolled my eyes.

I took everything I had for granted. Worse, I felt cheated when I didn’t get more of what I wanted. Even though I have a wonderful child, I felt sad about my inability to have a second one. Even though I’m married to a really nice guy, I nagged him constantly about what he was not. Even though I had a great job, I hated almost every minute of it.

I hadn’t quite realized it then, but I had defaulted to a person who was constantly unhappy about what I didn’t have instead of being happy about what I did.

And then serendipity brought me to the blog Money Saving Mom. At the outset, the blog is about saving money. And that’s how I found it in the first place. My daughter was just born and I desperately needed diaper deals. So, I found a whole bunch of “deal blogs” and this was one of them.

As my daughter grew older and diaper deals were not relevant to me anymore though, I dropped the other deal blogs. But somehow continued to read Money Saving Mom. There was something different about this blog and its founder Crystal Paine.

Crystal is a devout Christian and writes often about gratitude and grace and such. And even though I am agnostic, I was attracted to how her faith was bringing her happiness and making her a calm, very likeable person (even though I didn’t know her at all!).

Around the same time, during a conversation with some friends, the topic of prayers came up. One of my friends, the one I least expected, admitted that she says a prayer every night before going to bed. She said it was a “habit” that her parents got her into while she grew up, and it gives her a lot of peace, so she still continues it to this day.

I was going through a very rough season in my life then and often felt lost and confused. One night on a whim, [Read more…]

Last week we talked about buying your way into happiness. What better way to top that this week than to sleep your way to happiness? 😉

Alright, I know… you’re probably going to say — “I can spare some money to buy happiness. But, C’mon! Finding time to sleep? Ha! Did you forget that we’re parents here?!!”

Actually, no. That was exactly what I thought when I first saw the suggestion in this article to sleep more to become happier.

And then I came across this article which reports Norbert Schwarz, Ph.D., a professor of psychology, to have said:

Making $60,000 more in annual income has less of an effect on your daily happiness than getting one extra hour of sleep a night.

What really made me decide to take on this topic however, was this fantastic review of a book on my to-read list. It makes a very strong argument that kids who do not get sufficient sleep not only tend to lag in terms of IQ and are at a higher risk for ADHD and obesity, but also are neurologically prone to retaining negative emotions and bad memories more than good ones, based on how the brain works.

Yikes!

Now, we have no choice. Good sleep habits — both for yourself and the kids — is not just a luxury but a key integral element of the quest for our family’s happiness!

So this week let’s simply focus on sleep…

Note: This article is not about sleep training your baby — for that I refer you to Heather’s wonderful guide of 62 Tricks to Get a Baby Sleeping (it’s even formatted exclusively for sleep-deprived parents!)

This article is more about changing our mindset about sleep and creating some good sleep habits for the whole family to last a lifetime, ultimately paving the way for long-term happiness.

Alright, let’s dive in.

Importance of Sleep: Why Sleep is Not Just a Luxury, But a Necessity

Unless you live on a desert island completely cut off from the modern society, chances are, you have more to do than the number of hours to do them in. With that kind of time economics in play, it is rather easy to fall into the trap of thinking that sleep is a luxury enjoyed only by the unambitious, the unproductive or the uninteresting folks.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth!

I’m learning that sleep is more of a necessity than a luxury for far too many reason than I can list here, but the ones I found most interesting are – [Read more…]

Raise your hands if you think your kids have way more Stuff – toys, clothes, books, trinkets, gadgets – than they need…

I bet most of you mentally raised your hands, right?

It seems to be the case in most households these days!

We try not to indulge our daughter with too much Stuff, but honestly, she has way more things than what a child really needs.

And I am not alone. I see the same thing in most of my friend’s families. While most of us agree that we don’t want to spoil our kids (or ourselves for that matter!) with too much Stuff, it seems like somehow Stuff finds its way into our houses. After all, we all work hard to earn some money, what’s the harm once in a while in spending a little to buy something that makes us or our kids happy, right? And before we know it, there’s Stuff everywhere.

Well, intentionally or not, we are going about this all wrong. Behavioral scientists and researchers have shown time and again that while the old adage “Money can’t buy happiness” is not necessarily true, buying more and more Stuff is definitely not the way to go. If you do want your money to buy happiness, then the key is to spend it correctly.

And what is that correct way? And why? How do we incorporate this into our families? [Read more…]