So what if children are 'hell'?

Family is about building something that'll pay off over the long term, not about dopamine hits

Chappell Roan on the podcast Call Her Daddy.

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This week, singer Chappell Roan went viral for saying that all the people she knows with kids “are in hell.” She added: “I actually don’t know anyone who is, like, happy and has children at this age.”¹

The ensuing debate has consumed much of my social media feed, so I’m going to postpone the piece I originally wrote for this week and instead discuss this latest kid-focused kerfuffle.

I will caveat this by saying that I have liked some of Chappell Roan’s songs, while also finding some of her public comments off-putting. However, I’m a middle aged dad and thus not her target audience. This is not about her personally.²

But her comments do raise a useful question: Should the value of having kids be measured, in part or whole, by the amount of happiness those kids bring their young parents? Is happiness the point of having a family?

I am here to argue that it is not. Happiness is lovely and I do think it’s something that often comes from having kids — for me and many other people. But even if we were to concede Chappell Roan’s point and accept that most younger parents are in hell, that does not negate the benefits of having a family. Being “in hell” is not an argument against having kids. And that’s because kids are supposed to be an investment in the future, not sources of nonstop dopamine hits. Occasionally, going through hell is worth it when you’re building something for the long term.

Most of the debate I’ve seen in the wake of Chappell Roan’s comments have not wrestled with this idea. Instead, I’ve mostly seen arguments about whether parents are happy or not. The battle lines in this argument are predictable. Members of the child-free community have sided with Chappell Roan — you can read hundreds of comments on the topic here — while many parents have responded by arguing that they are, in fact, happy.

For what it’s worth, the parents are generally right. Just a few days ago, for instance, the Institute for Family Studies analyzed government survey data and found that “respondents are more likely to assign the highest happiness rating to time spent on activities with their kids (44%) than without (25%).”

“Activities also have a higher probability of receiving the lowest pain, sadness, and stress scores when children are involved,” the IFS piece continued.

The IFS piece went on to conclude that “activities with kids are generally happier,” and that “even if parents are not able to get as much couple time in as before having kids, the gift of time with their kids may more than compensate.”

This analysis indicates that activities are often happier and more meaningful when kids are around. This finding, along with the high happiness and meaningfulness ratings assigned to caring for one's household, calls into question the wisdom of the 'childfree' movement. It's possible that those who forego children in order to focus on their careers or social lives are actually limiting their happiness as a result.

These findings are part of a long chain of research — some of which I’ve previously written about — indicating that most parents see their experience as rewarding and meaningful.

So anecdotal tales of misery notwithstanding, I think the preponderance of the evidence pretty clearly favors the parents in this debate. There will of course be exceptions, both of very happy child-free people and very miserable parents. But overall, becoming a parent does appear to generally convey some emotional benefits on people.

I think it’s easy to understand how that could be true, and how it might also seem like most people with kids are in hell. For one thing, “negative” stories are usually funner to tell. When I talk to friends about kids, I don’t usually mention the simple joy of carrying my 7-year-old downstairs for breakfast each morning because both of us know her days of being carried are nearly over.

I’m much more likely to talk about the time when, as a baby, she threw up in my mouth. Or, maybe I’ll tell you about how my son, when he was 3, would run away and get lost every time he went to Home Depot. Why? Because these are more entertaining stories. I do something similar with my wedding; it was a generally lovely affair, but thanks to an extreme heat wave my wife got heat stroke and spent the entire time gravely ill and throwing up. Also, our caterer bailed the night before. We had a harpist and lovely guests too, but we talk almost exclusively about the chaos. It’s a better story. That doesn’t mean we’re anti-marriage or anti-wedding. Stories are just better when they’re about adversity.

There’s actually a great Florence and the Machine song about this call “No Choir” which begins with the lyrics “It’s hard to write about being happy/cause the older I get/I find that happiness is an extremely uneventful subject.” Indeed.

I suspect this is part of what’s behind Chappell Roan’s comments. Even if 99% of new parenthood were awesome (and surely it’s lower than that, because parenting is often hard), you’d probably still only hear tales about the horrifying 1%.

But this is all a tangent because, again, the thesis here is that happiness is a collateral benefit of investing in family, not the main objective. The real purpose of family (at least in the context of this conversation) is to increase the odds that you will be embedded in a supportive community, including down the road when you need that community the most.

Last week, for example, I wrote about the failure of many older people to step up and be elders to their families. I think they ought to do this out of a sense of altruism. But even to a purely self-interested older person, it should be obvious that they are actually the biggest beneficiary of a family village. A younger mom might be stressed out and exhausted without grandma to help watch the kids, but she will survive. A grandma with no one in her life can literally wither away and die in isolation — something I’ve seen first hand over the years while visiting older people in nursing homes.

Old age is an extreme example because older people are especially vulnerable to isolation. But of course the village-building effects of having kids do not just materialize out of nothing at age 65. For example, my oldest daughter is in first grade. That has plunged our family into a life of PTA meetings, school fundraisers, church activities, Girl Scout cookie selling and numerous other things. These types of activities end up being a major source of social interaction — something that is too rare in the loneliness epidemic era.

Obviously, I didn’t have a kid just so I could talk to other dads at school drop off. And I think some people get uncomfortable with the concept of a mutually supportive village because they don’t like the idea of, say, imposing an obligation on their children to someday do elder care. Family relationships are not transactional or purely pragmatic calculations.

But the point is that building an expansive village that includes people of all ages is the best way I can think of to avoid problems associated with isolation. And investing in and serving other people is a good way to increase the odds that they’ll want to help you — whether your needs are social, emotional, physical, financial or otherwise. A person can expand a village with friends. But family is an especially powerful part of the village because family includes people who are tightly connected and who are young, old, and everything in between. Maybe someday my kids will pay for my nursing home. Or maybe they’ll just bring me cookies, or send me a postcard from their travels. Whatever relationship we have, though, I’ll be grateful they exist.

In that light, happiness or misery at any one moment is sort of irrelevant. I’ve been talking about “building” a village metaphorically, but imagine literally building a house. Is it “fun” to muck around in the dirt to lay a foundation? Is roofing a joy? How about installing a sewer line? Or how about building a company? I know many people who have started companies and they too have had prolonged moments of feeling like they’re in hell.

I think this is what was missed in Chappell Roan’s comments and the ensuing debate. Having kids is not just about the kids or the parents at a single point in time. Having kids is an act of building, and there are many hellacious moments when you’re building anything, be it a house, a family, or just a good life. But that temporary pain is not a reason to desist. If anything, it’s a hint that what you’re doing may eventually lead to something worthwhile.

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1. You can see the full interview here. That link should open up right to the spot where she talks about kids.

2. I’m actually glad Chappell Roan brought this up because it opened the door to this blog post. I’ve also seen people criticize Chappell Roan because she’s 27 but her comments allegedly sound like those from someone who is younger. But look, when I was 27 I had a very similar attitude. So I get it. I’ve come to see that attitude as a mistake and if I could go back I’d start having kids at 27. But I can’t go back, so instead I’m writing this blog to hopefully encourage other people to avoid my errors. If you know Chappell Roan, please send this blog to her.