Are We Happier Without Kids?

Little bundles of joy may not be delivering as much pleasure to their moms and dads as they're reputed to, Newsweek reports. Parents are about 7% less happy than the childless, one study says, while another concludes that "no group of parents reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children."  Are today's parents too busy and bleary-eyed to feel the love, Newsweek asks, or have expectations changed?

Parents once had kids for partly economic reasons—someone had to help in the fields or mind the store—but parents today focus on emotional fulfillment. Yet they are busy working and get less help in raising kids. Still, it's not kosher to complain: "If you admit that kids and parenthood aren't making you happy, it's basically blasphemy," one blogger says. (More father stories.)