Seen the results of this study on how having kids affect people’s happiness levels. Ireland ranked second last just in front of the US.
Seen the results of this study on how having kids affect people’s happiness levels. Ireland ranked second last just in front of the US.
32 comments
Non parents are just happier because they get to sleep at night
Does that say 10% of non-parents are happier than parents or that non-parents are 10% happier?
Other countries provide better services for their citizens on having children. Here the cost of everything and lack of creches and all terrible work life balance
Got a vasectomy recently for this exact reason. Couldn’t think of much worse than having to raise kids.
What are the units of happiness?
I have no kids and 3 money. Life is good.
Yep, I’m happier with my dog
Cost of childcare is probably 80% of the issue here
When I was looking for accommodation in Dublin I had a parent reach out to me with a digs offer. She had a huge sob story about how they can’t afford the crèche so my rent money was going to pay for it. €750 a month that was an hour away from my college in city centre with young kids in the house….. no thank you.
This is seven years old already it’s probably skewed even more towards non parents being happier now
Probably because childcare prices are astronomical and it’s really hard to get a space in a school at the minute etc I can see why, there’s not very good maternity or paternity leave in place either
Ireland severely lacks services for parents and children
I’m Irish but living in Spain.
When I had my daughter, I initially thought Spain was less amenable to parents. All my Irish family took a full year of maternity leave, I barely scraped together five months. Ireland pays a generous child benefit, Spain gave me close to nothing and only for a short time.
When my daughter started going to a daycare and school however, the comparison completely flipped. Daycare from five months to 3 years old cost me 200 a month, in the most expensive city in all of Spain. In Ireland any rural village daycare would cost a second mortgage. From age 3, school is completely free, and while we pay for meals and supervision in the long midday lunch break, it’s about 100 a month only. In Ireland todau for reasons unfathomable to me, apparently no child starts school until 5, so parents are paying their second mortgage for so much longer than I was paying for my much cheaper creche.
Having seen my family and contrasted with my own experience, I can safely say that whatever the government is paying on massive long maternity leave and child benefit would be better spent on making child care affordable from birth through school.
This is more a discussion topic perhaps, but when I’ve discussed the major cost discrepancy with my Irish family, one thing that comes up over and over is that Ireland has much lower kid-adult ratios than Spain. People in Ireland seem to defend that, but I just don’t. If other countries prove that carers can very effectively and carefully look after a higher number of kids, why not increase the ratios to reduce the cost? I simply can’t justify paying three times the cost out of a misplaced focus on low numbers rather than all the many, proper regulations which ensure safety in child care.
Can’t say I’m surprised. I’m 25 and most of the people around my age that I know that have kids seem miserable. You don’t even get to start your life until 21-22 in Ireland because literally everything needs a degree and then you’re probably waiting another few years to actually get a bit of freedom because nobody can move out unless they’re really lucky.
Have a kid before you’re 30 and you never get a chance to actually experience having a little fun and independance in Ireland. Not to mention that if you have a kid in your 20’s you’re probably having to have it at home and have the grandparents backseat-parent and second guess every little thing you do while simultaneously undoing any kind of actual parenting you might try because grandparents seem to have this complete inability to not coddle and spoil their grandchildren as far as I can tell.
Maybe because we have imported so many of the American work practices , most private sector jobs use you being salaried as a way to load on piles of work requiring unpaid overtime and incredibly high productivity and stress to stay on top of it. Add babies to the mix and it’s mad levels of stress.
When both people work, sit in that commute, go home to make a dinner, clean the house, prepare for the next day, barely get to spend any time with their kids. Lunchtimes sorting bills and things that need sorting. Spend the weekends mostly sorting the house, food shopping. Barely any quality family time. How are people supposed to be happy with that?
I’d also argue that a lot of people here have kids because they feel they have to , or it’s the right thing to do, or before they’re ready or a few other reasons besides actually wanting them.
Irish people absolutely excel at gaslighting themselves
Average cost of childcare per week €187. €810 a month and €9,340 a year for 50 weeks . How do people with kids survive in this country. In continental Europe they have state run child care.
I LOVE being childfree
Clearly, Irish children are terrible
That worked out well since the government made it so that nobody can afford to have a child for about 40 years.
Would love to see the numbers from 2022 after lockdown
As an American and a parent, I can weigh in on the US side of it. I wonder how it compares to Irish perspective.
As an American, childcare costs are exorbitant. On top of that, both my husband and I work full time because we simply cannot afford the mortgage, utilities, and food without it. Childcare is expensive, but because it is less than 100% of my salary, it still makes sense for me to work all the time and then hand over only most of the cash to the daycare.
Every day is wake up early, get the kids off, go to work, work like a crazy person, come home and throw together dinner while the kids are begging for attention, eat, tidy up (maybe? Honestly this is skipped more than I’d like), then we have about thirty minutes for family time before bedtime (unless it’s bath night). Weekends are a mad rush to catch up on house stuff. Anytime my husband even suggests having fun instead of chores, I get so stressed out because it feels like I’m drowning.
On top of that, there are no support networks. My parents still work full time and they live in a different city because I had to move for work. My husbands parents are the same story. And America is so big! They may as well live on the moon.
So, in short: children tip the balance on an already precarious existence. Costs more than double, time was short before but now it’s nonexistent.
Why have kids at all? Well, our country’s fertility rate is plummeting for a reason. But, personally, I’m stubborn and I wanted kids, so here I am. But damn, it is hard. Most of the time, it’s worth it, but the stress never lets up.
“Fecking leeches, the whole half dozen of them” -someone
“You could have stopped having them?” -someone else
I know a lady who really loves kids and wanted a baby. She loved being around her nieces and nephews and friends kids. She had a fantastic life. She saw the kids and spoiled them then she would go traveling, moving around just a really nice time.
She had a baby. Now she cant even leave the house. If the baby is sick, which seems often just because of the age, she has to cancel everything. Shes not with the father, but he is very involved. All she does now is work to provide care so she can continue working.
Jokes on you graph, I have no kids, and I’m still dead inside. Take that
I had 1 at 24 and that’s all it’ll be. I cant afford another and I’m nearly 40 now. I love my kid to bits but it certainly wasn’t easy. I ended up a stay at home mum because no job I could get would have paid more than childcare. I eventually started working from home and now my kid is 14 so it’s a lot easier. The upside of having my kid young I suppose is they’ll be 18 when I’m 42.
Not surprised. We provide no child care and mothers who want to work are forced to stay home. Wait years for schools and facilities to be built around new housing developments instead of them being built before like other countries, no reliable transport so you need a car, low salaries for high mortgages and houses… the list goes on.
This is a strange chart. It implies that it’s a good thing that adults with kids are happier than adults without. But surely the gold standard is Belgium or Russia, where both parents and non parents are equally happy?
That’s because having kids really messes things up. Even though kids can be great and there’s a lot of love and joy, being a parent complicates life, finances and schedules in todays world. That, and the fact that kids are living at home well into their 30s here and a lot of people aren’t wanting to get their drivers licenses until then either. There’s a real lack of ambition for independence in under 35s in Ireland.
Spain and Portugal rank highly on this study. A friend of mine lives in rural Spain and had a child just over a year ago. Something I’ve noticed in Spain is that they seem to have a more child focused society. All the locals stop to chat when they see my friend and his wife out with the baby. The older generation in particular are doting over any child they see.
The Spanish bring their kids everywhere. Families go out for dinner and some drinks and bring the kids. Kids run around on the square at 11pm while parents enjoy their meal. Everyone does it.
Weather probably helps, but it’s just the norm. Seems the nice things in life are easier to enjoy for Spanish people when they become parents. They don’t need to organise and pay for a babysitter to have a meal out.