When studied together, parenthood and happiness form two clearly distinct layers. In the foreground are sleepless nights and financial juggling. Endless negotiations and untimely crying. Pressing doubts and disappointments, real or imagined. The repeated, blunt collision with the reality of curtailed freedom.

At the same time, something solid tends to take root in the background: the conviction that being a father or mother holds a higher purpose that justifies its inconveniences. Maybe it is a sense of transcendence. Or the organic bond of parental love. Or a collapse of the ego, that terrible sense of importance we give ourselves.

Research over recent decades has confirmed what is called the parenthood paradox. It is a robust phenomenon that crosses ages and cultural contexts. With nuances, scientists ask the same question: are parents happier compared with people who don’t have children? The answer is: it depends. If happiness is understood as greater calm and less daily stress, children are clearly contraindicated. But if it is about establishing a lasting purpose that endures life’s ups and downs, having children does not seem like a bad idea.

New publications in recent months help map the inner workings of parental happiness. They aim to better understand why offspring so disrupt everyday well-being and, nonetheless, why it can be worth having them. On average, of course, with all the caveats one might want. From parents who remain zen in the face of a tantrum to others who feel unfulfilled simply for being parents.

A study using data from 10 countries, including Spain, draws on classical Greece and distinguishes between hedonic well-being (more positive than negative emotions) and eudaimonic well-being (something like virtuous flourishing). Parenthood, it concludes, slightly increases the latter — especially among women — and leaves the former almost unchanged (which partly contradicts the parenthood paradox). Its author, evolutionary psychology professor Menealaos Apostolou, explained by videoconference that a key factor in both is the relationship between the father and the mother. In other words, parents will feel better or worse depending on how they get along with each other (or with their partners, assuming they have them), and not so much because of parenting dynamics.

From the University of Berlin, Laura Buchinger emphasizes in another recent study what she calls fertility mismatch: having more children than one would have liked. Parents who planned (for example) to have a single child and, for various reasons, ended up with three. Those, Buchinger found, report lower levels of well-being. Among the rest (people without children and parents who hit their target), differences are not significant.

Incidentally, in 2019 Christoph Becker also looked at quantitative variables. But instead of how many, he focused on when parental joy usually crystallizes: when children leave home. Without the obligation to care for them and as parents age, the hope emerges that children will bring joy and lend a hand in hard times. With the kids emancipated, parents, to put it in utilitarian terms, enjoy the return on their investment.

The Scandinavian exception

Also from Germany, a study published last year corroborated the parenthood paradox “with an especially large sample [43,000 individuals from 30 European countries],” notes its lead author Ansgar Hudde. The phenomenon repeats itself everywhere with one exception: the Nordic countries, where parents are happier both day to day and in a more existential sense. For Hudde, the Scandinavian case has much to do with “public policies that smooth the path to parenthood: better work–life balance, working hours that end earlier, easier access to reduced schedules...” At the other end of the spectrum are mothers in vulnerable situations in eastern Europe. That is where motherhood most shatters peace of mind. “Economic conditions matter a lot, especially when, as is common in those countries, you are expected to work and also take care of the children and household chores.”

From the European Institute of Perinatal Mental Health, Ibone Olza argues that despite progress, in Spain “childcare still falls more heavily on mothers.” She agrees that having children “contains a very deep component of fulfillment,” while also “involving a lot of renunciation and considerable sacrifice,” especially in a society “that makes it very hard in terms of rhythms for happy parenting.” In her view, that parenting requires “presence at a slow pace.”

Olza also laments that “the idea of community as a support network” is disappearing, replaced today by “outsourcing: if you can afford it, you pay someone when you can’t be there.” She says another factor explaining the hardships of parenthood is the “absence of prior caregiving experiences, whether caring for an elderly person or tending a garden.” “Raising children is caring,” she continues, “and those earlier experiences helped us tolerate frustration better and be more flexible. Now it’s common to begin parenting without having ever cared for anyone and with very unrealistic expectations.”

Susana Gacituaga, who offers parent-focused therapy in her psychology practice, says some people come to her as preparation for a child’s birth. “I tell them to wait for the baby to arrive, since they themselves will change and what they do beforehand matters little.” Gacituaga says that when one becomes a parent, one “reconfigures priorities and new fears are activated.” In a way, another person is born from the birth of the child. “But society forces us to remain the same person, and that produces an internal clash.”

In Gacituaga’s clinic, couple conflicts often surface that stem from “opposed parenting models that in turn reflect different ways of understanding life and become evident when children arrive.” Complaints also abound about the small and big worries involved in caring for children. “I try to help them understand and discover that behind all this there is something that provides profound well-being.” Sometimes, she adds, integrating the parenthood paradox requires “deep work.” In that introspection surprising things may move. Things that can help us grow as parents, or simply as people.