OMG thank you. I was obsessed with Arthur Brooks (his podcast, his column, his book with Oprah) but then I heard this podcast and I was SHOCKED.
But then, I remembered the time I recommended his Oprah book to a leadership workshop I was facilitating. Someone looked it up during the break and asked, "Uh... have you seen his other books?" They're ALL conservative topics in the same vein.
I understand what he means, but he's seriously delusional if he thinks that its "something as silly as politics" dividing families. It's actually much larger than politics at this point. It's rights, VALUES, freedom, and believing some people deserve those things over others. The younger generation isn't as happy because life is significantly harder than it was in the past, and then on top of that we have this cultural shift of hate mongering being not only acceptable, but skewing favorable in the polls, and it becomes unbearable and terrifying.
On a micro-level, I'm happy. I live a small life that is aligned with my values and focused on family (not my own, but my sister/mom/dad), friends, my community, and my work does serve a purpose. But on a macro level, I am in a constant state of anxiety because my rights are under attack and the rights of those I love... and my FAITH in humanity is waning.
You may have noticed it's almost entirely men pushing this line. And there's a reason for that: having kids DOES tend to make them happier. It doesn't make women happier. Having kids actually in the house makes both men and women slightly less happy, though women moreso than men. But once they're grown and leave the house, men with kids are happier -- women are not. At no point in the lifespan is any woman happier than one without kids. This isn't something I ever rub in anyone's face or even bring up, unless I'm talking to other intentionally childless people, but the results on this have been shown in tons of studies, and also it's kind of just obvious looking around at people you know.
Check out the chart at the bottom of this page, which is the one that's most fascinating to me: https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-happier-in-the-long-run . Women with kids are about 15% less happy, and that HAS NOT CHANGED since they've been studying it, about 50 years ago. But it's men who have changed dramatically. Kids USED TO make men a lot less happy in the 70s -- but that line just keeps going up, and now fathers are profoundly more happy than mothers, while nothing has changed at all for women. So for all the bitching and moaning they do about feminism and how women's lib has made women miserable, what it actually appears to have done is make fathers far more satisfied and happy with their lives, without much of an effect on women at all!
The reason that aggregated studies sometimes appear to come out showing that "conservative, married mothers" are the happiest of all is that they're not separating out other factors that apply. Married mothers tend to be far richer and more secure, financially, than everyone else. If you hold steady for wealth, this trend doesn't hold, it's just that conservative married mothers have more household wealth than most -- except for those without children of course, who have the most wealth of all. And of course, unmarried, single mothers are the least happy people of all, and the problem is that it's too easy to move from one category to the other, if your life is dependent on a man sticking around.
I'm grateful for you to in unearthing these elements about this author, but want to say I'm happy to, as a liberal, to take advice from either side of the spectrum - as long as it's grounded in solid, non-partisan research - which I think his is. I think that the values he espouses are true, but that family need not be biological. I was part of a strong "second family" of LGBTQ+ folks in Tacoma, WA, and it felt more a family to me than anything I've experience w/ my biological folks... and it seemed to offer so much to the people I met there that were very much looking for this sense of community. All of the other elements help as I can understand the welcome grounding nature of faith, even if I am an atheist. I think a lot of his advice is take it or leave it - ya know? Like these elements help - choose which you want to work on to find your happiness.
Definite bummer about Arthur Brooks. His columns read more general, as in here are some things that anyone can think about when trying to be happier. The pod excerpt seems pretty specific and more biased. Taking just one example, there are many reasons why “family is the most important thing” is unfortunately just not true for a lot of people. Are those people destined to be miserable? No. It feels like a judgmental throw back to conformity at all costs over safety and individual wellbeing. Which is so weird and illogical to me. Good relationships are important and must be nurtured, not tossed on a whim. Why couldn’t he leave it at that?
I loved the family and class dynamics of God of the Woods. It was a 10 for me.
Lol'ing at 'fox in the happiness hen house' tag- brilliant. As a person who is childfree by choice, I am not particularly offended by Brooks' comments. I agree that family is probably very important to overall happiness, and I am not hung up on the assertion that 'family' must inherently mean "including children'. My husband and I and our dog absolutely feel like a complete family, and I have never felt that our own family felt in any way 'less than' other families with kids.
We are super close with my parents, super close with siblings and their partners, so our 'family life' is very rich without children. I can't imagine that this 'doesn't count' towards our own happiness, meaning or fulfillment.
I'm not able to read the "Dumb Job" article in The Cut, but from the excerpt you shared, I could not agree more. I have a well paying career that I love, working for large banks. It has never bothered me that I am not saving lives, that in the grand scheme I am just a cog in a large capitalist wheel. The day-to-day is usually fun, challenging, rewarding, and I am taking on no risk compared to what entrepreneurs take on. It is a wonderful feeling to do a job that I enjoy, in which outside of business hours I rarely have to think about, if I don't want. I dont like that it makes me sound lazy or unambitious, but there is absolutely a peace that comes with "working for someone else".
I resonate with a lot of what you said about interpretation of family and work, and actually see this as a way find common ground with someone who may not share all of my believes/perspective, rather than looking to disconnect and further the divide.
"....that in the grand scheme I am just a cog in a large capitalist wheel. The day-to-day is usually fun, challenging, rewarding, and I am taking on no risk compared to what entrepreneurs take on. It is a wonderful feeling to do a job that I enjoy"
This resonates with me! I feel so lucky and day to day am happy in my job helping others to realize their dreams. I don't need to be the game changer.
OMG thank you. I was obsessed with Arthur Brooks (his podcast, his column, his book with Oprah) but then I heard this podcast and I was SHOCKED.
But then, I remembered the time I recommended his Oprah book to a leadership workshop I was facilitating. Someone looked it up during the break and asked, "Uh... have you seen his other books?" They're ALL conservative topics in the same vein.
I understand what he means, but he's seriously delusional if he thinks that its "something as silly as politics" dividing families. It's actually much larger than politics at this point. It's rights, VALUES, freedom, and believing some people deserve those things over others. The younger generation isn't as happy because life is significantly harder than it was in the past, and then on top of that we have this cultural shift of hate mongering being not only acceptable, but skewing favorable in the polls, and it becomes unbearable and terrifying.
On a micro-level, I'm happy. I live a small life that is aligned with my values and focused on family (not my own, but my sister/mom/dad), friends, my community, and my work does serve a purpose. But on a macro level, I am in a constant state of anxiety because my rights are under attack and the rights of those I love... and my FAITH in humanity is waning.
You may have noticed it's almost entirely men pushing this line. And there's a reason for that: having kids DOES tend to make them happier. It doesn't make women happier. Having kids actually in the house makes both men and women slightly less happy, though women moreso than men. But once they're grown and leave the house, men with kids are happier -- women are not. At no point in the lifespan is any woman happier than one without kids. This isn't something I ever rub in anyone's face or even bring up, unless I'm talking to other intentionally childless people, but the results on this have been shown in tons of studies, and also it's kind of just obvious looking around at people you know.
Check out the chart at the bottom of this page, which is the one that's most fascinating to me: https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-happier-in-the-long-run . Women with kids are about 15% less happy, and that HAS NOT CHANGED since they've been studying it, about 50 years ago. But it's men who have changed dramatically. Kids USED TO make men a lot less happy in the 70s -- but that line just keeps going up, and now fathers are profoundly more happy than mothers, while nothing has changed at all for women. So for all the bitching and moaning they do about feminism and how women's lib has made women miserable, what it actually appears to have done is make fathers far more satisfied and happy with their lives, without much of an effect on women at all!
The reason that aggregated studies sometimes appear to come out showing that "conservative, married mothers" are the happiest of all is that they're not separating out other factors that apply. Married mothers tend to be far richer and more secure, financially, than everyone else. If you hold steady for wealth, this trend doesn't hold, it's just that conservative married mothers have more household wealth than most -- except for those without children of course, who have the most wealth of all. And of course, unmarried, single mothers are the least happy people of all, and the problem is that it's too easy to move from one category to the other, if your life is dependent on a man sticking around.
I'm grateful for you to in unearthing these elements about this author, but want to say I'm happy to, as a liberal, to take advice from either side of the spectrum - as long as it's grounded in solid, non-partisan research - which I think his is. I think that the values he espouses are true, but that family need not be biological. I was part of a strong "second family" of LGBTQ+ folks in Tacoma, WA, and it felt more a family to me than anything I've experience w/ my biological folks... and it seemed to offer so much to the people I met there that were very much looking for this sense of community. All of the other elements help as I can understand the welcome grounding nature of faith, even if I am an atheist. I think a lot of his advice is take it or leave it - ya know? Like these elements help - choose which you want to work on to find your happiness.
Definite bummer about Arthur Brooks. His columns read more general, as in here are some things that anyone can think about when trying to be happier. The pod excerpt seems pretty specific and more biased. Taking just one example, there are many reasons why “family is the most important thing” is unfortunately just not true for a lot of people. Are those people destined to be miserable? No. It feels like a judgmental throw back to conformity at all costs over safety and individual wellbeing. Which is so weird and illogical to me. Good relationships are important and must be nurtured, not tossed on a whim. Why couldn’t he leave it at that?
I loved the family and class dynamics of God of the Woods. It was a 10 for me.
Lol'ing at 'fox in the happiness hen house' tag- brilliant. As a person who is childfree by choice, I am not particularly offended by Brooks' comments. I agree that family is probably very important to overall happiness, and I am not hung up on the assertion that 'family' must inherently mean "including children'. My husband and I and our dog absolutely feel like a complete family, and I have never felt that our own family felt in any way 'less than' other families with kids.
We are super close with my parents, super close with siblings and their partners, so our 'family life' is very rich without children. I can't imagine that this 'doesn't count' towards our own happiness, meaning or fulfillment.
I'm not able to read the "Dumb Job" article in The Cut, but from the excerpt you shared, I could not agree more. I have a well paying career that I love, working for large banks. It has never bothered me that I am not saving lives, that in the grand scheme I am just a cog in a large capitalist wheel. The day-to-day is usually fun, challenging, rewarding, and I am taking on no risk compared to what entrepreneurs take on. It is a wonderful feeling to do a job that I enjoy, in which outside of business hours I rarely have to think about, if I don't want. I dont like that it makes me sound lazy or unambitious, but there is absolutely a peace that comes with "working for someone else".
I resonate with a lot of what you said about interpretation of family and work, and actually see this as a way find common ground with someone who may not share all of my believes/perspective, rather than looking to disconnect and further the divide.
"....that in the grand scheme I am just a cog in a large capitalist wheel. The day-to-day is usually fun, challenging, rewarding, and I am taking on no risk compared to what entrepreneurs take on. It is a wonderful feeling to do a job that I enjoy"
This resonates with me! I feel so lucky and day to day am happy in my job helping others to realize their dreams. I don't need to be the game changer.