MTV’s hitshow Teen Mom follows teenage mothers and fo-cuses on themes of changing relationships, specifical-ly, those of the family, friends, couples and school. The show makes it painfully clear that young parents have to go through so many struggles to raise their children. The latest sociology research shows that not only teenagers but young parents in general are often unhappy.

Mikko Myrskylä and Rachel Margolis, both researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, also agree that we should have babies later. They have published a new study on parenting and hap-piness in the latest issue of the journal “Pop-ulation and Development Review.” In their research, based on a survey of over 200,000 women and men in 86 countries conducted from 1981 to 2005, they show that the satis-faction of young parents decreases with their number of children, while older parents are happier than their childless peers are. The more children young parents have, the un-happier they are. From age 40 on, however, it is the other way round. Then, more chil-dren generally means more happiness.

Ending the children-make-you-happy myth What is particularly interesting about Myr-skylä and Margolis’ research is that the above is true independent of sex, income, or partnership status. Their study shows a glob-al trend and clarifies for the first time the discrepancy between the widespread belief that children bring happiness and the fact that most research finds either a negative or no significant relationship between parent-

hood and wellbeing. “Seeing the age trend of happiness independent of sex, income, part-nership status and even fertility rates shows that one has to explain it from the perspec-tive of the stage of a parent’s life,” says Myr-skylä. Another study into young moth-ers and happiness, published in 2004 and undertaken by Rex E. Culp, Mark I. Appel-baum, Joy D. Osofsky and Janet A. Levy, has a similar outcome. Their research shows that younger mothers are less happy about being pregnant and had less social support. These mothers also reported less support from the father of the child.

All in all it becomes clear that, although doctors specify the ‘optimum age’ for child-bearing between 20 and 35, if you want to be a happy parent with intelligent children you shouldn’t listen to your biological clock until you reach 35. A clear message for the 28 year old woman: stop worrying: take that job and enjoy your career.

Sociology