The Neuroscience behind the ‘Parenting Paradox’ of Happiness

The Neuroscience Behind the 'Parenting Paradox' of Happiness

TO Anthony Vaccaro edited by Daisy Yuhasz

Deciding whether to have children can be one of the most important decisions a person makes. Countless factors can influence this choice. How will this affect your finances, relationships or career? Do you feel pressure from your family or society? But one of the simplest and most personal considerations is whether and how having a child will affect a person's quality of life.

Here, psychologists studying well-being are faced with what is sometimes calledparadox of education“: Parents report lower mood and more stress and depression in their daily lives than adults without children; however, parents also tend to report higher satisfaction with life in general. How can we understand this discrepancy?

My colleagues and I have conducted research that may help us answer this question and, in the process, highlight the complexity of what makes a good life. I am a neuroscientist specializing in emotion and want to use brain science to understand sloppy and the complex feelings that people experience in modern life. Feelings like the bittersweet joy of remembering an ex, the simultaneous excitement and fear of performing, or ambivalence about big life changes aren't easily measured by the positive-negative scales that scientists use in research—but they can still tell us a lot about how we process emotions when it matters most. During my postdoctoral training, I worked at the University of Southern California at laboratory focused on the parent brain. This team followed a group of first-time fathers throughout their partners' pregnancies and their development as parents. I realized that studying these new fathers over time would give me the opportunity to figure out how parenting relates to living a meaningful life and what happens in the brain when people's lives change.

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Focusing on “meaning in life” allowed me to explore an aspect of well-being that goes beyond daily stressors, because parenting is known to be stressful. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what the meaning of life is, but in psychology it is measured by people's subjective reports that their lives are coherent and have an overarching purpose. This abstract feeling of “everything makes sense” has been shown to be a powerful predictor of overall well-being and mental health, even when people are going through objectively difficult times. People who feel more meaning in life are often more resilient to more severe mental health problems that can arise from adverse events such as global pandemics, serious illness And war traumaresearch has shown.

In our study, my colleagues and I predicted that most new fathers would report an increase in value approximately six months after the birth of their first child, compared with their reports during their partner's pregnancy. Instead, among the 88 fathers, we found a roughly equal split among those whose sense of meaning increased or decreased. Apparently, only about half felt their lives had more purpose because they became parents. But this was only the first of several important discoveries.

Of our participants, 35 agreed to undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans both before and after the birth of the child. We used these brain scans to calculate how synchronized each part of the brain was with the rest. In people with strong functional connections, when activity increases in one area, it also increases in the rest of the brain. Other scientists have conducted fMRI studies on hundreds of people and found that the intervention is effective. associated with increased meaning in lifeThis may be because greater connectivity in the temporal lobe and other areas of the brain associated with emotion allows for better integration of emotional, egocentric, and abstract thinking.

We wondered if this connection is changes during a major life event such as the birth of a child, and if so, whether it relates to a sense of meaning and purpose. By comparing snapshots before and after our participants became fathers and analyzing people's reports of their experiences, we modeled whether functional changes in different parts of someone's brain predicted either their sense of meaning in life or their (positive or negative) feelings about parenting.

People with positive parental feelings showed more connectivity changes in parts of the brain that are important for self-control (middle frontal gyrus) and empathy (supramarginal gyrus). Children with more negative parental feelings showed changes in the sensory cortex and cerebellum, which may be associated with hyperemotional sensitivity to sensory information. (If a baby's crying always triggers a hyperstress response, parenting will be very difficult.) Meanwhile, fathers who maintained or strengthened their sense of meaning showed increased brain connectivity in areas such as the insular cortex and the temporal pole. These areas are critical to integrating a person's emotions and feelings with their broader sense of identity, suggesting that fathers who engage more effectively in this contextualization process at this new stage of life tend to thrive.

Given these differences, we can begin to think more deeply about the paradox of parenting. A father may feel overwhelmed by sleepless nights, but still experience it as part of a meaningful existence. In other words, complex emotions that people experience in the short term may become independent of long-term feelings of satisfaction, perhaps because different brain processes underlie them. Without this cognitive translation, everyday stressors may dictate overall feelings of well-being, and the mix and shifts between positive and negative parts of parenting can make these fathers' lives generally disjointed. Integrative regions such as the temporal poles and insular cortex allow both positive and negative events to combine with each other, potentially forming a structure that promotes long-term well-being.

This distinction fits into a larger body of research about how people create what scientists call a “coherent self-narrative,” or the story people tell about themselves. For example, past studies found that simply viewing oneself as being on “The Hero's Journey Increases Resilience. When someone can put their feelings into a story that makes sense to them, it may not matter whether a particular situation is positive or negative as long as it aligns with their long-term goals. It seems that the answer to whether parenting makes people happier has less to do with the children themselves (sorry, kids) and more to do with whether that goal of parenting is aligned with the individual person.

A recent analysis of a dataset covering German adults from 1984 to 2021 did find: no average difference in the well-being of middle-aged adults with or without children, although there was greater variation among parents than among non-parents. What was really interesting, however, were the results among young people. The most important factor in understanding their well-being was not whether they had children, but the importance they placed on target have children. Childless young people who placed a high value on having children experienced lower life satisfaction as they aged—If their awareness of the importance of this goal remained high with age.

But there were such people in the minority. Most of these child-free adults downplayed the importance of this goal as they grew older, and their happiness then was no different from the happiness of adults with children. This finding may highlight an implication for the fathers in our study and for those wondering whether they want children: meaning can be created regardless of the choices made. An adaptive brain can change routes, reframe stories, and help people thrive even when life throws us an unexpected curveball—or a screaming baby at two in the morning.

Are you a scientist specializing in neuroscience, cognitive science or psychology? Have you read a recent peer-reviewed article that you would like to write about for Mind Matters? Please send proposals to Scientific AmericanMind Matters Editor Daisy Juhasz on [email protected].

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