Does having children make you happy? Yes, if you let them | Kenan Malik

A new study suggests non-parents are happier but kids bring great pleasure and joy if they are not viewed as constraints

Children can make you happy. But only once they've left home. So suggests a new academic study. It's the latest in a pile of recent studies that have sought to measure parenting and happiness. While the results have been mixed, most suggest that parents are less happy than non-parents.

The very question "Do children make parents happy?" would have seemed odd a generation or two ago. Having children was simply what you did.