Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Yesterday we celebrated mothers everywhere, but today we are going
to talk about parenthood, motherhood and happiness. Specifically a viral
claim by one of the world's most popular things right now,
Chapel Rohan that quote, all of my friends who have
kids are in hell? Close quote. Is motherhood really hell
on Earth? Or is there something deeper going on? This
(00:28):
is the Happy Families Podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every day
on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and
Kylie Coulson. Kylie, here's the actual quote.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
All of my friends who have kids are in hell.
I actually don't know anyone who's like happy and has
children at this age. I have like one year old,
like three year old, four and under five and under.
I literally have not met anyone who's happy, anyone who
has like light in their eyes, anyone who who's slapped.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh it was Mother's Day yesterday, Kylie, talk about my bood, Honey,
do you feel like you're in hell?
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I mean six kids? Am I right?
Speaker 4 (01:05):
It depends what day?
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Okay, So maybe maybe chapelone has a colonel of truth here.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I think that if we are having children because we
think they're going to make us happy.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Oh no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
That's the wrong reason. I think about that moment that
I became a mum so many times, and the indescribable
joy I felt after going through the most excruciating pain
of my life is so hard to articulate, and going
(01:40):
back five more times and going through the same process
each time, and wondering what the heck am I doing
here again, and yet meeting that little human being for
the very first time, and knowing that they not only
were a part of me, but that I created This
is so profoundly impactful in every conceivable way. And the
(02:04):
joy that I experience sometimes because of how hard it is, literally,
because of how hard it is, I can't imagine doing
life without them.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I love the way that you articulate that. As a dad,
being in the labor room with you and going through that,
some of the most profound experiences, literally the most profound
experiences of my life have been supporting you as you've
labored to bring our children into the world. When I
think about this quote, this thing that she said. Opinions
are a lot like social media accounts, right, Like everyone
(02:37):
has on or a podcast, and the loudest ones quite honestly,
rarely have the credentials to back them up. So here
we have somebody who is saying no, not a parent
myself don't really know, but from what I'm seeing it
must be hell and just I don't know. So what
I thought we would do today, I mean, you bring
all the heart and you already have and we're going
to come back to that shortly. But because of my
(02:59):
PhD in psychology, I.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Can't help but look at data.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
That's where I go, and I think that there's value
in having a look at whether or not the data
backs her up. Then we'll talk about the experience a
bit more so. First point that I not just want
to I need to make, and that is that there
is a there is a happiness gap. The data contradicts
the narrative that chapel Rone is pushing. We don't have
Oossie data on this because in Australia we just don't
(03:22):
collect that much high quality data compared to in the
US they collect.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
It all the time, all over the place.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
But US data finds that twenty one percent, twenty one
percent of married mum's report being very happy. Okay, so
that's a pretty low percentage. Only one in five say yes,
I'm very happy, versus just ten percent of unmarried childless women.
So that's still twice as many. It is a low percentage,
(03:49):
but it's twice as many. And here's the demographic that
chapel Rone represents. This is the one that I'm most
interested in. So we've got unmarried childless women. They report
the highest levels of unhappiness at four four percent, saying
they are quote unquote not too happy. And if we
dig a little deeper into the data, married parents have
a significant happiness advantage thirty seven percent of them, so
(04:10):
about two in five say that they are quote very happy,
compared to unmarried parents, who are only sixteen per cent
of them say that they are quote very happy. So again,
looking at single parenting, I guess, and doing it on
your own versus having the additional support, it makes sense
that that would be the case.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
It it just makes sense.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
And the biggest challenge is in life, we don't get
to just be parents. There are so many other facets
to our lives. It's not like we live in this
little bubble and we get to just parent our children
without any other influence, without any other stress point, without
any other impact to our daily happiness. Sure, so at
any given point we can blame it on the kids.
(04:52):
But we're stressed about finances, We're stressed about money. Our
relationship with our partner might not be strong.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Need a new car, We need.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
A new car. We've got extended family troubles, we've got
friendship issues, like there is always something going on, there's illness,
There's so many things that impact our happiness, and yet
more times than not, we'll blame it.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
On the kids, right right, right, So after the break,
I want to talk about why, why this perception exists,
where it's going wrong, and how we can reframe the conversation.
I think one of the biggest misunderstandings around happiness and
kids is that because it's hard work, people think that
(05:34):
it must therefore not be good. It must therefore be
hard and horrible and misery and why would you do it?
So we've got this cultural obsession with convenience and independence
and effortlessness and ease. I want this, Yeah, this business
class comfort armchair ride on a cloud through life.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
It does sound kind of nice.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Well, we were on a holiday recently and we bumped
into this guy from French Polynesia thirty four years old,
living the dream right, no kids, no relationships to sort
of tie him down, hold him down, and he's just
living his best life ever. And that's the world in
which we find ourselves. And when we were talking to
(06:13):
him about having six kids, we were like, yeah, it
is harder, it's harder to go on a holiday with
the kids, but it's also more meaningful. And the point
that I really want to emphasize here is that mums
and dads, parents generally, may find greater happiness precisely because
it's hard. In other words, the things that should make
(06:33):
you miserable because you are waking up in the middle
of the night to change your wetbed, or because you've
got a child who is dealing with a really big
social challenge or going through some sort of neurodevelopmental difficulty.
That stuff's hard, and it is supposed to make you miserable,
and then you have these moments, You just have these
incredible moments where you go, I am so happy right
(06:55):
now because of the love that I have for this child.
And I think we need to reframe the company station.
These discussions like chapel roans, they kind of pit parents
against non parents, and they also re emphasized this convenient,
easy lifestyle. But what you and I have discovered it
(07:15):
like as we talk about those years where I was
a full time student, we were trying to pay a mortgage,
we had five kids, we had we were living on
absolutely nothing, and we had all sorts of challenges and
difficulties that we were going through. They are the things
that's what bonded us. Like it's the deep bonds. It's
the commitment, the sacrifice that creates the happy relationship. But
(07:40):
you might not get it all right this very second,
but over time it becomes profound. I think we're measuring
happiness the wrong way, Like happiness has been shown to
decline with parenthood since the late nineteen seventies early nineteen eighties,
since Sarah McClanahan at Columbia University did her seminal work
in this area. But I've got several books on my
shelves by people like Roy Bourmaster and Paul Bloom, some
(08:03):
of the world's leading academics, and they say something like this,
parenthood is more than a cost benefit analysis, and happiness
is found not in the ease or convenience of child rearing,
but in the meaning and satisfaction it brings to life.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I think about the most meaningful experiences I've had outside
of my role as a parent. They haven't been the
administrative roles that I have dealt with. They have been
their hands on grassroots, helping people.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah, face to face as people go through hard things,
right and seeing.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Their light in their eyes as they have that Aha
moment and learn and grow and move through life in
better ways, making better choices. Right. So, as a parent,
I have the opportunity to be literally at the grassroots
of this little human being that overtime and develops and
(09:02):
becomes their own person. And I get to be a
part of that. I get a front row seat of
seeing them grow and have that light come into their
eyes when they have those aha moments, you know, the
first time they learn how to tie their shoelace or
the first time they do a poo in the body,
(09:22):
like the joy that they have.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Love, how excited you are about that.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
We might we might have a toddler going through that
right now. There is just so much joy when they
work something out. Our granddaughter right now is learning how
to match and we're playing memory with her, and she's
just so alive as she learns these skills and the
joy in her face just brings so much joy to me.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
So what you're really saying is chapel roone, you're.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Wrong, you're wrong, you're on, You're rong, you're wrong, you're wrong,
you're on your wrong mother. What is amazing?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I'm sorry, I just I get so annoyed when people
make these blanket statement And it's like people will often
say to me, because I'm out doing talks and what
have you, I say, six daughters or your.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Poor thing, your poor thing. I'm like, you have no idea?
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, I mean financially, yeah, it's it's coming a great
cost financially.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
It's I think that we would live in a very
different house.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And have a lot more money if we had not
had six children.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I'm not going to lie about that, but.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Probably a lot less stress, better, a whole days, the
whole lot.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
But but that's not what makes us happy.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Truly.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Life is about relationships. Relationships at the heart of well
being and my life. And I say this every time
they say you poor thing, I'm like, no, Now, I'm
so rich.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I am so rich. Life is so rich.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Because every time I look at one of these kids
and I smile and say I love you so much,
or they come and give me a hug because I
come in the door and I haven't been home for
three days because I've been off making other people's families.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Happy or whatever. And I just think that's what it's about.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Like, would I would take six daughters every every day
one hundred percent over any other alternative. I live for
it and I love it, and it makes life rich.
I just made it all about me. It's a Mother's
Day review from yesterday. Ah, So, how do you wrap
this up?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Lvie.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I'm not going to have the last word on this podcast,
but we need to close. How do you wrap this up?
In terms of Chapel Roan and what she said about
no light being in the eyes of every parent she
knows raising young children in a.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
World that is very much about me, me, me, me me,
it's so easy to see how having not experienced the
joy that comes from actually number one, creating a human
being and number two seeing the light in their eyes
as they come into their own and understand and grow,
(11:42):
but secondly recognizing that ease over time actually doesn't bring
us the kind of happiness and sense of purpose that
challenges do when our children were young. We set a
mantra for a year I can do hard things, and
(12:04):
we climbed up Mount Kosiosco with four children. Our eldest
at the time was eight. I had an eighteen month
old on your.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Back and I carried the three year old, a four
year old or whatever it was on my front.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
And it was one degree on the summit that day,
and it was a really hard thing. We had to
work at that. We had to plan, We had to
practice with these kids, helping them to you know, do
a five k walk on a regular basis, so they
didn't flake when we were walking to that to that summit.
(12:40):
And that day still is emblazoned in my memory with
those kids doing the Toyota Jump for joy when they reached.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
The summit hashtag not sponsored.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
It was just this amazing moment for them. They did
something hard all the difference.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
This popular influencer on Instagram, Tessa Smith, and she posted
a series of images with her young child on Insta
and the caption was just this dear chapel roone, I've
never had more light in my eyes, oh well said.
The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
Bridge Media. More details for making your family happier, and
(13:22):
for more light in your life and in your eyes.
At happy families dot com dot a you