I would be really interested in seeing these results broken down by people who have kids and people who don’t, and the first group broken down by the ages of those kids. I can’t imagine that doesn’t make a difference. I’m willing to bet child-free 47-year-olds are a lot happier, even if those who have kids experienced more total lifetime happiness (which I’m not sure is true, but for the sake of argument.) But if I’m wrong, that would certainly tell us something too.
I don’t know about that; I have children, and they’re not a source of unhappiness, per-se. If anything, they’re a constant source of hilarity and while they’re still young, unconditional love.
It really is an apples and orange sort of comparison in many ways- I don’t think people with kids are less happy, they’re just a different sort of happy. And I’m not entirely convinced that childless people are necessarily happier- the number of people I know who don’t have kids, but who (rather pitifully, IMO) scratch that family itch with absurdly pampered pets and the like is surprisingly high as well. To me, that implies something is missing in their lives if grown people put that much effort and affection into a pet.
I think you misunderstood. I allowed for the possibility that children not only don’t ruin your life, but actually make you happier. But I’m thinking there’s a certain age, which is not when they’re small and hilarious, at which they can really bring their parents down, and that may roughly coincide with their parents’ late forties. I know I was miserable in middle school, when my parents were pushing 50, and that made them miserable too.
I think that misery is only compounded when you add all the factors in the OP. Like, if you’ve hit a plateau in your career and come to realize you’re never going to increase your income level, you probably won’t feel so good about the college tuition checks you’ll be expected to write in the coming years. Teenagers can put even more strain on strained marriages. If you’re having to deal with your own health problems that are brand new to you and scary because you’ve always thought they were “old people” diseases, having to look at a pouty-faced teenager at the dinner table probably isn’t going to fill you with a zest for life.
A lot of people enter upper management in their mid-40s. Having to juggle that added pressure while dealing with the challenges of a teenager cannot be easy either.
I think if that’s the case, I am REALLY not looking forward to the next few years, considering how the last few went.
Not having kids has some downsides, too. For one thing, I’m not going to have my kids helping me in my old age because they don’t exist.
My spouse and I never had children. On the other hand, between 45 and 55 I had eight of my family die. Combine that sort of die-off with being squeezed from the other end by kids/teens/young adults and you’ll know why that age range is called the “sandwich generation”. You wind up taking care of both young and old relatives. (Unless you don’t have relatives, which can be another sort of stress).
Because we never had children we wound up taking on more of the elder care than might have otherwise been the case, so it’s not like we escaped responsibility in any way.
Starting in your mid-40’s you also start slowing down due to your own aging, but feel pressure to keep up with the younger folks. The result is often lots of stress, lots of work, and not enough sleep/rest.
This post made me happier than I was before I saw it. I’m not alone! I’m 48 and I’m fucking miserable.
I’m dealing with lots of stuff that others have mentioned and a weird complicated case of thyroid cancer. (I’ll be fine - my oncologist told me I was going to die, but not from this. I like my oncologist)
I could make you a list as long as you want of the wonderful things in my life…but still, overall, things kind of suck.
Or the next 24 hours, for that matter.
Is this thing on? Yes, of course there can be downsides to not having kids. I specifically acknowledged this. My hypothesis was that at that point in a parent’s life, the bad may outweigh the good enough to account for a dip in happiness around age 47. If the statistics were broken out as I said I’d like to see, and they showed that, actually, childless folks experience a greater or equal decrease in happiness at that age, then we’d all know I’m full of it. But if the statistics showed this happiness valley happens mostly to parents of tweens and teens, while people who reproduced earlier got hit with the sad earlier and people who had kids later tracked similarly with their kids’ age, and childless people didn’t hate their lives until they were much older than 47 and had no one to wipe their sorry wrinkled butts, then I would be right, wouldn’t I? Sheesh.
Marriage
47 was miserable for me, but I’m an outlier. I was miserable because I was in an hellacious marriage and had to try to tough it out until my younger kid, who was 12 at the time, graduated high school. I was with teens all day–taught HS–and loved it, so teen-age kids weren’t a stressor for me. They actually brightened my life, as did my daughter and my college-student son. I think I would have been pretty happy if I’d been in a reasonably happy marriage to a reasonably normal person.
I suspect for some people, 47 is the equivalent of the “sophomore slump”: you still have a long way to go until retirement age, you may not be where you thought you’d be when kid-you imagined your adult life, yet any dreams of being a millionaire by 40 or starring in a music video or whatever you fantasize about are clearly not happening.
Or it could be that that’s the median unhappy age, and some people hit that nadir at 25 and some at 69.
Eh, my 40s were quite fine, to tell the truth. Still behind my 30s but not by much. It’s my 50s that have turned out not so much unhappy as infuriating.
FWIW, I was a whole lot happier in my 40’s (or now, for that matter) than I was in my teens.
Yeah, it’s called a “mid life crisis”.
I suspect (being 47 myself) that a lot of it has to do with taking stock of where your life is after 20+ years of wherever you are at with career, kids, marriage, relationships, family and whatnot and realizing that your life is no longer about working towards some “future” version of that life. Which is not to say that you can’t change things. But often changing those things require certain sacrifices that people are often unwilling to make. .i.e. tossing away a 20 year “ok” marriage or career to maybe date again in your late 40s or start a potentially financially risky venture.
Basically the realization you can do anything you want to in life, but you can’t do EVERYTHING you want to.
Our (non-US) national most likely age to commit suicide is 49. It jives well with the studies linked in the OP. Being 43, these findings intrigue me.
I’m a father of two. By the time I’m 47, my kids are in their mid- to late teens. By the time I’m 50, they’ll be young adults. I guess one could feel their job in that regard is done, mistakes and all.
Health-wise, I’ve already had to face the fact that I’m no longer young, yet older people tell me that I ain’t seen nothing yet. Aches and pains and pretty likely serious illness loom ahead.
I’m experiencing the first whiffs of ageism, and like health, it’ll only get worse. Here, people over 50 have real difficulties getting employed, no matter their education and experience.
I have only faint ties to my parents, but if I didn’t, the ongoing news about cancer, pacemakers, osteporosis, elderly care plans etc. would surely get to me.
All in all, plenty of reasons to feel like shit.
Too late to edit:
I have experienced mid-life crisis quite strongly, but I view it as a definite positive. Realizing that objectively, one half of my life is gone (subjectively much more than that), time goes faster and faster and my faculties, opportunities and stamina have a shelf life has made me Carpe Diem and prioritize like never before. I’m getting shit done and making dreams a reality.
I’m 41 and I expect to be happier every year until I expire. My absolute worst points, when I truly wanted to die were 13 (severe school anxiety and bullying), 22 (bad breakup and kicked out of home, went on impromptu road trip where I spent all my savings 1000s of miles from home and planned to die), 31 (marital breakdown where all my worst fears and things i’m sure no one would ever believe came true). Around 33 I almost died and some time between there and 38 I really developed the skill to go through anything that didn’t kill me and feel just fine. Right now i’m doing my best in just about every way possible and improve in multiple areas every day. Perhaps I will reach a breaking point at 47. I guess life is worth living to find out.
Yeah…I’m hoping a lot of the unhappiness in your late 40s has something to do with the stress of your parents declining. I’ve dealt with that all the way to the end already, and that at least won’t be putting a damper on my life in 4+ years.
I think you just hit the nail on the head. No one of those issues is overwhelming by itself- as a matter of fact, taken individually, each is pretty tractable.
It’s the combination of all of them hitting at once that tends to make the mid/late forties a difficult time for most people, with (IMO) the parental decline and personal psychological realizations being the biggest two by far.
I think this is a pretty good summary with the parental caretaking thrown in. It’s also around the age that a lot of people really begin to feel the effects of chronic illnesses and, especially if they’re lifestyle related, they require more work to keep at bay. Think of heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illnesses, depression, arthritis - many of these require a shit ton of work to manage, but you’re already doing a shit ton of work managing other things.
I think by the time you reach your 60s (again, just an opinion) most people have gotten to the point where they’re not doing constant caretaking, they’re able to focus on themselves more and feel like they have more choice. Again, just a theory.