Scribblings

My Computer Back & Depressed Parents

YAY! Thanks to TB, I have my computer back and it's working great! It had been running slow and frequently was out of virtual memory so we figured I needed a new hard drive. So we got one and TB installed it and the only thing we had to wait for was all those files to copy over to the new drive.

When I finally got online, I caught up on my email and then read news stories. This headline really tickled me:
Kids Often Depress Parents. Really, ya think? And it turns out that parents are more prone to depression than adults who don't have children. Well, I don't think you'd need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out!

I don't think that kids deliberately set out to make us parents miserable; we don't set out to make our kids miserable. No, seriously. But common sense is going to tell you that this is going to happen and that it's a part of life. And of course parents would have a greater tendency to become depressed. Think about it: we love our kids, we want the best for them and when we see them suffer or make bad choices it makes us sad. With enough frustration and sadness there, it's no surprise we get depressed.

Adults who don't have children have themselves to worry about and any pets. They don't have these issues: worrying about the safety of their kids when they're out of the house, worrying about whether they'll get into drugs or alcohol, hooked up with an abusive person, drop out of school, get in a car accident....okay, we're getting extreme here. But it is very stressful to raise kids these days. It's hard work. If you have a kid with a difficult or rebellious nature then just day to day living can be stressful.

There are lots of great reasons to be a parent. But in and of itself, parenthood won't improve your mental health -- or your relationship with your spouse, says psychologist (and parent) Susan Jeffers, PhD. Jeffers, best known for the self-help classic Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, is the author of I'm Okay, You're a Brat!: Setting the Priorities Straight and Freeing You From the Guilt and Mad Myths of Parenthood.

"Society tries to tell us parenthood is the greatest fulfillment of all times," Jeffers tells WebMD. "That is not true for a majority of people. One can find wonderful things about having children. But people are not talking about the negative effect it has on your life. And it is very hard on relationships."

It's not just the wear and tear of having an infant, Evenson and Simon find. Parents are more depressed than nonparents:

Even when their kids have grown and left home
Even when they do not have custody of the children
Even when they adopt
Even when they become stepparents
"You lose your peace of mind, your extra money, your privacy, and on and on and on," Jeffers says. "The worst part of it all is how much you love them, because you worry a lot and you have to keep learning to let go and let go and let go."

This doesn't mean parenthood can't be extremely rewarding, Jeffers notes. It just means that having children doesn't automatically make life more meaningful.

I've been reading Dr. Phil's book and he lists a statistic: parents surveyed were asked would they have children again if they had to do it all over again. One-third said no.

Shoot. I'd do it again, depression and all. It's worth it.

Thursday Threesome