“Maybe the problem with the current parental satisfaction discussion is how we view happiness. We expect it to flood every part of our lives all the time, at a high level. We feel entitled to it.
We have also become mothers who are accustomed to having control of our lives – when to marry, when to have babies. I had that choice too. But the greatest lesson of having a child is that you don’t have control.
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I also came to love the way children force you to be present, which is now a tenet of many happiness strategies. A distressed toddler needs you now. Not in five minutes. And I found the required concentration on them to often be a great reprieve from the messy business of figuring out who I was.
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As encouragement to live life to the fullest, my father used to say to his five children that “You only regret the things you do not do.” Happiness studies show that he’s right. In retrospect, many people are glad to have made many of the choices they did, no matter the temporary hardship that may have come in their wake. We live to learn. And you can only learn by doing.”
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