首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Having Kids Makes You Happy? [A]When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we’ll call the Sloans, were the only couple on
Having Kids Makes You Happy? [A]When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we’ll call the Sloans, were the only couple on
admin
2016-08-25
47
问题
Having Kids Makes You Happy?
[A]When I was growing up, our former neighbors, whom we’ll call the Sloans, were the only couple on the block without kids. It wasn’t that they couldn’t have children: according to Mr. Sloan, they just chose not to. All the other parents, including mine, thought it was odd—even tragic. So any bad luck that happened to the Sloans—the egging of their house one Halloween: the landslide(山崩)that sent their pool careering to the street below—was somehow attributed to that fateful decision they’d made so many years before. "Well," the other adults would say, "you know they never did have kids." Each time I visited the Sloans, I’d search for signs of insanity, misery or even regret in their super clean home, yet I never seemed to find any. From what I could tell, the Sloans were happy, maybe even happier than my parents, despite the fact that they were childless.
[B]My impressions may have been swayed by the fact that their candy dish was always full, but several studies now show that the Sloans could well have been more satisfied than most of the traditional families around them. In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book Stumbling on Happiness, the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also finds out that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008’s Gross National Happiness author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.
[C]The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University’s Robin Simon. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It’s such an unexpected finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they’re not."
[D]Simon received plenty of hate mail in response to her research, which isn’t surprising. Her findings shake the very foundation of what we’ve been raised to believe is true. In a recent Newsweek Poll, 50 percent of Americans said that adding new children to the family tends to increase happiness levels. Only one in six(16 percent)said that adding new children had a negative effect on the parents’ happiness. But which parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable?
[E]Parents may openly complain their lack of sleep, busy schedules and difficulty in dealing with their bad-tempered teens, but rarely will they cop to feeling depressed due to the everyday rigors of child rearing. "If you admit that kids and parenthood aren’t making you happy, it’s basically blasphemy(亵渎)," says Jen Singer, a stay-at-home mother of two from New Jersey who runs the popular parenting blog MommaSaid.net. "From baby-cream commercials that make motherhood look happy and well rested, to commercials for Disney World where you’re supposed to feel like a kid because you’re there with your kids, we’ve made parenthood out to be one extremely happy moment after another, and it’s disappointing when you find out it’s not."
[F]Is it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned? Anecdotal(轶事的)evidence says no. In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their offspring also served a purpose—to work the farm, contribute to the household. Children were a necessity. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated work and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. A key study by University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Sara McLanahan and Julia Adams, conducted some 20 years ago, found that parenthood was perceived as significantly more stressful in the 1970s than in the 1950s: the researchers attribute part of that change to major shifts in employment patterns. The majority of American parents now work outside the home, have less support from extended family and face a worsening education and health-care system, so raising children has not only become more complicated—it has become more expensive. Today the U. S. Department of Agriculture estimates that it costs anywhere from $134,370 to $237,520 to raise a child from birth to the age of 17—and that’s not counting school or college tuition. No wonder parents are feeling a little blue.
[G]Societal ills aside, perhaps we also expect too much from the promise of parenting. The National Marriage Project’s 2006 "State of Our Unions" report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations. Twenty-five years ago, women married around the age of 20, and men at 23. Today both sexes are marrying four to five years later. This means the experience of raising kids is now competing with highs in a parent’s past, like career wins or a carefree social life. Sending bad-tempered kids to school or dashing to work with spit-up on your favorite sweater doesn’t turn out to be romantic.
[H]For the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming(弥补的). As for those of us with kids, well, the news isn’t all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who’ve never had kids. And there are other rewarding aspects of parenting that are impossible to quantify. For example, I never thought it possible to love someone as deeply as I love my son. As for the Sloans, it’s hard to say whether they had a less meaningful existence than my parents, or if my parents were 7 percent less happy than the Sloans. Perhaps it just comes down to how you see the candy dish—half empty or half full. Or at least as a parent, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself.
According to the Newsweek Poll, half Americans agreed adding a child has a positive effect on happiness levels.
选项
答案
D
解析
根据题目中的专有名词Newsweek Poll定位到D段第3句。该句提到一半的美国人认为孩子的出生会增加幸福感,题目中的has a positive effect on是对原文tends to increase的同义改写,故选D。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/tQY7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
TheThree-YearSolutionA)HartwickCollege,asmallliberal-artsschoolinupstateNewYork,makesthisoffertowellprepareds
A、Thelackoftime.B、Thequalityoflife.C、Thefrustrationsatwork.D、Thepressureonworkingfamilies.A事实细节题。根据文章开始部分提到的关键词
A、Theperformancerequiredforacertainjob.B、Therequiredbehavior,knowledgeandskills.C、Thetrainingcontentsandmethods
A、Themanhasmistakenlytakensomeoneelse’sbooks.B、Thebookhasalreadybeenreturned.C、Thereisn’tanyinformationaboutt
A、Theydon’tknowhowtogettoMike’shome.B、Theyarediscussingwhentomeetagain.C、Theywenttothesamepartysometimea
A、Enjoyfamilyhappiness.B、Switchtoanotherfield.C、Starthisownbusiness.D、Buildahouseofhisown.A细节题。短文开头提到,thecarpe
A、Theyfeelenjoyable.B、Theyfeelsafeinbigcities.C、Theyfeelunproductiveandlonely.D、Theyfeelfree.C事实细节题。根据“Theyfee
TeachersandparentsnormallycallattentiontothepictureswhentheyreadstorybookstopreschoolchildrenButastudysuggest
Nexttimeyouenterausernameandpassword,thinkabouttherhythmofyourtyping.Notonlycanitbeusedtoidentifyyou,it
随机试题
链霉素引起的永久性耳聋属于()
不属于促进幼儿语言发育与人脑运动能力的发展的方法是()
染料厂女工,33岁,工作8年。近半年来头晕、乏力。阵发性脐周隐痛,可能是
A.从出生到不满2岁B.从出生到不满1岁C.1岁到不满3岁D.2岁到不满3岁E.3岁到7岁每年应定期查体4次的是
女,24岁。头昏、乏力半年,近2年每次月经经期持续7-8天,有血块。红细胞数3.0x1012/L,血红蛋白65g/L,血清铁蛋白10μg/L,血清叶酸16ng/ml,维生素B12600pg/ml,网织红细胞0.015,最可能的诊断是
关于中国古代的司法机关,下列说法正确的有()
对于普通准备金计提基数的确定,()计算出的准备金水平最高,目前比较常用的方法是()。
曹操:张辽:《三国演义》
对“谁的知识最有价值”这一问题关注的教育学流派是()。
以下程序运行后的输出结果是______。structNODE{intk;structNODE*link;};main()structNODEm[5],*p=m,
最新回复
(
0
)