Seen this? Young married couples without children are the happiest of all, apparently. Oh and not living with both biological parents makes children miserable.

[HecateQueenOfWitches]

here

It's bloody criminal the money they're wasting on this.

What would make people happiest of all would be, I imagine, spending the fifty million pounds on things that actually matter instead of a study into what makes us happy.

well IME not living with both biological parents only makes them miserable when the feckless NRP can't be arsed...............

DS's are perfectly happy until he acts like a cock.

Well, quite.

I can't help feeling it's yet ANOTHER 'bash the single mother' thing.

wankers - actually - DS's were equally miserable when we were still together as our relationship was so shite - you can't win can you

Nope.

Although you should not have broken the stick.

Now what will you shove up the arse of the fool who decided to spend fifty million pounds on a happiness survey when the country is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy?

Oh, and the survey shows that money doesn't make you happy.

Funny how that worked out, eh?

Going against the flow. I actually think it's quite important to measure happiness, and try to improve it, better than constantly measuring economic output anyway. I have heard studies say the more equal countries are happier countries so maybe we should try to move towards that.

And, I wish single parents wouldn't see every study that dares find something negative about raising a child alone as a personal attack. I have three children and this research said- "children are more satisfied with their lives the fewer other children live in their household." I don't see that as a personal attack, it might well be true.

It isn't the first survey to show that children are happiest when living with both biological parents and it should be common sense really. I know it pisses off all of the single parents out there, but it is a fact.

Also, it is a little bit more than a survey. You can find out more about it here: www.understandingsociety.org.uk/default.aspx

This is suprising and saddening though:

"Of adolescents, 12% reported being bullied at school and there are no differences between boys and girls in victimisation. Children from step families are bullied slightly more often. Bullying at school has a more detrimental effect on a child than bullying at home."

I guess it shows just how endemic bullying is in our society.

agree with callisto

yes "staitsically" they may be happier - but stastics don't take account of facts

I wonder how many surveys have been carried out on long term happiness in bad relations but parents together, and seperated parents - at differing ages of the child/

I know 20yrs ago when I was 10 the prevailing attitude was "it was good to stay for the children" the belief underlying that being that no matter how bad things were in the marriage it was better for the children to have you living under the same roof than to split up and give them a stable home life (it's the reason my mum stayed with my dad "for the children" - fool).

Of course 20-30yrs ago being a single parent was a much more stigmatised position to be in - unless you were widowed - that was ok. But anything else and it was much MUCH worse for single parents because of the overwhelming majority view. Not just from adults - but children too - I remember a boy in my school who was a single parent family and he was teased mercilessly because of it.

Also parenting styles were often different and there was an awful lot of "not talking about the issues" with children (not just with relationship stuff but in general) so it's not really surprising that many adults of today that came from families which split (or stayed together but were crap) and as such are unhappier.

And obviously children who have just been through a family break-up are going to be unhappier than those that haven't, and even taking an older age group doesn't help as a) the parents may only recently have split b) the child is more likely to be realising some harsh truths about life, and their parents relationship with each other/them

"And, I wish single parents wouldn't see every study that dares find something negative about raising a child alone as a personal attack."

actually, kendodd. I am married.

I notice single parent bashing because it is present all over the place. I see the bias and I see what they (media) are trying to do.

"Britain's happiest couples are married but childless and less than five years into their relationship"

So.. does this mean in order to stay happy, we're to not have children, and divorce at 4.10 years of marriage??

Just because SOME are happy at that stage doesn't mean everyone is.

Wouldn't most couples be happiest if the government wasn't spending that £49 million towards some of these programmes that are still needed but are being cut? Like libraries and such?? I know we would be...

arrrrghhh... and a typo....

that should be "Wouldn't most couples be happiest if the government wasn't spending that £49 million ON STUPID THINGS LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF towards programmes that are needed but being cut...."

sigh...

aggravation always increases the typos....

hurrah for baroque!!

not even reading the article. there are enough people out there to beat me with this rubbish. i don't need to put myself through it.

£49 million would keep a few Sure Starts open. Or help the CSA operate more effectively.

I think they've muddled up cause and effect. Children whose parents have separated may be unhappy but the root cause of that unhappiness is the failure of the relationship between their parents - it's not that they've separated, it's that something went wrong to cause that separation. Parents who are ruddy unhappy but stay together and argue endlessly probably aren't doing their children any more favours than those who separate.

I was happiest before my dcs were born. But I would have been really unhappy if I couldn't have had any children. Statistics are evil.

surely children are happier when their father isn't such a cock their mother is willing to impoverish herself in order to leave him?

or vice versa - just a thought.

are we really helping to pay for this stuff?

Very true, Edgar.

What's with the ginger comment at the bottom?

Anyone else think this comment was a little strange:

"The happiest relationships are those less than five years in duration, between two people educated to degree level, who have no children and where the man is employed."

Was this survey done by the "return to 1950s standards society" (or the tories)???

I don't know any couples in this day and age where the female gave up work upon marriage

Well, let's take a look at the evidence, shall we?

We have a tory government
there are lots of cuts - and going to be more
the tories love the husband, wife & 2.4 kids family

And here, coincidentally, is a survey that shows that you don't need money to be happy, professional people are great and children from one parent families are miserable.

Extraordinary.

I always wonder about the children and happiness thing.

If I did a survey it would show absolutely that I am less happy now than before I had children. (2 preschoolers - knackering and frustrating). But I hope that the shitty bits now will be counterbalanced by how it will be when they are adults - and when (probably) they have their own children. Those bits are happy, surely? Are they included in the survey? Because if they always ask people with children at home then that's missing out a huge great chunk of having children - and the bit where the bulk of the work and responsibility have hopefully dropped away.

"Oh and not living with both biological parents makes children miserable."

The study doesn't actually say that...

What it claims to have discovered is that children living with both parents are, on average, going to be happier than those who aren't.

"More likely" doesn't mean "will definitely", there will be plenty of happy single parent families and miserable marrieds out there.

However when looking at these figures it's worth considering something...

Single families will consists of a vast spectrum of "happiness" from the very happy to the very depressed.

Married families on the other hand will generally consist of just families that are the happy ones, as those that are miserable will often split up either because the marriage was making them unhappy or the other pressures that were will tear them apart.

So a lot of the "unhappy" married families that you might have otherwise counted have already split up and removed themselves from that category of the survey. And those formerly "unhappy" married families are now counted with the other "unhappy" single families.

So you've got a built in skewing of the figures that will move a large chunk of the "unhappy" results from one category to another.

And lo and behold that's what the survey shows.

Not cause and effect, but an obvious side effect of what they're counting.

I think I'm missing the point here.

I don't see this as 'bashing' anyone. Perhaps young people, in a relationship. with no children are happiest.

Why not??