In Daniel Gilbert’s 2006 book "Stumbling(跌撞) on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital(婚姻的) satisfaction decreases after the birth of the first child and increases only when the last child has left home. He also declares that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids.
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 kids. "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, a sociology professor.
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. 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?
Is it possible that American parents have always been this disillusioned(有幻觉的)? In pre-industrial America, parents certainly loved their children, but their kids also served a purpose—to work the farm, contribute to the household. Today, we have kids more for emotional reasons, but an increasingly complicated work and social environment has made finding satisfaction far more difficult. Raising children has not only become more complicated, it has become more expensive as well. The National Marriage Project’s 2006 report says that parents have significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents because they experienced more single and child-free years than previous generations.
As for those of us with kids, all the news isn’t 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.
小题1:.
What’s the main idea of the book Stumbling on Happiness?
A．Parents are happier shopping than looking after their children.
B．Once they have children, the couples can never be as happy as before.
C．Compared with their childless peers, parents are leading a sad life.
D．The adding of children at home brings down marital satisfaction.小题2:.
. What can we infer from Para.3?
A．The Newsweek Poll shows that people think Prof. Simon’s finding is right.
B．Many people can’t accept the fact that they are not happy with their children.
C．It isn’t surprising that Professor Simon’s controversial research made her famous.
D．Simon’s findings are based on the belief passed down from generation to generation.小题3:.
What can we learn about American’s families in the past?
A．People had very good parents-children relationship in the family.
B．Having children could be partly out of some practical purposes.
C．Parents loved their children but they still asked them to work a lot.
D．Children had to work very hard to make their parents love them.小题4:.
What’s the author’s opinion about having children?
A．The author doesn’t think having children is a good thing to the family.
B．The author feels children make the life of a family happy.
C．The author thinks parenting can still be rewarding in a certain way.
D．The author believes that parents sacrifice a lot for having children.
