atorm comments on Parenting and Happiness - Less Wrong Discussion
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Why are you having kids?
Because I want to? It's not really easy to figure out the true reasons for why one does something (there's a high probability of rationalization), but probable reasons include:
(Yes, some of those reasons could be described as "because it will make me happier")
Here's a few more:
Parental happiness comes from these factors, but only if you first care about these factors independently of the effect on your happiness.
I plan to because I appear to have a very strong reward circuit around children (especially happy children). I quite literally enjoy a child's smile more than any food I have ever eaten, for example.