The headline story on MSNBC this morning heralded the arrival of the Brangelina twins. I won’t go into whether or not such a thing is actually worthy of interest and can be called news, but it brought to mind an article I read recently that questioned whether being a parent was as fulfilling as we are led to believe.

That’s the mantra, right?

Having children completes us as women and enhances coupledom, but statistics don’t bear that out. Marriage/relationship happiness drops quite a bit with the arrival of the first wee one and doesn’t hit satisfaction levels again until the last child leaves home which is age 32 in Canada according to the latest research.

If BabyDaughter lives with us until she is 32, I will be 70 and Rob 72 before we are experiencing that post active parenting nirvana-like bliss. Angelina will be 65 in case you were wondering but she has the means to buy her freedom sooner.

Although Rob did suggest a freedom buy-out yesterday that might be worth exploring.  ElderD is sick of her cat lady roommate and is looking to rent a new place and of course MidKid needs a place, so why don’t we buy a little house in the city and rent it to them?

Yeah, one gets to that point which brings me back to the original question of contentment. Why are we over sold this idea that procreating and parenting bring us happiness when clearly it does not?

Well, maybe it does when you are a multi-millionaire acting couple with the means to purchase all the back up you need (and with six kids under the age of seven – that’s a small army of domestics – although DNOS’s MIL did it without an entourage).

Ordinary folk though? Living far from family. Working two jobs. That’s pretty much the norm now and I guess it shouldn’t be any wonder that as we stray farther and farther from the extended family model couples are less and less enchanted with the myth and feel constrained and stressed by their children.

Thoughts?