Let’s start with the obvious: having kids demolishes your quality of life. You sleep less. You spend more. You can’t leave the house without prepping like you’re invading Normandy. And now we saw a headline from The Atlantic: "Having children is terrible for quality of life" — it’s not wrong.
And yet, here we are: two dads in tech, choosing chaos. And loving it. Mostly.
This week, we go deep on what it really means to be happy, why "joy" might be a better North Star, and how parenting redefines every metric you thought mattered.
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Joy vs. Happiness (and why it matters)
"Joy is a decision."
But happiness is circumstantial. It's triggered by events, outcomes, dopamine hits. Joy, though? Joy is deeper. It’s a posture. A state of being. Something you carry even when your toddler is screaming and your house smells like sour milk.
That distinction becomes everything when you're a parent. Because parenting isn’t a happiness generator. It’s more like a soul gym. It breaks you down and builds you up in strange ways. You get moments of happiness (baby laughs, kid hugs, seeing them eat a vegetable), but they’re fleeting. The joy, though—that sense of purpose and meaning? That sticks.
Quality of Life… Depends on Who You Ask
Here's where the Atlantic piece got it right and wrong. If you measure quality of life by ease, freedom, and pleasure, then yeah: kids ruin that. The sleep deprivation, financial strain, and constant emotional labor are real.
But Troy flipped the script: "You measure a quality of life as a parent by different rules. It’s not a shorter or longer stick. It’s a different stick."
A month-long family vacation isn’t relaxing. It’s enriching.
A night alone isn’t freeing. It’s lonely.
A quiet house? Sometimes that feels worse than chaos.
It’s like switching operating systems. The UI is messier. The crashes are frequent. But the long-term functionality? Kinda unbeatable.
Research Backed
Parenthood doesn’t make you happier in the short term—but it can shift your life satisfaction in unexpected ways.
A longitudinal German study by Pollmann‑Schult (2014) tracked over 13,000 adults and found that when accounting for the extra time and financial costs of raising children, parents actually reported higher life satisfaction than non‑parents. In other words: children can increase happiness—just not without trade‑offs. (Pew Research, Institute for Family Studies)
At the same time, broader cross‑national research shows that in countries like the U.S. and Western Europe, parents tend to report lower emotional well‑being compared to childless adults—especially in early childhood years. That gap narrows or reverses in nations with stronger parental supports (like paid leave or childcare subsidies) (PubMed Central)
Another standout analysis (Myrskylä & Margolis, reported in multiple sources) following German parents into the decade after their first birth found that over two‑thirds experienced a significant drop in subjective well‑being—an average dip larger than what people report after divorce or job loss. But—and this is crucial—those who bounced back quickly or experienced smaller dips were much more likely to have more children and reported higher long‑term life satisfaction. (TIME)
Bottom line: The evidence is messy but real: becoming a parent usually means a big short‑term happiness hit—but for many, those very same children bring a deeper, longer lasting sense of meaning and life satisfaction.
The Divorce Dilemma
We didn’t tiptoe around this one. There’s a hard convo here: divorce rates spike after kids enter the picture, and it’s often the hidden cost of modern parenting. Broken family units, when avoidable, can seriously harm child development.
But nuance matters.
Abuse, misalignment, trauma—these are real and valid reasons families separate. We just want to push back on the idea that breaking up is the "normal" or even expected path once parenting gets tough.
Being a parent means being selfless in ways you can’t anticipate. And sometimes, that means sticking it out. Not always. But more than the culture might suggest.
Wrap-Up
So yeah. Parenting might wreck your life, in the best and worst ways. You lose sleep, sanity, and Saturdays. But you gain something more than happiness. You gain joy. You gain depth. You gain a version of yourself that you didn’t know was waiting.
'Til next week,
- Two Dads in Tech
P.S. We love to hear from you. Please reply to this email with your own story, or if you disagree with a take, or if you just want to say hi. We read every reply and are always looking for ideas to chat about in the podcast.