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For Parents, Happiness Is A Very High Bar

From TED 2014


In her new book "All Joy and No Fun," Jennifer Senior explores how children reshape their parents' lives — for better and worse.

Why You Should Listen

Jennifer Senior is a contributing editor at New York Magazine, where she writes profiles and cover stories about politics, social science and mental health. In a groundbreaking, 2010 story for the magazine, called "All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting," she examined the social science around modern parenting, looking at happiness research from Dan Gilbert, Danny Kahneman and others, as well as anthropological research (she was an anthro major) around how families behave.

Her conclusion? Hey, parents, it's okay not to feel blissfully happy all the time. She expanded the piece into a book that dives deeper into the research and paradoxes of modern American parenting styles -- including parents' sometimes inflated expectations of constant awesomeness, meaningfulness and bliss. As she says, "I think of this book as a series of mini-ethnographies -- portraits of how American families live now."

"'All Joy and No Fun' captures the complex texture of parents' lives, the joys and the sorrows, highs and lows, with remarkable insight, intelligence, sensitivity, and subtlety."
— Alison Gopnik