Timeless Wisdom: Happiness Hour - Do Children Make You Happy?
Dennis Prager explores whether children make you happy, arguing that while parenthood involves high-stakes risks of profound misery, it offers unique meaning unavailable elsewhere. He contrasts modern cultural opposition to family values with historical reinforcement, noting how schools and media now undermine home life. Through callers sharing stories of addiction recovery, rare epilepsy, and career sacrifices, Prager emphasizes that happiness is a choice; unlike puppies, children bring both immense joy and potential pain, yet the resulting fulfillment justifies the gamble against societal pressure to prioritize careers over growing up. [Automatically generated summary]
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Yes, it is.
It's the happy.
Hey, everybody, I'm Dennis Prager.
And my friends, this is the happy hour.
Every week on Friday, since 1999, I have never missed if I've been on on a Friday and I am about at least, I would say, 48 times a year.
All right, join me, everybody.
Yes, it is.
And I'm listening to you singing it.
You, my listeners.
That's right, because the happy make the world better, the unhappy make it worse.
I'm going to talk to you today about a biggie.
We need a theme for a big theme.
Yes.
So perhaps I'll tell you what would work.
The end of Tchaikovsky's fourth.
Beethoven's third.
All these, the great ends here.
Some dramatic statement of what I am about to say is big.
I'm not going to say something big.
I'm going to choose a big theme for today's happiness hour.
By the way, you that's Tsaikovsky's fourth.
All right, here we go, folks.
Get ready.
Listen to this.
I have
a question.
All right, let it go.
Sean, you're not a classical music lover.
Did you like this?
Did this stir you at all?
I didn't say you were a hater of it.
I'm just asking you.
I know it's not your first, not most people's first choice.
Did that particular thing stir you?
Oh, good.
Why would you be a liar?
Why would you even lie about whether...
Yes, exactly, but you're not going to lie.
All right, just curious.
All right, folks, here's the question.
Here's the topic of today's happiness hour: children.
Yep.
Does having children make you happier?
That's one of the big questions, Mr. McConnell.
That is correct.
Yesterday, it's ironic that this should happen.
So I train three days a week.
That is when I'm in LA.
Three days a week, I have a trainer.
The three toughest hours of my week, generally speaking, are those.
The reason that I have a professional trainer, so this is a shout out for people having professional trainers, is that I would not do nearly as much on my own.
It's as simple as that.
As soon as I started feeling pain, I would pretty much move on to something else.
If I were in the gym without a traitor, I would saunter from one weight machine to another.
I would never do the weights that they put on me.
I always think it's too much.
And here's the killer.
Then when I've done the too much, they just add another one.
They change the goalposts.
I realize there are no goalposts in training.
You never hit a touchdown.
You never achieve a touchdown.
You never hit a home run.
I know, but I want to get it right.
People may think the guy is confusing baseball and football.
I'm not.
Well, anyway, so my regular trainer just had a child.
So she's on maternity leave.
And I have another trainer, both wonderful.
And she just outright asked, we were talking about it, and I don't remember how it happened.
She said, why have children?
It's a very interesting question.
Why have children?
She does not know me publicly.
That is correct.
Which is actually I'm happy about.
And why have children?
It's a very interesting question, right?
Why have children?
Now, I'm not asking you to call about why have children.
I'm asking about the question, does having children make you happier?
That's the question on the table.
Now, the immediate response of Mr. McConnell was, it depends on the child.
Correct, sir?
Yes.
That's right.
I mean, there's a great deal of truth to that.
It does depend on the child.
And some children make you unhappy.
But when you think about it, that's true about anything, isn't it?
What doesn't have the capacity to make you both unhappy and happy?
If I were to say to you, does work make you happier?
I think the answer would be it depends on the work.
Or it certainly makes me unhappier if I have a terrible boss or colleagues are awful human beings or I get fired.
So my answer to the question of do children make you happy or does the children, nothing makes you happy, you make you happy.
But do children bring happiness is yes, children bring you happiness and they have the capacity to bring you misery.
Not only if they're trouble, but if, God forbid, They suffer or they die.
Right?
I mean, you know, you can never answer the question: well, do you regret having a child now that the child has died?
I mean, it's not askable, of course.
But if you could choose in advance, it would be an interesting question.
And I don't want to get into it.
I'm just thinking aloud here.
You have consciousness pre-birth.
All right, let's just make that up.
I don't believe we do, but just make it up for the moment.
And God says to you, listen, you can have a child, and actually a wonderful child, but the wonderful child will die at 20.
Do you want a child or not?
I would vote for having the child, but I could, remember, it's not someone you know, obviously.
So there's no offense, there's no attachment.
But it's an interesting question.
But I, one of my answers to a young person who says, why have children is, in effect, why have anyone in your life?
Why have friends?
Friends have the capacity to hurt you.
Friends have the capacity to have tragedy happen to them and you suffer.
Why increase love bonds when the possibility of hurt is very real?
And what about growth?
Do you want to grow?
Does growth bring happiness?
Here's another question.
Do you want to die?
And in effect, your epitaph, the description of you will have been, he or she avoided pain.
Is that an important thing?
Listen, I'm not a big pain fan.
Nobody's a fan of pain.
Although, I mean, just ironically, I'll use the example of my working out.
I know that I will experience pain for that hour, and I know that it will be good for me, and I will be happy afterwards.
Those who sow in tears reap in joy.
That is certainly something that can be said about many children.
Not all.
Sometimes you sow in tears and reap in tears.
A lot of people have pain from a child.
I'm well aware of that.
The stakes are very high in having a child.
That's the point.
The stakes are very high.
You can win big and you can lose big.
That's the choice.
But avoiding the possibility of pain is not a good way to be a happy person.
All right.
Do children bring happiness?
Happiness hour on the Dennis Prager Show.
The Dennis Prager Show.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
We're all.
Okay, everybody.
It's the happiness hour.
Second hour every Friday.
What prompted this subject of do children bring happiness was a discussion with my trainer.
She's 25, at least the trainer who was training me while my other trainer is on maternity leave.
And she asked me, why have children?
So many young people ask that, or many don't even ask it.
They just assume it's not worth it.
And I think the assumption is it's not worth it because they see that it's difficult.
By the way, I believe it is much more difficult in the last 50 years than it was the 50 or 100 or 150 or 200 years, or almost all, certainly in America.
It's much, much harder to be a parent today than it was when my parents were parenting.
My parents and their parents and their parents and their parents essentially provided room and board because the culture helped raise their child.
Today, the culture stinks of your children.
The culture at school, the culture of television, the culture of social media.
So you're on constant guard.
And I think that that's a factor, even though people don't acknowledge it.
When my father was a child in New York, the culture echoed the values of the home.
The school echoed the values of the home.
Today, the school is in opposition to the values of at least half of American homes.
Anyway, there are a lot of reasons I think people see parenthood as just difficult because parents are over-involved in their child's lives so often.
The helicopter parent.
And even if you don't like the word over, how about this?
They just see how much energy it takes up.
It certainly didn't take my parents' energy up.
And no one I know, actually, of the baby boomer generation.
Compartmentalizing Family Pain00:04:32
All right.
Let's take your calls.
And Susie in Thousand Oaks, California.
Hi.
Hey, Dennis.
Interesting topic for the happiness hour.
Yep.
I'm not very happy right now.
When I married my husband, he wanted to have children.
I was never one of those people that really, you know, a woman that really wanted to have children or craved being pregnant or any of that.
But it turned out I was infertile, so we adopted.
In fact, you helped us with the adoption laws in California back in the 90s.
Thank you for that.
But anyway, we adopted two children.
The first one is pretty successful, you know, on her own.
Our second has been addicted to drugs for seven years.
I'm sorry.
I'm just heartbroken because he's not going to have a life.
He just doesn't function.
And if I would have known that he was going to have this for his life, I never would have adopted him.
And I love him dearly, but there's nothing I can do.
Well, there is nothing you can do.
That is true.
How old is he?
25.
And he's been in this cycle for seven years.
All right.
Well, you should know it doesn't seem like it, but there is absolute hope.
So many people do this.
What happens is they then, this is the hope anyway.
One day they simply hit bottom and they say, I cannot live like this any longer.
My suspicion is that he hasn't hit bottom yet.
Yeah, I really want to know what that looks like because we've come really close.
But I thank you for the hope.
I try to keep hope in my heart.
Well, the hope is based on reality.
I mean, the number of people who are sober who are addicted is in the millions.
I mean, I don't offer phony hope.
I live very real.
And you just need to know that.
Is he living with you?
Is he living on his own?
Does he live in a car?
Does he live in the street?
He's in a capture wheel.
We've been in and out.
He's been in rehabs probably 10 different times.
He's in one now.
Well, did you put him in, or did he volunteer to go in?
He did.
He kind of hit bottom on 4th of July, and we picked him up and said, you're not coming here.
That's right.
That is correct.
That is what you have to say.
That is correct.
I can't have him in my home.
I just can't.
No, you can't.
That's right.
They wreak havoc.
That's exactly right.
You cannot have him in your home.
You're doing the right thing.
I promise you there is hope.
I promise you.
It doesn't look like it.
Of course it doesn't look like it with any addict that doesn't, or alcoholic, or gambling addict, whatever it is.
It doesn't look until they're sober, it looks completely hopeless.
I have a dear friend whose sister was living in the street at 40.
In the street.
That's where she hit bottom, and now she is doing great.
The tragedy is the pain of the years that your child is an addict.
And the tragedy for the individual is those years cannot be brought back, and those years are lost to maturing.
So you don't grow.
You are static while addicted.
If you get addicted at 18, like this boy, he is now 25 chronologically, but he is actually 18.
That's the loss.
But people do get sober.
Not everybody.
But anyway, I took that call because I wanted to take, and my heart goes out to you.
You have to sort of, not sort of, you really have to compartmentalize.
And I think people need to put the unhappy things in a compartment, a sealed compartment, so that the water does not seep out.
Little Kids, Big Problems00:13:55
I always have images in my mind of life.
We're a ship.
There are compartments.
The Titanic sank because the compartments leaked water.
They were supposed to be watertight.
You will sink if you allow the compartments of misery to leak.
They need to be placed in sealed compartments.
Dennis Prager, we continue.
The Dennis Prager Show.
Official sponsor of the happiness hour.
You got a good night's sleep.
You are in better shape.
Promo code is DennisMyPillow.com.
I sleep on it every night that I'm home.
I don't take it on the road, I admit it.
Because I can't take that much on the road.
But I would.
I wish I could.
All right.
The question on the happiness hour today is: do children bring happiness?
By the way, you could answer, it depends.
All right.
So then, if happiness is your only guide, should you have children?
I think the answer is yes.
All right.
We go to Alex.
Hi.
Alex, should I tell everybody who you are or do you just want to be Alex?
No, I would love to come out from Anonymity.
Alex Marlowe, editor-in-chief of Breitbart.
Thank you for calling.
Dennis, this is unbelievable because yesterday I was sitting with your wonderful producer, Alan, and we were right next to each other at the White House Social Media Summit in the East Room, and we were just catching up.
And I made an offhanded comment to Alan that I am loving parenthood.
I have an 11-month-old, and I think it's the greatest thing.
I'm 33, and it's my first son, and it is so underrated.
And I had just made that comment to Alan, and it just so happens the happiness hour today is on this exact topic, and I love to share my thoughts.
Good.
I'm all ears.
So if you believe the Victor Frankl axiom that the man's ultimate purpose is to find meaning as opposed to pleasure, I guess the Freudian side, then it's a total no-brainer.
Immediately, the sense of responsibility comes in, and it really overwhelms you.
But the thing is, even for the Freudian side, it has been so fun.
Just every day, if you have not had the pleasure of making your baby laugh, then I feel like you're really, you're truly missing out.
And I feel like as a society, we've kind of gotten a little backwards at this point where we focus so much on career early on in those key childbearing years for women in particular and years where men are very high energy and can do things late into the night or early in the morning.
And I do think we're kind of a little bit off kilter here.
And I'm trying to use the platforms I have to encourage people to just start earlier because it really gets my wife's a medical doctor and she's 32.
And we're already thinking about biological clocks because after 35, it becomes more dangerous and exponentially so after 40 if it's even possible.
And I think society, particularly Judeo-Christian communities, I really think we need to start encouraging our younger people to get married and start families earlier on, even if you're not quite as far along in that career as you want.
And I think this kind of goes hand in hand with the broken education system where we're all coming out with huge amounts of debt and it's slowing the start of families.
And that's a massive problem to me.
I agree with every word you said.
Now, allow me to present, since it's just the happiness hour, and I won't talk social policy, the happiness hour is about the question, do children bring happiness?
So I have no doubt that there are people listening to you, you who are 33 years old with an 11-month-old child, and saying, yeah, of course that's true when they're 11 months old.
As My late father-in-law would say all the time, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems.
It was like a constant mantra in his life.
So obviously, there are kids who are, and I know of such people, who are constant joys throughout their life to their parents.
There are also kids who are constant pain.
Literal, I mean, just pain to their parents.
So I want to put both in the meter here and then see where the needle goes.
I think the needle goes to having children despite the fact that there could be terrible pain there.
Obviously, you agree with me, but the example that you're giving isn't persuasive to the parent with a painful child.
Sure, but I think that you have to make a bet.
You have to make a gamble.
And because if you have a child that's already painful, it's so heartbreaking, but you had already decided.
And I think that I wanted to use the opportunity to speak to you, Dennis, to make the case to people.
My sense is now more so than when we chose to attempt to have a child.
I feel like the bet was a safer bet now.
And of course, granted, I'm only 11 months into the process, but I would like to have more children based off of this time than I had originally thought.
And of course, this is a yeah.
Listen, I'm honored you called and that you listen, and I agree with you.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
It's a great product.
Sleep is important.
I'm Dennis Prager, the happiness hour.
Alex Barlow and his colleagues at Breitbart are among the most impressive people I know.
He was 33.
He is 33, and you heard his thoughts.
And it was not political at all.
He called in because he listens, apparently, to the show.
Very touched.
And he just became a parent.
The question on the happiness hour today is, do children bring happiness?
The obvious answer is it depends.
There are children who bring misery.
I mean, everybody knows that.
So you could say the same thing about marriage.
Does marriage bring happiness?
Some marriages, many marriages bring misery.
So what, but what is your choice?
Even just from the happiness, just from the happiness standpoint, forget virtue, morality, social constructs.
Forget all that.
Happiness is not attained by playing it safe.
Yep, if you never marry, you certainly can't have the pain of divorce.
If you never have a child, you certainly can have pain from children who get in trouble.
That's correct.
Okay.
I agree.
I agree.
That's obvious.
And I've been divorced and I've had child trouble.
I thank God right now.
Things are great.
I've been through it all, and I am a passionate advocate of both parenthood and marriage in the reverse order.
Parenthood after marriage.
It never occurred to me even, oh, it might bring pain.
Because my answer was always, so what?
It's tell me what brings what brings what is only capable of bringing happiness.
Is there anything?
I can't name something that can only bring happiness.
Yeah, puppies.
That's right.
Okay, fine.
You're right.
Puppies is right.
No, no, it's not a foolish statement.
That's one of the reasons people are puppy crazy.
There's guaranteed, I mean, until the puppy dies, by the way, is a very, if your eggs are in the puppy basket when the puppy dies, you're in for a loop.
Craig, Walla Walla, Washington, thank you for calling.
Hi, Dennis.
You make a wonderful contribution.
I had to call in response to that dear lady whose son was a drug addict and to tell her that there is life after drugs and most people will recover from it.
I was an all-American kid.
I played a professional sport for seven years, got hurt, went into law enforcement, got hurt again, broke my back and both my legs, did some brain damage, had to learn to walk again.
And by the time that process was over, I was a full-blown drug addict, and I was cut off from pharmaceuticals, so I went into heroin and cocaine.
And I spent seven and a half years in hell, and a couple of times had almost given up because I was afraid I was truly an addict and I was never going to recover.
And in April of 1986, something changed, and I have not touched anything since then.
I just turned 70 years old.
I'm heavily involved in my community.
I'm conservative.
I go to church.
I contribute to Christian Aid Society and some other things in the Salvation Army.
I have a wonderful wife.
I have a wonderful family.
I have a wonderful home.
I have a wonderful business.
I'm as happy and clean as a person could be.
I want her to take heart.
That can await her son as well.
God bless you.
God bless you.
What a beautiful call.
He's right.
That's exactly right.
Oh, Kodoki, everybody.
And let's go to Nick in St. George, Utah.
Nick of St. George.
Hi.
You remember a couple years ago, you remember a couple years ago, there was someone on your show who maybe was an author or something who said that parenthood is all joy and no fun.
Or maybe it was the other way around.
I can't tell you.
No, no, no.
It wasn't the other way around.
You got it right.
Okay, so that was right about the time that we have our first son.
So I'm 33 years old, married with three boys, and the oldest is six years old.
And this week, they're out of town.
So I'm at home by myself.
You'd think that I would just be as happy as can be because I get to do whatever I want, but I'm having fun because I get to do what I want, but there's no joy.
So what I'm finding out is that the family and the children is all the joy.
And I mean, it's not all the time that there's no fun with the family, but it's a lot of hard work.
But the real joy in life comes from having a family.
Are you Mormon?
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
No, I just assumed, I mean, the combination of Utah 33 and three kids, it's not exactly detective work.
So, listen, I salute you.
I am a big fan of LDS.
You've created beautiful lives for the vast majority of your adherents.
It's very impressive.
Very impressive achievement.
Latter-day Saint Church Mormons.
It's a very intelligent call.
Listen, the way he spoke, he's 33.
I'm telling you, my friends, a 33-year-old who's neither married nor kids doesn't sound quite like him in most cases.
There isn't a married human being who can deny that marriage matured them, even if the marriage was awful.
But there is no aim to grow up.
There is aim to be career success.
And that's why there's going to be a lot less happiness in the society.
The Dennis Prager Show.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Happiness Is a Choice00:03:25
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Dennis Prager.
The happiness hour subject is do children bring happiness.
Such great calls.
Oh, I can't tell you how grateful I am to you folks.
You pour your hearts out and your minds.
Okay.
Maple Valley, Washington.
Betsy, hi.
Hi, Dennis.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
My mother is a massive fan.
I just wanted to call and say, absolutely, children bring happiness.
My daughter has a very rare epilepsy disorder, and she has seizures every single day.
She's only two years old, and every day she brings me happiness.
Not one day goes by that I'm not so happy that she is part of my life.
Wow.
Well, that's very powerful.
And we found out when I was 20 weeks pregnant that something was going to be wrong.
Doctors told me to have an abortion.
People in my life told me to have an abortion.
And my husband and I decided, you know what?
That's not our choice.
She's going to be part of our life.
However, that happens.
And since having her and her seizures every day, I have another little girl who is four months old.
And it's challenging.
It's difficult.
And through all the pain, no matter what, it still is happiness at the end of the day.
You're a remarkable and wonderful person.
And I believe you.
Anyway, you know, folks, one of my themes is happiness is a choice.
Lincoln put it that way.
What is it?
We choose to be happy.
I forgot his language.
Oh, yeah, you're as happy as you choose to be.
And he had a very, very difficult life, personally and professionally.
His country was killing each other.
Murdering, well, not killing, not murdering, but killing each other.
Kim, Fremont, California.
You don't have much time, but I want to get your call.
Hi, Kim.
Hi.
Hi.
My son is an alcoholic.
And I wanted to tell the mother who's going through this, what made my son become sober was me letting him go.
Good.
I got to leave it at that.
That's going to give her hope.
We only have 10 seconds.
You folks have been remarkable.
I should do this very theme again.
Letting Go to Find Hope00:01:54
It's really important.
Okay, everybody.
It's time for you to call in now on any subject under the sun, 1-8-Prager776.
May they turn out right.
Thank God for kids.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
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