Answer

Will Having Children Make Me Less Happy?

You may want children and still feel nervous about what parenthood would change. Less freedom, less sleep, more financial pressure, fewer opportunities. Those concerns are reasonable and they are not imaginary.

They are also one column of the ledger. The evidence and the doctrine both point the other way on the question you are actually asking, which is not “will this be easier” but “will this be better”.

Eternal Truths

Children are described as an inheritance, not an expense. Psalm 127 calls children “an heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3). In that psalm, family life is something built with God rather than in spite of Him.

Parenthood is participation in God’s own work. The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that children are sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents who come to earth to receive bodies and continue their eternal progression. Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught that the family founded on the marriage of a man and a woman provides the setting for children to be born, nurtured and prepared for eternal life (Why Marriage, Why Family). Motherhood and fatherhood are therefore about more than what parents give up.

What Can Make This Confusing?

A powerful cultural message says a good life is one that leaves you free to choose what you want, when you want it. Freedom, meaningful work and personal growth are genuinely good. But if happiness is measured mainly by keeping your options open, children start to look like losses rather than people to love. The real sacrifices of parenthood get magnified until responsibility itself looks like the enemy of happiness.

What Research Shows

In a 2025 survey of 3,000 U.S. women ages 25–55 by Jean Twenge, Jenet Erickson, Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox, married mothers were significantly more likely to report being “very happy” than unmarried women or women without children, even after accounting for age, income and education. That is a correlation, not a promise about any individual life. It does make it harder to assume that fewer responsibilities automatically produce a happier one.

Questions to Think About

• Have I mostly heard parenthood described through what I would lose rather than gain?
• Who or what has shaped my picture of a happy life?
• Could joy actually grow through responsibility rather than despite it?

What You Can Do

Notice this week how the voices around you describe children, and who is missing from that conversation. Then talk with a family you respect about both the hard and the joyful parts. If you are married, talk together about the family life you hope to build. The essay behind this answer sets out more of the research.

Jesus Christ can help you find joy in who you become as you learn to love and care for someone else.