Want to Be Happy? Be a Mother

If you go by the loudest voices online, you would think motherhood is a trap. You’ll hear about the sleepless nights, the financial cost, the lost freedom, the supposed burden of carrying someone else’s needs before your own. Marriage fares no better in the noise. It is painted as outdated, or worse, a cage that benefits men while draining women.

But data tells another story. In March 2025, a nationally representative survey of 3,000 American women aged 25 to 55 revealed something unexpected. Married mothers reported higher levels of happiness than unmarried women, whether with children or without. Nineteen percent of married mothers said they were “very happy.” That figure fell to 13 percent among unmarried mothers, 11 percent for married women without children, and 10 percent for unmarried women with no children. These results held steady after adjusting for age, education, and income.

This is not an isolated finding. The General Social Survey, one of the most respected trackers of American life, consistently shows that parents who are married report higher happiness than peers who are single or childless. Another recent study found that mothers with partners were less likely to struggle with frequent depression or anxiety.

Why does this happen? Because happiness is not the absence of stress. It is the presence of meaning. Married mothers in the survey were the most likely to agree that their life had a clear sense of purpose. Nearly three in ten said so. Among women without children, only about 15 percent agreed. Motherhood is exhausting, yes. But it is also grounding. It gives you a stake in the future that cannot be replicated by a promotion or a bigger apartment.

Marriage adds another layer. Married women were half as likely to report being lonely compared with single peers. They were also more likely to say they received regular affection and physical touch. And touch matters. It reduces stress, strengthens trust, and provides a sense of safety. In the same survey, 22 percent of women who experienced frequent touch described themselves as very happy. Among those who lacked it, only 7 percent did. That is not a small gap.

The cultural narrative that marriage and motherhood make women miserable is doing real damage. Across all developed countries, fertility rates are at record lows. Much of this decline is rooted in pessimism, amplified by social media that thrives on cynicism and fear. Meanwhile, loneliness is spiking. AI boyfriends and girlfriends are marketed as a replacement for human connection. But no matter how responsive an algorithm is, it cannot hug you back.

It’s worse in Europe and Asia, countries like South Korea and Japan face shrinking populations as younger generations delay or abandon marriage and parenting. Africa remains younger and more fertile, but even there, urban youth absorb the same narratives through TikTok and Instagram. A generation is being taught that the path to freedom lies in avoiding family life. Yet surveys and lived experience suggest that those who do embrace it often report more satisfaction, not less.

Of course, not every woman must be a mother. Not every marriage thrives. There are abusive unions, crushing responsibilities, and economic realities that make family life difficult. These are not to be dismissed. But they do not erase the larger truth emerging from decades of research: when it is chosen freely and nurtured with care, motherhood and marriage can add profound meaning to life.

In the Atlantic piece that sparked this reflection, psychologist Jean Twenge admitted that no one had told her, before she had children, about the deep sense of purpose parenting gives. She had heard plenty about tantrums and fatigue. No one mentioned how raising a child makes even the smallest daily acts feel important. She wrote that the purpose she discovered in motherhood dwarfed every professional milestone she had ever reached. That is a striking confession from a successful scholar.

So if you are a young woman today, drowning in hot takes that insist motherhood is misery and marriage is a scam, here is an alternative: those who walk that path are often happier. They are more likely to say their lives feel meaningful. They are less likely to feel chronically lonely. They report more satisfaction than their peers who believed the narrative of despair.

That doesn’t mean everyone should choose it. But if you want it, do not let the noise scare you away. The world needs mothers. More importantly, you may find that you need motherhood too.