It is highly unlikely for one to associate unhappiness or depression with the birth of your first child. In fact the opposite is always thought, as children are symbols of happiness and is thought that it make a couple the most happiest.
However researchers from Germany have some data that says otherwise.
Rachel Margolis and Mikko Myrsykla from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in Germany conducted a comprehensive research, following 2,106 German couples from when they were childless to two years after having their first child.
The results from the study says that more than 70% of the sample size felt depressed and or unhappy after the birth of their first child. Although the results may seem shocking to most of us around the globe, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher tried to rationalize the findings.
“You get some presents from various friends, and then they just leave you alone because they figure you’re too tired and too busy,” describes Fisher of what typically happens when a couple has their first child.
Friends and family automatically assume that the new parents must be busy with their child and hence they give them their ‘due space.’ However this is a negative effect as stated by the study.
New parents often feel isolated from the social point of view, after their first child. Coupled with the physical and mental stress of countless sleepless nights, encountering numerous unknown challenges on a daily basis and the daunting task of rearing a child, many ‘would-be’ parents are opting out of trying to have children.
“Fertility is a choice for most people in the developed world. If the transition to parenthood is very difficult or more difficult than expected, then people may choose to remain at parity,” the researchers state.
“Before having children, potential parents do not know first-hand what is involved with parenting or how it will be for them,” added the researchers.
The main purpose of the study was to find out the reasons behind decreasing birth-rate among the ‘developed nations’ around the world and why there is often a difference between what people say they want and what they actually want.
“We used to live in large communities, and our allegiance was to One God and then to our community and large families,” explained the anthropologist. But now a family, in the present day and age has been reduced to a couple at-best with one child and more often than not, a parent with a child only.
Life as we know, has become a rat-race in a concrete jungle where family values and the notion of caring for other individuals have disappeared. Thus it is not surprising to find that people are actually finding the birth of their child, which should have brought immense happiness, a burden for them, because it disrupts their daily routine in the on-going rat-race.
The study concludes by stating that the more developed nations should look into providing more support upcoming parents to help transition into parenthood.
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