Ever since there have been human beings, we have, like other animals, reproduced without pause. In most cultures, raising children functions almost like an auto-program installed in the brain. Genuine reflection on parenting itself may be largely a modern development, and a scientific understanding of it has only really emerged over the past half-century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Does being a parent make people happy? Scholars still disagree: some say yes, some say no. A recent study suggests the relationship between parenting and happiness is complex. Parenting doesn\u2019t directly produce happiness or unhappiness; rather, other factors tip the balance. Researchers found that when parents face more negative emotions, financial strain, sleep problems, and marital conflict, they tend to be unhappy. By contrast, when parents experience a stronger sense of meaning, have basic needs met, feel more positive emotions, and see their social roles reinforced, they tend to feel happy and content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s pick up from that conclusion. Meeting basic needs happens primarily through work. Positive emotions are partly temperamental but also shaped by learned cognitive regulation. A larger sense of life\u2019s meaning is, of course, largely achieved through cognitive reframing. And social roles require not only mental reframing but also practice. All told, whether one draws happiness from parenting seems to depend mainly on lived practice and cognitive regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if raising children may not bring joy, why do people still choose to become parents? Regardless of whether parenting makes us happy, most people of sound mind would agree that becoming a mother or father lends profound meaning to life. I believe many parents would agree, and many young adults who haven\u2019t had children\u2014when they think about the long, hard work their own parents put into raising them\u2014would likely agree as well. Some do not, perhaps because they grew up in toxic parenting environments. In reality, intimate relationships and raising children are the two things most likely to saturate a life with meaning\u2014and they\u2019re accessible to most people. You don\u2019t need to do anything grand\u2014becoming a president, discovering a vaccine for cancer or AIDS, or founding a successful company\u2014to make your life meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does parenting bring such a powerful sense of meaning? Because once people become parents, they shoulder a responsibility\u2014a responsibility that can be regarded as selfless. And since self-responsibility is a crucial source of life\u2019s meaning, this major responsibility naturally makes life feel significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve all heard moving stories of parenting in which parents seem willing to give everything for their children. These stories resist explanation from a utilitarian point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve heard some fairly extreme stories of the same kind. Some Chinese parents originally felt their days in China were adequate, even comfortable; they held respectable jobs and lived well. Yet once they had children, they resolved\u2014often for a mix of reasons\u2014either to emigrate with their kids or to do everything possible to send them abroad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a trip through the American West, I met a mother from Northeast China who now lived in Chicago. She said their family came to the U.S. for one reason: they had been living in Shanghai, but children of non-locals couldn\u2019t attend high school there, so they \u201cleft their home behind\u201d and came to America. We couldn\u2019t help but laugh when she used the phrase \u201cleave one\u2019s native soil\u201d (\u80cc\u4e95\u79bb\u4e61)\u2014because in their case, misfortune had turned into a blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another father I met from Shanghai had far less money. His daughter completed her undergraduate degree in China, but he had long planned to send her to the U.S. for a master\u2019s and told her well in advance to work hard to stay. After graduation she found a job in Seattle\u2014reportedly easygoing and well-paid\u2014and soon bought a three-story house in the suburbs. When the father visited and looked up at the house, he couldn\u2019t help asking, \u201cDid a gust of wind blow all this money in?\u201d\u2014his way of saying, \u201cMoney doesn\u2019t just blow in on the wind.\u201d If she had returned to Shanghai, such a life would have been impossible. At one point she considered going back to work in China; he immediately dissuaded her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, many others, after having children, are compelled to confront various problems in China\u2019s education system and decide to emigrate as a family or send their kids abroad. This motivation isn\u2019t necessarily about blocked educational access at home or the lure of a better material life; it\u2019s primarily ideological\u2014about values and beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In these more extreme cases, what I see is the parents\u2019 selflessness toward their children. While watching the BBC documentary Planet Earth<\/em>, one thing struck me deeply: after a polar bear mother raises her cubs, she sends them off to live on their own; in many cases, that parting means goodbye forever. The mother\u2019s mission is to teach her cubs how to face the world\u2014and then give them to the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among humans, cultures differ in their parenting styles, but the cultures most conducive to individual development are those closest to the polar bear model. Why? If parents recognize that their responsibility is to teach their children how to face the world and then send them into it, that means their parenting\u2014at the level of existence itself\u2014does not seek a return. One major advantage of a non-instrumental, individuality-respecting parenting culture is that it allows parents to cultivate an atmosphere of unconditional love and unconditional positive regard. One of Carl Rogers\u2019s great contributions was to show just how essential unconditional positive regard is to a person\u2019s self-actualization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, I\u2019m not saying parenting is, in itself, a purely selfless act. Reality is more complicated. Clearly parenting isn\u2019t wholly selfless: children can help their parents in many ways and offer emotional support. It\u2019s unrealistic to say parents expect nothing at all. Moreover, just after a child is born, parents often regard the child as an extension of themselves; as the child\u2019s agency strengthens, parents gradually see their own self fading from the child\u2014until it disappears entirely. Only after that point can we truly say that a parent\u2019s love is selfless rather than merely a form of self-love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although parenting itself is very likely not purely selfless, we can still choose to regard it as a selfless act. This isn\u2019t to ignore reality, but to acknowledge all of it and then choose to amplify a part of reality and interact with it. Once we view parenting as a selfless endeavor, we ourselves are more likely to become better parents (or at least to gain the capacity to be better), and we can also take a broader, more positive view of the marks our parents have left on us. When we choose to have children, we should not be guided by calculation, because that will certainly distort our parenting. We don\u2019t raise children so they can repay us; we raise them simply to help them grow up well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, we must reject two sets of ideas. The first comes from traditional Chinese culture: the big-clan mindset, \u201craising sons for old-age security,\u201d and son preference. The entire traditional outlook on parenting is, in many respects, distorted and toxic, breeding a host of grotesque notions: parents craving their children\u2019s success to feed vanity; parenting undertaken as a pension plan; parents unwilling to let their children live far away; parents demanding obedience; parents \u201cselling\u201d their daughters through bride price. It\u2019s hard to imagine how a child could become a psychologically healthy adult in such an environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must also reject a second set of ideas: contemporary feminism (as practiced by many). Many feminists, in my view, are selfish misers who only know how to claim rights\u2014this, I think, is why Ueno Chizuko can\u2019t understand why humans have children and derive meaning from it. A feminist once argued with me that giving birth causes a frightening, irreversible change to a certain part of a woman\u2019s body, so she would never have children. But she overlooked this: if that\u2019s the case, why do so many women\u2014knowing full well about such bodily changes\u2014still decide to give birth? And why do men and women, knowing that childbearing brings enormous challenges, still choose to have children? Those are the questions we should attend to. There are many reasons, and the most important are undoubtedly physiological and evolutionary drives. But I prefer to focus on a part of reality I want to see: that human beings are moved\u2014indeed called\u2014by a selfless sense of responsibility to have children and are willing to overcome all kinds of difficulties in the process. This vantage point not only makes it easier to find happiness in raising children\u2014as noted at the outset, happiness is shaped by practice and cognitive regulation\u2014but also greatly enriches our understanding of human nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ever since there have been human beings, we have, like other animals, reproduced without pause. In most cultures, raising children functions almost like an auto-program installed in the brain. Genuine reflection on parenting itself may be largely a modern development, and a scientific understanding of it has only really emerged over the past half-century. Does being a parent make people happy? Scholars still disagree: some say yes, some say no. A recent study suggests the relationship between parenting and happiness is complex. Parenting doesn\u2019t directly produce happiness or unhappiness; rather, other factors tip the balance. Researchers found that when parents face more negative emotions, financial strain, sleep problems, and marital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/parenthood-images.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/parenthood-images.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200,630&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":174,"url":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":0},"title":"The Economic Factors Behind the Conservative Turn in the Mindset of Chinese Youth","author":"Stephen Leng","date":"03\/29\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"As is well known, in the 1990s, a hypothesis became popular among Western politicians and social scientists: if the West supported China\u2019s Reform and Opening-up policies and bolstered China\u2019s economic growth through expanded economic ties, the resulting expansion of the middle class would lead to demands for greater civil rights.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural Criticism","link":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/category\/cultural-criticism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth.png?w=1536&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth.png?w=1536&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth.png?w=1536&resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth.png?w=1536&resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth.png?w=1536&resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/the-economic-factors-behind-the-conservative-turn-in-the-mindset-of-chinese-youth.png?w=1536&resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/on-the-shanghai-marriage-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":1},"title":"On the Shanghai Marriage Market","author":"Stephen Leng","date":"09\/20\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"What many Chinese people may not know is that the Shanghai Marriage Market is internationally famous, and it\u2019s a spot many foreign travelers to Shanghai make a point of visiting. It has a detailed English Wikipedia entry, yet not even a Chinese one. Several English-language travel sites have written how-to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural Criticism","link":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/category\/cultural-criticism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DSC_102020250119.jpg?w=1920&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DSC_102020250119.jpg?w=1920&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DSC_102020250119.jpg?w=1920&resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DSC_102020250119.jpg?w=1920&resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DSC_102020250119.jpg?w=1920&resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DSC_102020250119.jpg?w=1920&resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":82,"url":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/on-loneliness\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":2},"title":"On Loneliness","author":"Stephen Leng","date":"01\/23\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Loneliness is the destiny of human beings, an unavoidable and fated part of life. Since the 19th century, many philosophers, writers, and psychologists have expressed this attitude from different perspectives, such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Thomas Wolfe, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, and Irvin Yalom, among others. Regardless, the belief that loneliness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/category\/philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/lonely-bench.jpg?w=1920&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/lonely-bench.jpg?w=1920&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/lonely-bench.jpg?w=1920&resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/lonely-bench.jpg?w=1920&resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/lonely-bench.jpg?w=1920&resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/lonely-bench.jpg?w=1920&resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":154,"url":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/why-the-right-to-privacy-matters\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":3},"title":"Why the Right to Privacy Matters","author":"Stephen Leng","date":"11\/02\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"In China, \u201crights\u201d are not, for many people, a particularly important idea\u2014let alone the right to privacy. Even when people realize their privacy has been violated, it\u2019s hard for them to think, \u201cone of my rights is being infringed,\u201d rather than merely, \u201cmy feelings are hurt.\u201d In my view, there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cultural Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Cultural Criticism","link":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/category\/cultural-criticism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/right-to-privacy.png?w=1600&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/right-to-privacy.png?w=1600&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/right-to-privacy.png?w=1600&resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/right-to-privacy.png?w=1600&resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/right-to-privacy.png?w=1600&resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/right-to-privacy.png?w=1600&resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":127,"url":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/eating-while-looking-at-your-phone\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":4},"title":"Eating While Looking at Your Phone","author":"Stephen Leng","date":"09\/13\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"One afternoon, I was installing a custom Rom on my phone. Even though it was a 2024 model, it still only had USB 2.0, so data transfer was painfully slow\u2014and I had a lot to back up and restore. Dinner time rolled around and the job still wasn\u2019t done, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DALL\u00b7E-2025-05-06-11.15.45-.png?w=1024&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DALL\u00b7E-2025-05-06-11.15.45-.png?w=1024&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DALL\u00b7E-2025-05-06-11.15.45-.png?w=1024&resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/DALL\u00b7E-2025-05-06-11.15.45-.png?w=1024&resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":90,"url":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/romantic-love-and-freedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":150,"position":5},"title":"Romantic Love and Freedom","author":"Stephen Leng","date":"02\/01\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"There is a rather superficial view that romantic love and freedom are contradictory. Some people even recite Pet\u0151fi\u2019s widely known verses: \u201cLife is dear, love is dearer. Both can be given up for freedom.\u201d I used to think this was just a joke, especially when people used it to explain\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophy"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/category\/philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/romantic-love-and-freedom.jpg?w=1000&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/romantic-love-and-freedom.jpg?w=1000&resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/romantic-love-and-freedom.jpg?w=1000&resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/my-img.stephenleng.com\/romantic-love-and-freedom.jpg?w=1000&resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenleng.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}