I went to a Nerd Night where a positive psychologist shared about PERMA, a break down of the pillars of being happy: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.

Her take on kids (based on her research) was that P,E,R, and A definitely take a hit, but parents consistently had the highest happines when it came to Meaning in their life. Overall advice on the question of “Do kids make you more happy than no kids?” was “It really depends on the person.”