TIME TO DECIDE, KIDS OR PETS?

There's this parlor game in which people are asked to select the animal they'd choose to be. Amateur psychiatry which supposedly reveals personal characteristics. Want to be a tiger...? Means you like power. An eagle...? You value freedom. A cobra...? I've heard that one, but usually prefer not to analyze it too closely.

Most people select dogs, cats, race horses. The obvious thought here is that most of us value the protected and pampered life. Well, why not. Currently, Americans pamper 90 million cats, 75 million dogs, 16 million birds, 10 million fish; and, oh yes, 14 million reptiles. A $42 billion investment of our love, our attention, and very frankly our need. Our need to be appreciated, to be indispensable, and to feel indisputably wanted (at least at feeding time).

In these same parlors, parents also talk about their children. Pets are nice, but children are what it's all about!

Well, no, not really. According to real psychiatrists, raising kids consistently causes stress and other varieties of unhappiness. Demographers from Germany's Max Planck Institute surveyed 200,000 men and women in 86 countries. Their results showed that young parents with young children were generally unhappier than their child-less peers, while older parents with older children were happier.

Research director, Mikko Myrskyla, put it this way: "Children may be be a long-term investment in happiness.
Couples contentment drops with the birth of their first child, still more with subsequent births. Expense, anxiety and lost sleep may overshadow the positive aspects of parenthood. Until those kids grow up to become a source of emotional and financial support."

Now here's the thing. Couples can acquire pets of whatever age. Is there some way they could acquire children the same way? You know, sometime after they've been house-broken? Which gives a whole new twist to the current culture war over planned parenthood. But wait, there is sure to be strong opposition. From the Vatican, yes; from the Republicans, surely; from the Tea Party, probably.

Their reasons will differ. No one in the Vatican knows anything about 2AM feedings. No one in the Republican Party can afford to agree with anything President Obama supports. And no one in the Tea Party can support any child policy until they figure out why they support children like Beck, Bachman and Palin.