In Defense of Motherhood

Time Magazine: In Defense of Motherhood: Why We Keep Having Kids When They're So Clearly Bad for Us, by Bonnie Rochman:

Here at Healthland, we devote a considerable amount of virtual ink to reporting on research that disses parenthood. I've written several stories in this vein, and I find them both wryly amusing and often uncomfortably accurate. But at least in my experience parenting three young kids, they're not the whole truth. So in honor of Mother's Day, I decided to analyze why it's so fab to be a mom and dig up some data in defense of motherhood — and parenting in general. Because despite the inexorable toll children take on our finances, our patience, our emotions and our energy reserves, they really are pretty great.

Let's get this out in the open: there is not an impressive cache of objective research extolling the benefits of parenthood. Yet the subjective evidence is overwhelming . . . .