The short answer: No. Brian Doss, a professor of psychology and his team at the University of Denver just published their findings in the current "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology." For the study, 218 couples were tracked over an eight-year period, comparing pre-birth and post-birth behavior patterns and how the arrival of the baby directly affected the relationship between the father and mother. Sure, having a baby can bring tremendous joy to a couple's life, but for most couples, Doss found that having a first child resulted in more marital problems. He says in a video that existing problems become exacerbated with the arrival of a new child. The article states that the birth of the first baby was followed by more problems in communication, decreases in couples' confidence that the marriage would last and declines in couples' overall satisfaction with the marriage. A really interesting finding was that mothers who gave birth to girls showed larger drops in marital satisfaction. Doss thinks this may be a result of fewer husbands being involved in the childcare tasks of girls compared to boys.

This is obviously not a study that will prevent people from having kids, but for the (hopefully) few couples out there who think having a kid will wash away their existing problems, the Doss's team has determined that a new child would most likely make them worse. Read the complete article here.

Labels: kids, parenting, study