The parents were asked about long term overall life satisfaction of course. This is obvious. Humans can rate their overall happiness even when their current situation is temporarily not that great.
> for parents, the more time they spent taking care of children, the more meaningful their lives were. (Time spent taking care of children had no relation to happiness and if anything trended toward reducing happiness.)
> These findings illuminate the so-called ‘parenthood paradox,’ which is that most people want to be happy and want to become parents, but those two goals are in conflict insofar as becoming a parent often reduces happiness (e.g. Twenge, Campbell, & Foster, 2003; cf. Nelson et al., in press). Baumeister (1991) proposed that the parenthood paradox can be resolved by proposing that people seek not just happiness but also meaning, and so, they become parents because the gains in meaningfulness offset any losses in happiness. The present findings are consistent with that conclusion
