The Institute for American Values points out that one is more likely to be happy raising children as part of a couple than raising them alone, and that’s true. It’s also true that most marriages tend to decline over time, children or not. But pretty much all research suggests that, on average, the marital satisfaction curve bends noticeably the moment a child is born. Some studies say that parenthood merely hastens a decline already in progress, while others say that parenthood exaggerates it. Still others suggest that levels of marital satisfaction are a function of how old the couple’s
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