KEY POINTS
Pop culture often paints married moms as exhausted and unhappy.
New survey finds married moms the happiest, compared to those who are either unmarried or childless.
Children seem to boost sense of purpose, meaning.
If you watch TV or pay attention to pop culture, you’ve heard the storyline of motherhood today: Exhausted women who are unhappy and generally struggling. They’re lonely, isolated and don’t feel appreciated.
Married motherhood, in fact, is not always painted in a positive image — and according to a new study by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University, that common portrayal is not actually true.
In a new study, “ In Pursuit: Marriage, Motherhood and Women’s Well-being ,” Jean Twenge, Jenet Erickson, Wendy Wang and