The joys of parenthood

　　身為人父的喜悅

　　Father s day

　　父親節(jié)

　　Having children really does make a man morecontent with life

　　有了自己的孩子的確會(huì)讓男人更熱愛(ài)自己的生活

　　WILL fatherhood make me happy?

　　當(dāng)爸爸會(huì)讓我開(kāi)心么?

　　That is a question many men have found themselves asking, and the scientific evidence isequivocal.

　　這是一個(gè)許多男人都會(huì)問(wèn)自己的問(wèn)題，然而科學(xué)家們對(duì)此的措辭卻含糊不清。

　　A lot of studies have linked parenthoodparticularly fatherhood.

　　許多研究項(xiàng)目將雙親的身份尤其是父親,

　　with lower levels of marital satisfaction and higher rates of depression than are foundamong non-parents.

　　和低滿(mǎn)足感與高壓抑感聯(lián)系起來(lái)，而且認(rèn)為那些沒(méi)有為人父母的人們則要逍遙許多。

　　Biologically speaking, that looks odd.

　　從生物學(xué)的角度來(lái)說(shuō)，以上的觀(guān)點(diǎn)其實(shí)很滑稽。

　　Natural selection might be expected to favour the progeny of menwho enjoy bringing them up.

　　因?yàn)閺淖匀贿x擇的角度來(lái)說(shuō)，大自然會(huì)更加青睞那些由開(kāi)心的父親撫養(yǎng)大的孩子。

　　On the other hand, the countervailing pressure to have other children, by other women,may leave the man who is already encumbered by a set of offspring dissatisfied.

　　從另一個(gè)角度來(lái)看，男人天性受到一種相反的壓力，希望和其他女性生育更多的孩子，這種壓力可能會(huì)讓受到現(xiàn)有子女負(fù)累的父親感到不滿(mǎn)。

　　To investigate the matter further Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University ofCalifornia, Riverside, decided both to study the existing literature, and to conduct someexperiments of her own.

　　一位來(lái)自加州大學(xué)的心理學(xué)家，索尼婭柳博米爾斯基，為了弄清這件事情，決定在研究現(xiàn)存文獻(xiàn)的同時(shí)，也親自組織一些實(shí)驗(yàn)。

　　The results, just published in Psychological Science, suggest parenthood in general, andfatherhood in particular, really are blessings, even though the parent in question mightsometimes feel they are in disguise.

　　她研究的結(jié)果，《心理科學(xué)》上剛發(fā)表了不久。研究結(jié)果顯示，總體上來(lái)說(shuō)，為人父母，的確是會(huì)受到祝福的，即便那些受訪(fǎng)的父母很多時(shí)候覺(jué)得可能自己在接受調(diào)查時(shí)偽裝了些東西。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky s first port of call was the World Values Survey.

　　首先，柳博米爾斯基博士從世界價(jià)值觀(guān)大調(diào)查開(kāi)始著手。

　　This is a project which gathers huge amounts of data about the lives of people all around theplanet.

　　這是個(gè)浩大的工程，用來(lái)收集海量的居住在這個(gè)星球各個(gè)角落里的人的數(shù)據(jù)。

　　For the purposes of her research, Dr Lyubomirsky looked at the answers 6,906 Americanshad given, in four different years, to four particular questions.

　　柳博米爾斯基博士從這些數(shù)據(jù)中調(diào)出了6,906份來(lái)自美國(guó)的數(shù)據(jù)，用以進(jìn)行她的研究。這些數(shù)據(jù)從四個(gè)不同的年份里收集獲得，涉及了四個(gè)方面不同的問(wèn)題。

　　These were: how many children the responder had;

　　這四個(gè)方面是：受訪(fǎng)者有多少子女;

　　how satisfied he was with life;

　　他對(duì)自己的生活有多大程度的滿(mǎn)足感;

　　how happy he was;

　　他的快樂(lè)感多大;

　　and how often he thought about the meaning and purpose of life.

　　以及他多少次思考過(guò)生活的意義和目標(biāo)。

　　She found that, regardless of the year the survey was conducted, parents had higherhappiness, satisfaction and meaning-of-life scores than non-parents.

　　結(jié)果她發(fā)現(xiàn)，剔除調(diào)查的年份因素之后，為人父母的人群比非父母人群具有更高的快樂(lè)感和滿(mǎn)足感，生活意義項(xiàng)的得分值也更高。

　　The differences were not huge,

　　這些數(shù)據(jù)的差別其實(shí)并不明顯，

　　but they were statistically significant.

　　但是從統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)的角度來(lái)看，其意義卻非常重大。

　　Moreover, a closer look showed that the differences in happiness and satisfaction were theresult of men s scores alone going up with parenthood.

　　另外，仔細(xì)查看這些數(shù)據(jù)會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，男子在當(dāng)了父親后，快樂(lè)感和滿(mǎn)足感會(huì)出現(xiàn)細(xì)小的差別，分?jǐn)?shù)會(huì)越來(lái)越高。

　　Those of women did not change.

　　但是女性則沒(méi)有變化。

　　Armed with this result, Dr Lyubomirsky conducted her own experiment.

　　有了這個(gè)結(jié)果做支撐，柳博米爾斯基博士開(kāi)始著手弄自己的實(shí)驗(yàn)了。

　　The problem with projects like the World Values Survey is that,

　　不過(guò)諸如世界價(jià)值觀(guān)大調(diào)查此類(lèi)的大工程的問(wèn)題是，

　　because participants are asked to recall their feelings rather than stating what they areexperiencing in the here and now, this might lead them into thinking more fondly in hindsightabout their parenting duties than they actually felt at the time.

　　它在收集數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，要求參與者是回憶自己的感受，而不是敘述他們當(dāng)下的經(jīng)歷，所以這就容易導(dǎo)致他們?nèi)ド钋榈兀阑厮伎妓麄優(yōu)槿烁改傅呢?zé)任，而不是他們當(dāng)時(shí)真實(shí)的感受。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky therefore gave pagers to 329 North American volunteers aged between 18and 94, having first recorded, among other things, their sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomicstatus, marital status and number of children.

　　為此，柳博米爾斯基博士給329名來(lái)自北美地區(qū)的志愿者發(fā)了調(diào)查問(wèn)卷。這些志愿者從18歲到94歲不等。她第一手記錄下他們的性別，年齡，種族，社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)地位，婚姻狀態(tài)以及子女的數(shù)量。

　　She told them they would be paged at random, five times a day.

　　她告訴他們受訪(fǎng)者將會(huì)被隨機(jī)排列，一天五次受訪(fǎng)。

　　When they were so paged, they were asked to complete a brief response sheet about howthey felt, then and there.

　　當(dāng)受訪(fǎng)者被隨機(jī)排列好后，將會(huì)被要求完成一份簡(jiǎn)明的答卷，用來(lái)調(diào)查關(guān)于其當(dāng)時(shí)的感受。

　　She did not, however, tell them why she was asking these questions.

　　當(dāng)然，柳博米爾斯基博士并沒(méi)有告訴受訪(fǎng)者她為何問(wèn)他們這些問(wèn)題。

　　The upshot was the same as her findings from the World Values Survey.

　　結(jié)果，這次的結(jié)局和她在世界價(jià)值觀(guān)大調(diào)查項(xiàng)目里得出的結(jié)論是一致的。

　　Parents claimed more positive emotions and more meaning in their lives than non-parents,and a closer look revealed that it was fathers who most enjoyed these benefits.

　　相比那些還沒(méi)做父母的人，為人父母者在他們的人生中顯示出了更加積極的情感和更多對(duì)他們?nèi)松饬x的積極思考。

　　Moreover, further analysis revealed that this enhanced enjoyment came from activitieswhich involved children rather than those that did not.

　　同時(shí)，通過(guò)更加仔細(xì)的觀(guān)察，顯示出父親在上述方面更加典型。另外，更進(jìn)一步的分析表明了上述的那種積極和歡樂(lè)來(lái)自于有關(guān)孩子的活動(dòng)。生活中不涉及孩子的日常活動(dòng)則沒(méi)有這種效果。

　　It looks, then, as if evolution has bolted into men a psychological mechanism to keepthem in the family.

　　所以說(shuō)，由此可見(jiàn)，似乎自然進(jìn)化讓男人們產(chǎn)生了一種心理學(xué)機(jī)制，把他們閂在了家庭里。

　　At first sight, it is strange that women do not share this mechanism, but perhaps they do notneed to.

　　乍一看，似乎女性沒(méi)有這種機(jī)制很奇怪，但是仔細(xì)想想，她們也許根本就不需要這種機(jī)制。

　　They know, after all, that the children are theirs, whereas the best a man can do is hope thatis true.

　　她們至少知道，自己的孩子一定是自己生的。

　　That, and a man s potential to father an indefinite number of offspring if he can findwilling volunteers, might encourage him to stray from the bosom of his family.

　　但是孩子是不是男人自己的血脈，他們只能祈求上天了。所以說(shuō)，一個(gè)男人想做一大堆子子孫孫的父親的潛在本能，會(huì)激勵(lì)他掙扎著走出家庭的懷抱。

　　Enjoying fatherhood, by contrast, will help keep him in the porch.

　　但是，相反的，身為人父的喜悅，則會(huì)讓他們?cè)诩依锏拈T(mén)廊前停住腳步。

　　The joys of parenthood

　　身為人父的喜悅

　　Father s day

　　父親節(jié)

　　Having children really does make a man morecontent with life

　　有了自己的孩子的確會(huì)讓男人更熱愛(ài)自己的生活

　　WILL fatherhood make me happy?

　　當(dāng)爸爸會(huì)讓我開(kāi)心么?

　　That is a question many men have found themselves asking, and the scientific evidence isequivocal.

　　這是一個(gè)許多男人都會(huì)問(wèn)自己的問(wèn)題，然而科學(xué)家們對(duì)此的措辭卻含糊不清。

　　A lot of studies have linked parenthoodparticularly fatherhood.

　　許多研究項(xiàng)目將雙親的身份尤其是父親,

　　with lower levels of marital satisfaction and higher rates of depression than are foundamong non-parents.

　　和低滿(mǎn)足感與高壓抑感聯(lián)系起來(lái)，而且認(rèn)為那些沒(méi)有為人父母的人們則要逍遙許多。

　　Biologically speaking, that looks odd.

　　從生物學(xué)的角度來(lái)說(shuō)，以上的觀(guān)點(diǎn)其實(shí)很滑稽。

　　Natural selection might be expected to favour the progeny of menwho enjoy bringing them up.

　　因?yàn)閺淖匀贿x擇的角度來(lái)說(shuō)，大自然會(huì)更加青睞那些由開(kāi)心的父親撫養(yǎng)大的孩子。

　　On the other hand, the countervailing pressure to have other children, by other women,may leave the man who is already encumbered by a set of offspring dissatisfied.

　　從另一個(gè)角度來(lái)看，男人天性受到一種相反的壓力，希望和其他女性生育更多的孩子，這種壓力可能會(huì)讓受到現(xiàn)有子女負(fù)累的父親感到不滿(mǎn)。

　　To investigate the matter further Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University ofCalifornia, Riverside, decided both to study the existing literature, and to conduct someexperiments of her own.

　　一位來(lái)自加州大學(xué)的心理學(xué)家，索尼婭柳博米爾斯基，為了弄清這件事情，決定在研究現(xiàn)存文獻(xiàn)的同時(shí)，也親自組織一些實(shí)驗(yàn)。

　　The results, just published in Psychological Science, suggest parenthood in general, andfatherhood in particular, really are blessings, even though the parent in question mightsometimes feel they are in disguise.

　　她研究的結(jié)果，《心理科學(xué)》上剛發(fā)表了不久。研究結(jié)果顯示，總體上來(lái)說(shuō)，為人父母，的確是會(huì)受到祝福的，即便那些受訪(fǎng)的父母很多時(shí)候覺(jué)得可能自己在接受調(diào)查時(shí)偽裝了些東西。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky s first port of call was the World Values Survey.

　　首先，柳博米爾斯基博士從世界價(jià)值觀(guān)大調(diào)查開(kāi)始著手。

　　This is a project which gathers huge amounts of data about the lives of people all around theplanet.

　　這是個(gè)浩大的工程，用來(lái)收集海量的居住在這個(gè)星球各個(gè)角落里的人的數(shù)據(jù)。

　　For the purposes of her research, Dr Lyubomirsky looked at the answers 6,906 Americanshad given, in four different years, to four particular questions.

　　柳博米爾斯基博士從這些數(shù)據(jù)中調(diào)出了6,906份來(lái)自美國(guó)的數(shù)據(jù)，用以進(jìn)行她的研究。這些數(shù)據(jù)從四個(gè)不同的年份里收集獲得，涉及了四個(gè)方面不同的問(wèn)題。

　　These were: how many children the responder had;

　　這四個(gè)方面是：受訪(fǎng)者有多少子女;

　　how satisfied he was with life;

　　他對(duì)自己的生活有多大程度的滿(mǎn)足感;

　　how happy he was;

　　他的快樂(lè)感多大;

　　and how often he thought about the meaning and purpose of life.

　　以及他多少次思考過(guò)生活的意義和目標(biāo)。

　　She found that, regardless of the year the survey was conducted, parents had higherhappiness, satisfaction and meaning-of-life scores than non-parents.

　　結(jié)果她發(fā)現(xiàn)，剔除調(diào)查的年份因素之后，為人父母的人群比非父母人群具有更高的快樂(lè)感和滿(mǎn)足感，生活意義項(xiàng)的得分值也更高。

　　The differences were not huge,

　　這些數(shù)據(jù)的差別其實(shí)并不明顯，

　　but they were statistically significant.

　　但是從統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)的角度來(lái)看，其意義卻非常重大。

　　Moreover, a closer look showed that the differences in happiness and satisfaction were theresult of men s scores alone going up with parenthood.

　　另外，仔細(xì)查看這些數(shù)據(jù)會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，男子在當(dāng)了父親后，快樂(lè)感和滿(mǎn)足感會(huì)出現(xiàn)細(xì)小的差別，分?jǐn)?shù)會(huì)越來(lái)越高。

　　Those of women did not change.

　　但是女性則沒(méi)有變化。

　　Armed with this result, Dr Lyubomirsky conducted her own experiment.

　　有了這個(gè)結(jié)果做支撐，柳博米爾斯基博士開(kāi)始著手弄自己的實(shí)驗(yàn)了。

　　The problem with projects like the World Values Survey is that,

　　不過(guò)諸如世界價(jià)值觀(guān)大調(diào)查此類(lèi)的大工程的問(wèn)題是，

　　because participants are asked to recall their feelings rather than stating what they areexperiencing in the here and now, this might lead them into thinking more fondly in hindsightabout their parenting duties than they actually felt at the time.

　　它在收集數(shù)據(jù)時(shí)，要求參與者是回憶自己的感受，而不是敘述他們當(dāng)下的經(jīng)歷，所以這就容易導(dǎo)致他們?nèi)ド钋榈兀阑厮伎妓麄優(yōu)槿烁改傅呢?zé)任，而不是他們當(dāng)時(shí)真實(shí)的感受。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky therefore gave pagers to 329 North American volunteers aged between 18and 94, having first recorded, among other things, their sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomicstatus, marital status and number of children.

　　為此，柳博米爾斯基博士給329名來(lái)自北美地區(qū)的志愿者發(fā)了調(diào)查問(wèn)卷。這些志愿者從18歲到94歲不等。她第一手記錄下他們的性別，年齡，種族，社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)地位，婚姻狀態(tài)以及子女的數(shù)量。

　　She told them they would be paged at random, five times a day.

　　她告訴他們受訪(fǎng)者將會(huì)被隨機(jī)排列，一天五次受訪(fǎng)。

　　When they were so paged, they were asked to complete a brief response sheet about howthey felt, then and there.

　　當(dāng)受訪(fǎng)者被隨機(jī)排列好后，將會(huì)被要求完成一份簡(jiǎn)明的答卷，用來(lái)調(diào)查關(guān)于其當(dāng)時(shí)的感受。

　　She did not, however, tell them why she was asking these questions.

　　當(dāng)然，柳博米爾斯基博士并沒(méi)有告訴受訪(fǎng)者她為何問(wèn)他們這些問(wèn)題。

　　The upshot was the same as her findings from the World Values Survey.

　　結(jié)果，這次的結(jié)局和她在世界價(jià)值觀(guān)大調(diào)查項(xiàng)目里得出的結(jié)論是一致的。

　　Parents claimed more positive emotions and more meaning in their lives than non-parents,and a closer look revealed that it was fathers who most enjoyed these benefits.

　　相比那些還沒(méi)做父母的人，為人父母者在他們的人生中顯示出了更加積極的情感和更多對(duì)他們?nèi)松饬x的積極思考。

　　Moreover, further analysis revealed that this enhanced enjoyment came from activitieswhich involved children rather than those that did not.

　　同時(shí)，通過(guò)更加仔細(xì)的觀(guān)察，顯示出父親在上述方面更加典型。另外，更進(jìn)一步的分析表明了上述的那種積極和歡樂(lè)來(lái)自于有關(guān)孩子的活動(dòng)。生活中不涉及孩子的日常活動(dòng)則沒(méi)有這種效果。

　　It looks, then, as if evolution has bolted into men a psychological mechanism to keepthem in the family.

　　所以說(shuō)，由此可見(jiàn)，似乎自然進(jìn)化讓男人們產(chǎn)生了一種心理學(xué)機(jī)制，把他們閂在了家庭里。

　　At first sight, it is strange that women do not share this mechanism, but perhaps they do notneed to.

　　乍一看，似乎女性沒(méi)有這種機(jī)制很奇怪，但是仔細(xì)想想，她們也許根本就不需要這種機(jī)制。

　　They know, after all, that the children are theirs, whereas the best a man can do is hope thatis true.

　　她們至少知道，自己的孩子一定是自己生的。

　　That, and a man s potential to father an indefinite number of offspring if he can findwilling volunteers, might encourage him to stray from the bosom of his family.

　　但是孩子是不是男人自己的血脈，他們只能祈求上天了。所以說(shuō)，一個(gè)男人想做一大堆子子孫孫的父親的潛在本能，會(huì)激勵(lì)他掙扎著走出家庭的懷抱。

　　Enjoying fatherhood, by contrast, will help keep him in the porch.

　　但是，相反的，身為人父的喜悅，則會(huì)讓他們?cè)诩依锏拈T(mén)廊前停住腳步。