Their Kids Will Be Happy But Harried

In forecasting their kids’ lives as adults, few parents can bring themselves to feel pessimistic. After all, how could they survive parenthood if they thought their children would grow up to be miserable? But parents aren’t fools (evidence to the contrary notwithstanding), so they are selective in their optimism. The chart below, which draws on a new Yankelovich report about parents of kids age 17 and under, gives the pertinent data. As you can see, parents expect time to be scarcer than money for their kids as grown-ups.