Survey SAYS…

I was running on the treadmill this morning watching the Today Show.  There’s this annoying segment called Today’s Take wherein the hosts natter on and on about themselves.  Oh.  And sometimes throw in “new and noteworthy” reports from all over the globe.

One such report this morning came from a survey done by the London School of Economics.  The survey says that spending time with friends makes you happier than spending time with family.  A person’s moods improve by 8% when they’re with friends, by 5.9% when they’re with their partners and by 1.4% when they’re spending time with their children.

So….with my hubby on a business trip, and both kids visiting their grandparents cross-country, my standing Margarita Monday lunch date with some gal pals made me the happiest person alive today.

Right?  Right?!?

Hmmm…not so much.  And how puzzling is that???

Now don’t get me wrong.  The Margarita Monday lunch dates I have with these friends are ALWAYS tons of fun.  It’s just that I spent today’s lunch constantly feeling like I had forgotten something.  Or left something important behind.  I was constantly checking my iPod thinking that I should be somewhere else DOING something else and may have accidentally forgotten where I was supposed to be.

I mean, I have very pressing things to do: building shelves in my daughter’s room, installing a fan in my son’s bedroom, painting a table for the patio, looking for a job, walking the dog and on and on and on…

It’s just that I don’t have anyone to do it with.

Sigh.

Hello, London School of Economics?  This is New Stay at Home Mom calling.

I think you got it wrong.  If a mother had designed the study for you, we would have sussed out the important differentiator between HAVING to spend time with a spouse and children vs. WANTING to spend time but not being ABLE to.

Perhaps you’ve heard of it?  It’s called “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

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