Children, the Uncomfortable Happiness

Changes in the situation in life through children. Topics: general contentment with life; associations with the terms ´happiness´, ´children´ and ´having children´; most important positive and negative influences on one´s own attitude to children; ideal number of children in one´s own view and from the view of spouse; desire for children; concepts of one´s own age at birth of first child; inclination to give up work at birth of first child; reasons for childlessness up to now; desire for presence of partner at birth of child; self-assessment of certainty of being able to raise a child; accepted advisers in questions of raising children; changes expected and actually experienced through the first child in the relation to partner, the relation to family and friends, occupational further development, the organization of leisure time, the housing situation and financial conditions; assessment of expected as well as experienced psychological changes in respondent and partner after birth of first child: concepts of ideal point in time for the birth under economic, sociological and career points of view; information on temporal birth planning of the first and the youngest child; preparations during pregnancy before the birth of the first and the youngest child: eating habits, consumption of semi-luxury foods, tobacco and alcohol, information conduct, pregnancy gymnastics, visit to a mothers school and contacts with doctors; possession of a pregnancy pass; judgement on first pregnancy and birth; perceived fears; concerns and burdens during pregnancy; pregnancy complaints; presence of partner at first birth; complications in the birth; burdened with problems through children; assessment of the FRG as child-friendly or child-hostile and reasons for this judgement; major reasons not to have children in the Federal Republic; assessment of the prospects for the future for children today in comparison with one´s own childhood; countries more child-friendly than the Federal Republic; recommendations for promotion of willingness to have children; decisive points in life effecting changes; feeling of restriction in structuring life; personal goals in life and desires in life; judgement on current condition of health; frequency of visits to the gynecologist; participation in cancer check-ups; means of contraception used currently; reasons for not using the pill; frequency of abortion and miscarriage; attitude to abortion; information on sexual conduct; age at first sexual intercourse; number of intimate partners up to now; marriage with first intimate partner; frequency of sexual intercourse; frequency of orgasm; length of acquaintance with current partner; length of current or last marriage; size of circle of friends; desire for more friends; frequency of contact and place of meeting friends; place and cause of getting to know friends; social surroundings in one´s own childhood; characterization of personal parental home and style of child-raising experienced; earlier and current relation of parents to each other; relationship with siblings; distance to parents; social origins; rough information on time budget; frequency of vacation trips; vacation destination; housing conditions; type of building and location of one´s own residence; available living space; judgement on living space; number of living-rooms and children´s rooms; amount of rent and monthly additional costs; receipt of housing benefit; residential surroundings; available opportunity for the children to play outdoors; traffic situation of the residence; moving frequency and reasons for the moves.

Scales: attitude to children and pregnancy; experiencing partnership relations. Demography: age; marital status; age of partner; number of children; number of siblings; religious denomination; frequency of church attendance; school education; occupation; employment; household income; sources of income; number of recipients of income; possession of durable economic goods; household size; household composition; respondent is head of household; characteristics of head of household; residential status; Interviewer rating: housing situation; weekday of interview; length of interview; interest in interview.