Parenting & Family Quote by Christian Nestell Bovee

A 19th-century proverb dressed up as aphorism, Bovee's line works by refusing to let the reader settle into either sentimental family worship or smug childfree superiority. It’s a seesaw: children multiply worry, and yet the absence of children drains life of a certain kind of happiness. The grammar is almost bookkeeping - "many" paired with "many", "no" with "no" - turning domestic life into a blunt ledger of costs and returns. That cold symmetry is the trick: it lets him smuggle an emotional claim through a logical form.

The intent is less to advise than to diagnose a middle-class moral economy where adulthood is measured by responsibility. In Bovee’s era, children were both precarious (high mortality, economic instability) and central (inheritance, labor, legacy, social respectability). "Cares" names the everyday anxieties of parenting without romantic varnish: illness, expense, discipline, reputation. "Felicity" is tellingly old-fashioned, closer to "blessedness" than "fun", suggesting a socially sanctioned fulfillment rather than private pleasure.

The subtext cuts two ways. For parents, it’s a consoling reframing: your exhaustion is proof you’re living a meaningful life. For non-parents, it’s a gentle indictment: you may have ease, but you’re missing the sanctioned emotional summit. Bovee isn’t arguing that children guarantee joy; he’s arguing that the deepest satisfactions often arrive bundled with obligation, and that modern life’s dream of happiness without cost is, at best, incomplete.