Reflections of Satisfaction and Expectations in Parental Life

Abstract

Life satisfaction is the target of every parent and person. Every parent has this expectation while constituting the family. Life satisfaction is the evaluation of one’s life as a whole, not simply one’s current level of happiness. A popular definition of life satisfaction examines“Life satisfaction is the degree to which a person positively evaluates the overall quality of his/her life as a whole. In other words, how much the person likes the life he/she leads” (Veenhoven, 1996). Ellison and Gay define life satisfaction as a cognitive assessment of an underlying state of thought to be relatively consistent and influenced by social factors (Ellison & Gay, 1990).Life satisfaction is a global evaluation rather than one that is grounded at any specific point in time or in any specific domain. However, life satisfaction mostly depends up on the subjective life expectations. Where the expectations are unmet, the life satisfaction is un-actualized. This article is a search in to the relationship and mutuality between life expectations and life satisfaction, especially of the life of the parents. All parents who take up the responsibility of a family life will have various expectations on the life partner, happenings in life, children, emotional status and the environment that they are linked in. The researcher followed a descriptive research design using simple random sampling method. The response from 300 parents from all over Kerala shows that there is definite relationship between actualized life expectations and life satisfaction.