I have two great aunts who are, for the most part, grumpy, complaining, miserable old bats who never seem satisfied with anything. These women have always been this way and as a child, I wondered what made them so crabby. My mother always told me that their misery was rooted in the fact that they were childless. As far as I know, both of these women were childless by choice and I never once heard them pine for motherhood.

According to a new study out of the University of Florida, their status as childless women probably doesn't have much to do with their unhappiness. In fact, when researchers looked at over 6,000 women between the ages of 51 and 61, they found that motherhood was not at all critical in determining a women's happiness. Other factors, such as education, employment and family relationships had more impact on psychological well-being than being a mother.

"Contrary to warnings we hear about being lonely if you don't have children, our study finds that childless women and mothers generally report similar levels of psychological well-being in their 50s," said Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, lead author of the study.

The study revealed that the least happy group of women are actually middle aged mothers who are single, divorced or widowed. It also pointed to a relationship between the age at which a woman becomes a mother and her overall happiness later in life. "Early mothers", those who had children before age 19, reported being less happy, more depressed and lonelier than than those who had their children in their 20's or later.

I was one of those "early mothers" and I can't imagine my life without children. Maybe I would be content without them, but thinking about all that I would have missed doesn't make me happy at all.