(LifeSiteNews) – Well-known anti-woke Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson blasted a post made on the Instagram “Facts” page claiming people without kids “tend” to be happier, saying the reality is that kids make one’s life “more meaningful than any” material worldly possession could ever do.

“Kids make your life more meaningful than any mere happiness,” Peterson wrote Monday on X in response to the Instagram “Facts” made over the weekend.

“Kids bring love and the heartaches of love into your life. That’s not the idiot short-term ‘happiness’ worshipped by hedonists and measured as an outcome by the unwise.”

The Instagram “Facts” post stated, “People without children tend to be happier than parents.”

The post cited research from 2021 by Jennifer Glass, who is a professor of sociology at the University of Texas. Her research claims there is a “happiness bump” that “parents experience right after a baby is born. But that tends to dissipate over the course of a year.”

In reply to the “Facts” posting, Peterson wrote “Says who?” asking how such a thing could be “measured” and over “what time span” as well as “compared to who and when.”

Peterson observed, “Happier or more hedonistic and immature.” He then questioned “Who funded” the research.

“Lies, damned lies and statistics,” he wrote, calling it, “One phrase: ‘replication crisis,” adding that “meaning and happiness are not the same thing but the former trumps the latter.”

“Responsibility and happiness are not the same thing, but the former trumps the latter … Adventure and happiness are not the same thing, but the former trumps the latter.”

Peterson observed regarding the 2021 study that “If social or educational psychologists conducted the study, ignore it.”

“If people who hate children or do not have them conducted the study, dismiss it.”

The Instagram “Facts” posting drew a considerable amount of backlash and even drew the ire of X owner Elon Musk, who provided a pro-kid response.

“Kids make you happier than any material possession,” Musk wrote in reply to Peterson’s posting.

Peterson’s post blasting Instagram’s anti-family posting drew a response from Canadian freedom lawyer Lisa Bildy, who noted, “No one can know how their lives become enriched by children until they have them.”

“And, after they have them, very few people wish they didn’t exist. It is really quite impossible to compare ‘happiness’ levels when one group has no idea what they’re missing,” she wrote in reply.

Social media trend promoting ‘childless’ lifestyle on the rise amid record low birth rates

Canada’s birth rate has been in a steady decline for some time now, with statistics showing the 2022 overall rate at 1.33 child per female, a decline from 1.51 in 2018.

A total of 351,679 babies were born in 2022, a number that has not been this low since 2005.

As observed by LifeSiteNews’s own Matt Lamb in a recent opinion piece, the recent social media trend of boasting about being “Dual-Income-No-Kids,” or “DINKs,” is what he noted is a “sign of the immaturity among Millennials and Gen Z.”

“Being a DINK, then, is really about being gluttonous, avaricious, and lacking the ability to live beyond tomorrow,” Lamb observed.

“Children force us to practice self-denial – changing diapers or doing laundry, spending money on them instead of on our own hobbies, or waking up early to take care of a fussy baby are all ways we can grow in virtue by not getting what we want.”

Peterson, who has two kids, has spoken out against the radical anti-family LGBT push in recent years, both in Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the world.

Last year, Peterson said the reason for Canada’s low birth rates is due to a society that has “demonized family and children” and not, as a recent media report suggests, because of high housing prices.

As recently reported by LifeSiteNews, Peterson slammed Trudeau and his Liberal government at the start of “Pride” month, saying that in his view it is really a “celebration of casual hedonistic self-centered sex” and not a “celebration of love.”

As for Musk, one of his sons, who identifies as “transgender,” and as a result has frequently pushed back against gender ideology and supported conservative efforts to uphold biological reality.