53, one kid in high school. I'm not going to try for an answer here, but I will mention an important confounding factor in studies like these: increasing resis

53, one kid in high school. I'm not going to try for an answer here, but I will mention an important confounding factor in studies like these: increasing resistance to peer pressure. I find that older people are better able to resist the "work until you drop" or "keep up with the Joneses" messages that society gives us. We're a bit more careful about avoiding things that drag us down and seeking/developing things that pull us up. Not all, of course. Some are surely worse off in all of these ways than any kid fresh out of college. But on average I think older people are better at maintaining their sense of well-being, independently of whether their actual circumstances are better or worse.