A new study has thrown a bucket of cold water on parenthood: apparently, people aren’t nearly as happy with having a child as you’d think. In fact, it makes them more miserable than even the worst life events possible.

Although it seems like a very joyous time in a couple’s life, and it is at first, having a child can result in strong negative impacts for new parents, according to a Washington Post report.

In fact, it’s even more negative — much more negative — than divorce, unemployment, and a partner’s death, which are the most terrible things to happen to a couple imaginable.

The findings were made by researchers Rachel Margolis of the University of Western Ontario and Mikko Myrskylä at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, who followed 2,016 Germans who had no children when the study began, and stopped following them after two years into the birth of their first child. Over that period of time, they were asked to rate their happiness on a scale of 0 units to 10 units, with 10 being very happy. The question they were asked was, “How satisfied are you with your life, all things considered?” This question is preferred over a direct question about childbirth because parents tend to avoid saying negative things about their children.

The purpose of the study was to figure out the disparity between how many kids Germans say they want to have — two — and how many they do have — an average of 1.5. The study found that only about 30 percent of people remained at the same state of happiness or had more happiness, and all the rest had a decline. About 37 percent had a one-unit drop, 19 percent a two-unit drop, and 17 percent a three unit drop, an average of 1.4 units of decline. That may not sound like much, but it’s worse than divorce (0.6 units), unemployment (1 unit), or the death of a partner (1 unit).