The Seeds of a Balanced Life Are Sown in Childhood

What makes a person feel like their life is in balance when they grow up? Researchers asked this question to over 200,000 adults across 22 countries. They looked at 13 different childhood experiences to see which ones mattered most for feeling balanced later in life.

A child's feeling of not belonging in their family can cast a longer shadow on their adult life than even severe hardship.

The biggest factor was how healthy people felt they were as kids. People who said their childhood health was excellent were more likely to feel balanced as adults, while those who said it was poor were less likely. Another big factor was feeling like an outsider in your own family growing up. About 14% of people said they felt this way, and it was strongly tied to feeling less balanced later in life.

Other things that mattered included having a good relationship with your parents, growing up in a family that lived comfortably financially, and attending religious services as a child. Interestingly, whether someone was an immigrant did not seem to make much of a difference at all. But the study also found that these patterns varied a lot depending on where you lived. For example, feeling like an outsider had a strong effect in Australia but almost no effect in Egypt, Hong Kong, and several other countries. In some places, like Spain and Israel, people who had poor health as kids actually felt more balanced as adults than those with good health.

The researchers think this might be because facing health challenges early on could help some people build resilience. Overall, the study suggests that many parts of our childhood leave a mark on how balanced we feel much later in life, but the way this happens depends a lot on the culture and country we grow up in.