Happiness: a philosophical question

I'd say the child example isn't too accurate. A child is a life long experience. A vacation isn't. I would think any experience that takes a certain amount of time to fully understand isn't going to get high markings until it's nearing the end of it's process/development (such as, when the kid moves out of the house).

And I'm also not sure of the distinction that's being made between retrospective and present happiness, say, in the example of looking back on how you've raised your child. If you feel pride and happiness for what that child has become, and how through the years you've helped them along etc, you are still feeling present happiness. You're not feeling happy only for what has happened in the past, you're also feeling happy for how presently, the child is now a grown adult. I would say it's present happiness for the result of a past process, not happiness for the past process.

To be fair, then, saying "having kids is great" isn't only a measurement of how much happiness the child personally brings to you, but also the personal development you undergo during that process, which is why the "happiness" bar enlarges after the kids have left.

Jam it back in, in the dark.