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On Monday, Miriam and I watched Little Miss Sunshine, and it got me thinking about an odd paradox concerning childhood and degrees of happiness. (I’ll tell you when to stop reading before I give anything away.)

Little Miss Sunshine is about an extended family from Albuquerque who travel to Los Angeles to take their young daughter to a beauty pageant. The mother is under stress from her sloganeering second-husband, an unsuccessful motivational speaker; her obscene father-in-law, kicked out of a nursing home for heroin use; her brother, a clinically depressed Proust scholar who just attempted suicide; and her mute teenage son who “hate[s] everyone”. (If you haven’t seen the movie but are planning to, stop here.)

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