Why it's great to have lots of snotty-nosed brats running around

According to research by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, parents are less likely to fall ill when exposed to the same flu virus as people with no kids. And, the more kids they had, the better off the parents were. The researchers shoved flu germs up subjects’ noses and found that parents were only 48 percent as likely to come down with the flu compared with their happy, rich, childless counterparts who go on holidays each year and have full, active sex lives. A couple of theories as to why the parents were better off were offered, and it wasn’t because of increased antibodies. The team speculated that having kids reduced stress levels, but the other scenario is that parents simply didn’t have time to get sick. [Source]