Is it career? If so, that's pretty depressing. Happiness is a superficial emotion. If your loved one was "happy" spending his entire life playing fortnight in his parent's basement, would you be sad for him? Charity?
I don't know. Never found a meaning as compelling as having children.
A google definition of superficial is "appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely."
I don't see how the definition of a type of emotion can be "superficial". Presumably your usage of "happy" in quotes is not actually happiness if you decided to put it in quotes. If you meant it as him actually being happy then someone could decide to be sad for him but that has nothing to do with his own happiness. Instead it would just be someone arrogantly projecting their own sensibilities and worldview onto the fortnite player while thinking they know better sources of happiness (when really the causes are subjective and every person derives varying levels of joy in different ways).
Making kids a "point of life" can itself be seen as a last ditch effort to be happy. The thought that there's some purpose in life that points to procreating is arbitrarily chosen and is seemingly that way because people derive happiness from some idea of having a legacy or finding comfort in interpreting the potential continuous spread of dna as some proxy for immortality
wait for the scientist who'll start printing soldier clones of himself
I understand it was hyperbole, but I would suggest one possible application of having and throwing everything you've got at raising children[1] to help with aimlessness/meaninglessness/purposelessness. Particularly when they're your own the common experience is your instinct/genome takes over and you'll find great imperative to do things you couldn't do for yourself. I learned about this concept from Jordan Peterson who also notes it works with pets[2]. For any bit of resentment about how the world has treated you, pouring yourself into someone else can at least give the solace that for them they will not suffer as much as you have, or at least not in the same insanity producing cyclical way as you had.
[1]: (technically can also be someone else's like foster, adopt, church, mentor, nephews/nieces) .
[2]: he talks about how people more frequently fill prescriptions for pets than for themselves.
Society keeps encouraging a lifestyle with less and less responsibility.
The government takes care of you (until you start bringing in profits), your employer takes care of you (with no raises). Everything seems engineered to coddle people without making them realise what they're missing. I feel most people are basically unaware cattle, happy to stay in their comfort zone and to keep producing what they tell them to.
Sexual promiscuity is cool, relationships don't last, having kids is a suicide, you're a victim.
A lot of the shitty parents have way deeper problems than this. The ones doing ok are probably glad they get to use their judice and they enjoy the freedom that comes with responsibility (without forgetting the obligations).
I believe there is a similar function in marriages, parenting, and other relationships -- the act of working through challenges makes you a "better" person at least in the regards of perspective, negotiation, less selfishness etc.
Of course, like basically everything in every discussion, there are exceptions but lets not focus on those because it makes it difficult to talk about anything save for physical laws.
Personally, I'm shocked at how just having kids has healed a lot of my held resentment. I used to look back at moments in my life that I wished had gone differently. Now I see that if you gave me a time machine and the chance to go back and change how I responded, I can't do it because I'd be erasing my kids.
I wouldn't even be able to stop the covid pandemic, selfish as that may be.