Tell Me About Being an Only Child

[Anonymous]

Only with an only here.

I encourage you to look at other threads on this, but in sort:

It's great/fine. I enjoy being and having an only and my child (9) is vocal about being cool with being an only.

I think you need to accept a lot of this is just a roll of the dice. Your child is just as likely to be happy as any other child regardless of family size.

Yes, there may be a greater curve to learn to share...or not. There may be a greater chance that the attention that you are able to give will give your kid a leg up. Or not.

In the end it's up to you to teach your child they are loved, provide them with support and community (which does not necessitate a fairy of 10), and life your life to the fullest given the cards your dealt.

Remember, many people choose 1 child by choice. MANY OF US. It's a very nice life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an only child, you are always trying to take care of oneself, do things for oneself cause no one is there to help you. Unless you can make really good honest and faithful friends that will be there to help you when you need help.
That means you will learn to take care of yourself well. If you can't learn that, you will have to depend on others. Go along with how your personality is like. Some people don't have want to deal with others.

On the other hands, if there are siblings, there is no guaranteed they will be around you all the time. They could end up to be idiots and awful people who hates you. Not all siblings get along from childhood to adulthood.

This does not reflect my experience at all. In fact, it's quite the opposite!

[Anonymous]

I was an only child and have an only child. I loved being my mother’s (single mother) “one and only”. With my DD, the gift has been our resources to spend on our child - enormous amounts of time and money. We have traveled all over the world with her, lived abroad and have been able to afford NCS tuition!!

[Anonymous]

I am technically an only child after my younger brother passed away at 6 mo.

I would say my social skills are not great and I felt lonely often as a child. I wish my mother would have facillitated more playdates and such, but even when I was older she strongly preferred me to go play at other's homes and rarely let me have anybody over. Rules were strict (10 pm curfew as a senior) and lots of focus on ME (grades, extracurriculars) made teen years miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an only. I had a very close relationship with both parents. It was cozy. But I echo the pressure comments. When my father passed away in my late teens (who I absolutely adored) one of the first emotions I had (on top of overwhelming sadness and grief) was relief that I didn’t have to keep pushing myself to live up to his expectations. I think the pressure would have greatly eased if there had been another focus of my parents’ attention.

I have a sister and still felt overwhelming pressure from my parents to perform. Point being, this is not a product of being an only child.

+1 and I was responsible for all the family caregiving. Somehow my younger sister (3 years apart) was always let "off the hook." I think it's much more about how you treat your child/children than whether or not they are an only. That said it's probably much easier to give all your attention to an only hence the anecdotes from other posters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was an only child and have an only child. I loved being my mother’s (single mother) “one and only”. With my DD, the gift has been our resources to spend on our child - enormous amounts of time and money. We have traveled all over the world with her, lived abroad and have been able to afford NCS tuition!!

This has been a big reason for us to have one child. We want the flexibility to be able to (relatively) easy afford private school tuition, travel abroad, support whatever interests she develops (she's only a toddler now, so we have no idea what those might be, but don't want to foreclose possibilities). She just turned 2, and we've already been to Europe with her twice. Never would have been able to do that with 2 kids.

We also don't want to have to split our time between two kids, activities-wise. That doesn't mean being helicopter parents; it's just that if she has a soccer game and her younger sibling had a baseball game, we don't want to have to pick who sees which kid's game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was an only child and have an only child. I loved being my mother’s (single mother) “one and only”. With my DD, the gift has been our resources to spend on our child - enormous amounts of time and money. We have traveled all over the world with her, lived abroad and have been able to afford NCS tuition!!

This has been a big reason for us to have one child. We want the flexibility to be able to (relatively) easy afford private school tuition, travel abroad, support whatever interests she develops (she's only a toddler now, so we have no idea what those might be, but don't want to foreclose possibilities). She just turned 2, and we've already been to Europe with her twice. Never would have been able to do that with 2 kids.

We also don't want to have to split our time between two kids, activities-wise. That doesn't mean being helicopter parents; it's just that if she has a soccer game and her younger sibling had a baseball game, we don't want to have to pick who sees which kid's game.

This is lovely and I totally get the sentiment. However, I think this is why some of us felt pressure as only children. Not because our parents drove us hard, but because they gave us every advantage possible (including their undivoded attention, etc) and so how could we not be amazing kids and then adults?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was an only child and have an only child. I loved being my mother’s (single mother) “one and only”. With my DD, the gift has been our resources to spend on our child - enormous amounts of time and money. We have traveled all over the world with her, lived abroad and have been able to afford NCS tuition!!

This has been a big reason for us to have one child. We want the flexibility to be able to (relatively) easy afford private school tuition, travel abroad, support whatever interests she develops (she's only a toddler now, so we have no idea what those might be, but don't want to foreclose possibilities). She just turned 2, and we've already been to Europe with her twice. Never would have been able to do that with 2 kids.

We also don't want to have to split our time between two kids, activities-wise. That doesn't mean being helicopter parents; it's just that if she has a soccer game and her younger sibling had a baseball game, we don't want to have to pick who sees which kid's game.

This is lovely and I totally get the sentiment. However, I think this is why some of us felt pressure as only children. Not because our parents drove us hard, but because they gave us every advantage possible (including their undivoded attention, etc) and so how could we not be amazing kids and then adults?

PP here. I totally get that, and we'll do our best to work against that. I will say that my parents had the resources to give my sister and me every possible advantage, and that resulted in me feeling tremendous pressure as well. So I guess it's not limited to one-child families.

[Anonymous]

I find the only tough is the fact that my mom is in her 70s and healthy, and desperately want her to live forever, because she’s my rock, and have nobody to lean on if something happens to her

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the spouse of an only, one thing I really appreciate is that MIL and FIL were happy to celebrate holidays on our terms. As long as she gets a Thanksgiving dinner with her son or a chance to open Christmas presents, it doesn't matter if it's that day or a week earlier/later.

There is a lot of pressure on only children, so that's something to watch. Also, have solid plans in place for when you're older and health declines. It is a lot of pressure on an only to be the only one responsible for aging parents.

DH never minded being an only child. Try not to worry too much about it. There are definite benefits.

Anecdotal accounts are not helpful, especially since there are plenty of studies about only children.

OP -- studies have shown that only children are no more lonely, spoiled, or socially maladjusted than children with siblings. Only children and children with siblings can feel pressure to take care of aging parents. Likewise, both can feel tremendous pressure from parents to perform at a certain level. Point being -- do what makes sense for your family. There are no generalizations one can make about what it's like growing up in various family arrangements.

Yes, agreed that pressure can happen with siblings, as well. But, don't you notice a theme here? All three only-child PPs have mentioned feeling pressure.

Are you kidding? Try being the younger sibling of a screw-up. Talk about pressure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was an only to a single Mom and not the center of her universe. She was 'detached' in that she worked FT while I was a latch-key kid, and did a lot of stuff with friends while sending me to grandma's house. Examples: never did any trips/vacations with me but went on ski trips and Caribbean sailing trips with friends, sent me away to summer camp for 5 weeks every summer, I used to do weekend tournaments and she'd never come watch. When I turned 18, I went away to college and never returned home.

Now, when she visits my home, she's all over me - a real smother mother. She's always interrogating me with questions, watching me all the time for my reaction to things. When she meets one of my friends, the interrogation starts on her like she's trying to find out all about me from a 3rd party. I gave up Facebook because she stalks every comment that I make. It's exhausting.

My mom has always done this and still does. My parents have been together for 35 years and I have an older sister. We attribute so much to family structure, but people are so different and everything is more dependent on individuals.

Fine by me, but please LMK if you have ever found an antidote to the smother mother....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was an only to a single Mom and not the center of her universe. She was 'detached' in that she worked FT while I was a latch-key kid, and did a lot of stuff with friends while sending me to grandma's house. Examples: never did any trips/vacations with me but went on ski trips and Caribbean sailing trips with friends, sent me away to summer camp for 5 weeks every summer, I used to do weekend tournaments and she'd never come watch. When I turned 18, I went away to college and never returned home.

Now, when she visits my home, she's all over me - a real smother mother. She's always interrogating me with questions, watching me all the time for my reaction to things. When she meets one of my friends, the interrogation starts on her like she's trying to find out all about me from a 3rd party. I gave up Facebook because she stalks every comment that I make. It's exhausting.

My mom has always done this and still does. My parents have been together for 35 years and I have an older sister. We attribute so much to family structure, but people are so different and everything is more dependent on individuals.

Fine by me, but please LMK if you have ever found an antidote to the smother mother....

Let me know if you also find an antidote to the parents who basically see you as the outlet for their hopes and dreams because your little sister's career path is clearly not something they think she should be doing. Talk about pressure.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter whether you're an only child or have a pile of siblings if you have great parents. The same is true of your kids or kid--they will be happy if you work to make them happy, and anybody passing judgment one way or the other can catch these hands. I was an only and loved it.

[Anonymous]

Another only checking in here to say it was fine, even great. I don't recall feeling immense pressure to succeed or anything like that, but I can attest to being a bit smothered by parental attention/overprotectiveness (from my mother, anyway). But again, that may just be how she is and might not have been any different if I'd had siblings, and - to her credit - she has backed off considerably since I've reached adulthood. I wasn't lonely growing up; I'm an introvert and have always been perfectly happy entertaining myself on my own. I read a lot as a kid and still do, for example. I wasn't starved for interaction with other kids though, there were always similar-aged children in our neighborhood to play with, and I also had the benefit of cousins who lived in the same town and sometimes overlapped with me during middle school and high school.

In any event, I often think the "lonely with no one at home to play with" story about only children can be a bit of a red herring - after a certain age (10? 11?) who was really at home playing with their siblings anyway? Once kids hit middle and high school, life revolves far more around socializing with friends than family, and I don't think being an only child ever hindered me in the friend-making department. Particularly, in college, I found my way into a group of friends that's become like family to me, several of whom I'm in daily contact with even 10 years after graduating.

I'll also echo others in saying that my being an only meant that my parents had a lot of resources to offer me that they might not have otherwise, and I'm immensely grateful for those things. I was able to get a college degree and a masters, both from private universities, and graduate with absolutely no debt. We traveled plenty when I was young, and even now as an adult my parents will occasionally spring to bring me and my husband along on a trip.

The one downside I'll mention is that as I became an adult, I did start to develop some fear of being completely alone in the world once my parents were gone. But that fear subsided considerably once I got married, and even moreso now that I have a child of my own. For only children, perhaps it becomes more important for us to consciously build more family into our lives since the sibling connection wasn't built in for us.

As for me, I'd be fine with my son being an only since it was my experience and I turned out to be a pretty happy, functional, productive member of society. DH and I are planning to have one more since he'd like to have two and I'd also be fine with expanding our family. But again, if #2 doesn't work out, I have no concerns about what our family life will be like or how my son will turn out.

That's all to say, this is nothing to worry about, OP.

[Anonymous]

I loved being an only child. I didnt feel lonely, had friends, life was good.


Of course., my parent divorced, and I ended up being a built in babysitter.

I’m comfortable on my own. I don’t need accolades from others. I don’t seek my siblings approval. I host Thanksgiving.

Oh.. I also share well.

You can formulate yourself your own decisions.

Having a second isn’t about your child. It’s about you.,