Only child versus having more than one

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're really on the fence, I'd consider your current child's personality and how this child would be affected by having/not having a sibling. My older probably would have been OK as an only, but me and DH did want to have two kids. (I have a much harder time wrapping my head around the decision to have more than 2, but that's just me.)

One indirect benefit to my older child is that I realized just how different two kids from same parents can be, which helped me not to be so uptight about the role of parenting, which I think made life easier for the kids.

YES!!!!!!

When I had more kids I realize that we are just along for the ride. They come who they are and we're just helping them be their best selves.

I know this and I have an only. Not sure why you need more than one to learn this.

Because we are not as awesome as you obviously.

[Anonymous]

I grew up as an only, never wanted siblings, and had a happy, regular childhood. I never felt like I lacked anything, and all holidays and vacations were the three of us. I attended a small rural high school and I'm pretty sure I was one of the few onlies there...but I never felt different because of that. In fact I enjoyed going over to friends' houses, being in the madness of a larger family, then coming back to my quiet, calm home. It was the best of both worlds. And I'm fine with being an only child now as my parents are aging and I'm dealing with the effects of that...it's not easy, but doable.

My parents had siblings but they rarely talked. My H has two siblings and they talk almost every day. So I don't think one can really predict what a sibling relationship will look like. But I will say this: don't place the existence of the second child on the first child. I have an acquaintance and once in front of her children (I think they were maybe 5/8 then) she talked about how they didn't want a second kid but the first kid was so insistent they just went ahead and did it. "Larla, you owe your existence to your brother!" Actual words, and I don't think she was joking. Even if that's how things panned out, I'm not sure why she thought it was okay to say that out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am one of three. DH is one of four. We have three kids and wanted four.

We wanted a larger family for our children not just for childhood but to provide support for them during their adult years. My siblings, and DH's, have been so important to us during our young adult and adult lives that I cannot imagine my children not having the same built in support. We've gone through family issues , health scares, loss, moving across the globe, etc. together. Yes, I have incredibly close friends but siblings are just different. I am very different from my siblings and we don't see eye to eye on everything but we work through our differences. WE also have each other's back 100% of the time.

So many people these days focus on the toddler or baby years when deciding how many kids they want. I think that's important but don't forget to see the long road. What do you want your kids to have in their adult lives. How do you want your lives to look 10, 20, 40 years from now? Plan for that - whatever you think that should look like.

DP and parent of three - yes to taking the long-view perspective BUT don’t forget the road to get there. If you don’t have the bandwidth to support the number of kids you have, it’s much less likely you’re going to have that happy, larger family with close adult siblings for your kids. We have the bandwidth for our three and we wanted three in part because I’m one of two, my sister is deeply dysfunctional, and I didn’t want that dynamic for our kids.

[Anonymous]

I’m an only child and I like being an only. I have two children and I really enjoy them both together and individually. They are such different people!

Don’t have a 2nd child for your other child. Have a 2nd because you want a 2nd child. Don’t worry about age differences because of some preconceived notion of good or bad sibling relationships. Time your pregnancy based on your mental and physical health, your finances, what season you want to be home on maternity leave, whatever matters to your and your partner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an only child who my everything. My child is a toddler and approaching an age where if I’m going to have another child it needs to be now for them to really be arguably close in age. What does everyone think about having an only child verse two children? Any thoughts and feedback much appreciated. I am looking for exclusively the perspective of The benefits it would have on my child. (not necessarily for my benefit)

Well do you want your child growing up to think they are someone's everything, that they always are first pick, that they are always the most important and then go out into the real world with that mindset. Or do you want them to learn compromise, negotiating, that life isn't always fair, how to get along with others, etc.

A sibling isn’t necessarily going to fix this.

My cousin is who is an only child was the most spoilt and entitled child I knew and grew up to be an entitled, spoilt adult. She was their everything, center of their world, the sun, moon, and stars. However I agree that if she had had a sibling, both kids would probably have been treated that way to some extent.

I do a lot of volunteering with kids and have seen dozens and dozens of family dynamics over the years. Selfish, spoiled children are a result of bad parenting, not the number of siblings they have. I know kids with those traits and IMO, their siblings seem to make them double down with those tendencies. The parents encourage possessiveness and "fairness" and it makes the competitive and un-generous. I also know only children that are the least selfish and most compromising kids in the room, because they have never had to compete for resources and don't see life as a zero sum game. Personally, I think if I lived in a rural area, I'd be more inclined to give a child a sibling or two. But in an urban area like the DMV, kids have plenty of neighbors and extracurricular activities if they want them. I think the best family set up in this area is the one that makes the parents happiest and most able to be calm, stable, involved parents. Life in this area is hard and demanding, and adding more kids because you "should" is not always a net positive for the family and the kid's childhood experience.

In my cousin's case it was about her being an only child. They had fertility issues and this was their one and only and they worshipped her and tried to give her everything. They were older parents (40s) and she was the center of their world. They catered to her as a child to the extremes. They were focused on wanting her to be happy and whatever she needed / wanted to be happy - they gave her. In many ways they were great parents - she had every opportunity in the world and the undivided attention of doting parents but all that attention and focus on her as a child who could truly do no wrong made her spoiled and entitled.

I would also gently suggest that you may be biased and not be getting a full picture of what went on with your cousin or her parents. I say this because it happened to me.

Growing up, I had two cousins who were onlies. I remember disliking these two cousins, feeling they were entitled, and ascribing it to them being only children. I also remember my mom and aunts often tut-tutting about how those kids were spoiled, didn't learn to share, how sad it was they didn't have siblings ("go play with your cousins Larla, she's always all alone") etc. I have three siblings and I grew up thinking that only kids were generally spoiled and entitled like I perceived my cousins to be.

But a few years ago, shortly after I'd had my first baby who would also turn out to be my last, my mom made a comment to me about one of those cousins. She said something along the lines of "she created a monster", referring to her sister raising her only child. And I was a bit taken aback and honestly confused because all these years later, I don't consider that cousin (or my other only child cousin) to be a monster at all. We're all in our 40s now (I was still in my 30s at the time this happened) and they have settled into mid-life with pretty decent lives. The cousin she was referring to is married, has kids, sees his parents a lot. I remember when he was younger he was kind of aimless, took a while to figure out what he wanted after college, and struggled a bit to get used to caring for himself. I do think my aunt probably doted on him too much and did too much for him once he was a teen/young adult because that transition was tough for him. But he's not a monster, at all, and I actually think most people who meet him would think him to be quite successful at life -- good job, good family, functional relationships, and he has a good personality and plenty of friends.

What I realized when my mom said that is that a lot of the narrative around my only child cousins had been handed to me by people who were pretty biased. Another thing about these cousins -- their parents were more financially stable than my parents or some of their siblings, their parents didn't really stress about college and even paid for grad school in both cases because they had the funds and it was, after all, their only child. I think some of what my mom and her sisters said was based on truth -- my one aunt, at least, really did struggle with saying no to her kid sometimes -- but I think a lot of it was based on envy and resentment.

And I'm also realizing that maybe what I perceived as selfishness or entitlement as a kid... wasn't. I came from a big family, was a middle child, and as an adult I've discovered I have a lot of issues related to some neglectful behaviors from my parents that were at least in part due to the fact that they had a lot of kids and simply overlooked some of my needs in the mix. I was a very insecure kid and viewed resources as scarce and all my siblings and I were/are very competitive about stuff like parental attention. I now think it's possible my cousins weren't actually selfish or entitled, but just secure. And that read as very entitled to me, a deeply insecure child who never felt like I got enough attention or emotional support. This really struck me as my mom was complaining about how my cousin was a "monster" (a demonstrably false statement) due to my aunt's parenting, when of course my parents were also flawed parents and I know that better than anyone.

I had it totally wrong. I think it's possible you might have it at least partially wrong, too. There might be some truth to it, but were your parents perfect? All parents mess some stuff up. Unless your cousin is now committing financial fraud, stealing from children, never gives money to charity, and friendless and miserable because of her terrible, selfish, entitled personality, it's probably that the narrative around your cousin being spoiled beyond all help is an exaggeration intended to make certain people feel superior about themselves.

+1. I think a ton of the perception of only children as spoiled has to do with the fact that people go in with those preconceptions. Studies doesn't really bear out significant differences, but if you're looking for them, you'll see them because of confirmation bias.

[Anonymous]

Another sibling is not always the blessing to the first child that many here are presuming. My brother was firstborn and I wish he’d been an only, since he abused me for our entire childhood and the abuse continued at every family gathering until I finally estranged myself from him 20+ years ago. When we were little it was both beatings and emotional/verbal, when we were older it was all emotional/verbal. Oh, he also sex trafficked me when we were teenagers by promising to pay $100 to whichever of his friends could F*** me first and one of them date raped me at a party in high school when I was only 14, it’s how I lost my virginity.

I’m a former prosecutor and have seen even worse horror stories of sibling abuse between children and adults. Siblings are not always a blessing to one another and not always close after mom and dad have passed. I currently work in home care and have done so for nearly a decade I have seen really ugly stuff between siblings fighting over who takes care of parents and who gets what of the inheritance.

Only children can be perfectly okay people if they have loving parents. There is plenty of opportunity to learn all the necessary interpersonal relationship skills in daycare, school, camp, sports, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, did you say that you were a single parent? I think that this will also play into the equation. Two kids are obviously, MUCH more difficult to raise by yourself, than one. I have a single friend that has two children. Their early teen years were really, really rough, and she felt like she was coming apart at the seams, with how stretched she was to manage all the demands on her time. Things are just starting to settle down a bit, now that they're a bit older.

I have an only, and have friends that have anything from 1-3 children. Most of the onlies, mine included, have wished they had siblings at some point in their lives (mine very specifically, wanted a girl twin). Almost all the kids with siblings have wished they didn't have siblings (or specific sibling), at some point in their lives. It all ebbs and flows, and changes from year to year.

In the end, you just don't know how the dynamics are going to end up, and whether they will end up having close relationships with their siblings. Lord knows there are plenty of people whose primary support system are their friends, and not relatives.

All of this. I set out to have an only ("one and done") and then for a while I thought it might be nice to have two so we TTC, but it didn't work out and now, most days, I'm glad it didn't. DD understands the benefits of being an only and also sometimes wants a sibling. There is no one perfect thing that will always make you happy.

But one of the reasons that I wanted an only is that I knew DH and I would deal poorly with certain parenting stresses. My mother tended to be a martyr to her family and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be fully present for my kid (or for both of us to be fully present) and also still have time for me. With two parents and one kid we can take breaks and cover each other and it's STILL pretty hard. I know there are single parents of multiple kids, obviously, but for me personally that wouldn't be my choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another sibling is not always the blessing to the first child that many here are presuming. My brother was firstborn and I wish he’d been an only, since he abused me for our entire childhood and the abuse continued at every family gathering until I finally estranged myself from him 20+ years ago. When we were little it was both beatings and emotional/verbal, when we were older it was all emotional/verbal. Oh, he also sex trafficked me when we were teenagers by promising to pay $100 to whichever of his friends could F*** me first and one of them date raped me at a party in high school when I was only 14, it’s how I lost my virginity.

I’m a former prosecutor and have seen even worse horror stories of sibling abuse between children and adults. Siblings are not always a blessing to one another and not always close after mom and dad have passed. I currently work in home care and have done so for nearly a decade I have seen really ugly stuff between siblings fighting over who takes care of parents and who gets what of the inheritance.

Only children can be perfectly okay people if they have loving parents. There is plenty of opportunity to learn all the necessary interpersonal relationship skills in daycare, school, camp, sports, etc.

For every horror story there are people who love their siblings and are close. In fact one study found that 2/3 of siblings considered one of their siblings one of their closest friend!
Don't let fear keep you from having a second if you want one!

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/11/27/366789136/your-adult-siblings-may-be-the-secret-to-a-long-happy-life

here is the actual article - https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/71/1/85/2233340 it's a little dated but I'm sure a literature search can find a more recent article on the benefits for siblings.

That being said - do it for you and make sure you have enough resources!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have 2 kids nearly 2.5 years apart in age. The benefit for having more than one kids is that they have playmates after the baby stage, and they each learn that neither of them have privileges and everything has to be shared. We don’t mean every only child, but those my kids have played with tend to exclude one of my kid, it could be lack of experience to have siblings to “practice” share at home. The cons of having more than one kid is that you may not be able to afford the best for all of your kids, either money or time related.

Contrary view: my only child is incredibly generous and willing to share, perhaps because she doesn't worry about competing for resources. And having a sibling doesn't mean that your kid will want to play with their friend's sibling.

+1. The sharing / spoiled thing is a weird myth. My only child is happy to share, happy to do whatever game the playmate wants, etc because she knows she can do her own activities at home. It's so odd to think there aren't opportunities to "practice" socially -- not only are there playdates, church, cousins, etc., but kids are in school 7 hours a day. I agree with some of the downsides mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but the idea only children are more frequently selfish or socially maladjusted is silly.

Somebody else recommended the book "One and Only" already, but it's a great read. It says that onlies basically turn out like first-borns. Unless you were a twin, every first-born was an only child for some formative years and yet culturally we don't freak out about that ....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an only child who my everything. My child is a toddler and approaching an age where if I’m going to have another child it needs to be now for them to really be arguably close in age. What does everyone think about having an only child verse two children? Any thoughts and feedback much appreciated. I am looking for exclusively the perspective of The benefits it would have on my child. (not necessarily for my benefit)

Well do you want your child growing up to think they are someone's everything, that they always are first pick, that they are always the most important and then go out into the real world with that mindset. Or do you want them to learn compromise, negotiating, that life isn't always fair, how to get along with others, etc.

A sibling isn’t necessarily going to fix this.

My cousin is who is an only child was the most spoilt and entitled child I knew and grew up to be an entitled, spoilt adult. She was their everything, center of their world, the sun, moon, and stars. However I agree that if she had had a sibling, both kids would probably have been treated that way to some extent.

I do a lot of volunteering with kids and have seen dozens and dozens of family dynamics over the years. Selfish, spoiled children are a result of bad parenting, not the number of siblings they have. I know kids with those traits and IMO, their siblings seem to make them double down with those tendencies. The parents encourage possessiveness and "fairness" and it makes the competitive and un-generous. I also know only children that are the least selfish and most compromising kids in the room, because they have never had to compete for resources and don't see life as a zero sum game. Personally, I think if I lived in a rural area, I'd be more inclined to give a child a sibling or two. But in an urban area like the DMV, kids have plenty of neighbors and extracurricular activities if they want them. I think the best family set up in this area is the one that makes the parents happiest and most able to be calm, stable, involved parents. Life in this area is hard and demanding, and adding more kids because you "should" is not always a net positive for the family and the kid's childhood experience.

In my cousin's case it was about her being an only child. They had fertility issues and this was their one and only and they worshipped her and tried to give her everything. They were older parents (40s) and she was the center of their world. They catered to her as a child to the extremes. They were focused on wanting her to be happy and whatever she needed / wanted to be happy - they gave her. In many ways they were great parents - she had every opportunity in the world and the undivided attention of doting parents but all that attention and focus on her as a child who could truly do no wrong made her spoiled and entitled.

You're describing bad parenting. A sympathetic case for why they made such major mistakes in parenting maybe, but still bad parenting. Your cousin was spoiled and entitled because her parents raised her with blinders, not because she was an only child.

What is with the know it all posters? Just because someone posts something you disagree with, it doesn't actually invalidate them or their experience. I get you only want to hear positives about only children - likely due to your own life and so you will talk over and be a know it all to anyone who has a different opinion but that whatever the word is for mansplaining for people who can't handle other people thinking differently - it gets tiring. Own your own experience and talk about it to your hearts content but stop trying to invalidate anyone who doesn't agree with you. You know nothing about my family. Nothing. So your inflated sense of self is going to get you nowhere.

If you can’t see the bias in your perspective, then there’s no point in trying to convince you. You could have just as easily described a first born son, precious miracle baby, or the darling youngest of the family. Anytime you have a “golden child” dynamic, you’ll get the scenario you describe in your family. It’s not exclusive to only children or unique. Some of us have seen it in other contexts and can speak to that. No need for such hostility.

[Anonymous]

I'm another single parent to a toddler who has debated the same question. I'm 99% sure my child will be an only now even though I haven an embryo left.

Here is how I decided:

I think as a single parent I have an extra responsibility to stay healthy and active as a parent as I age. I not only worried about the health risk of a pregnancy in my mid-40s, but also I've come to recognize that caring for my body takes a time investment I would not be able to make with a second child.

Financially, I could stretch to make things work for a second child - but it would be at the expense of my first child. I grew up in a large family and it took me years to get out from under my student loan and credit card debt because my parents couldn't support me after 18 or contribute anything to college - too many siblings to pay for.

As I think about gaining free time as my child gets older, I find I am yearning more to focus on myself with that free time than to parent another child. Again, happy parent equals better parent. I think my child is better off having one great, happy, healthy parent than a super-stressed parent + a sibling.

[Anonymous]

I have a sister but we are 13 years apart so for the first 13 years I was an only child and always remember wanting a sibling. And I love having a sister. My mom was sick and passed away 4 years ago and I cannot imagine going through that without my sister. My Dad remarried and his wife has a range of annoying habits and it’s my sister I can call and complain to and she totally gets it. I am sure there are well adjusted onlies but my life have been lesser than without my sister.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a sister but we are 13 years apart so for the first 13 years I was an only child and always remember wanting a sibling. And I love having a sister. My mom was sick and passed away 4 years ago and I cannot imagine going through that without my sister. My Dad remarried and his wife has a range of annoying habits and it’s my sister I can call and complain to and she totally gets it. I am sure there are well adjusted onlies but my life have been lesser than without my sister.

This is very helpful. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

I am not sure how to phrase this, but I do think there is a benefit to living with someone who loves you, but who also teases you and isn’t exactly nice to you all of the time. I think you can really only get this with a sibling or a very close friend. I think it gives you a fuller picture of yourself and makes it easier to recognize and tolerate your flaws.

[Anonymous]

I don't regret having a second, in part so that first wouldn't be alone (as in no immediate family) after we die. Not gonna lie. It's hell on our finances and time, but I'm glad we have two.

My DC#1 is glad we had a second, even as DC#2 is the opposite gender and sometimes finds the younger DC super annoying.

There are no guarantees in life.