Being an adult only child is awful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh this post makes me so sad. Been trying to give ds a sibling and it’s not going to happen. I think about him being lonely all the time and it breaks my heart. I hope he marries into a big family and has a ton of kids of his own.

Same here. Adult only child who has one child and cannot have a second. I feel sad about this every day and worry that my child will be lonely.

+2
I'm another adult only child with an only child. We dealt with primary infertility, and we've tried for years for #2 and had losses in the process. It saddens me to think of DD growing up an only, and I've struggled with tremendous, sometimes crippling anxiety at the thought of anything happening to her (and, yes, I've seen a therapist).
No advice, OP, just commiseration. I find that, the older I get, the lonelier I feel.

Try being an infertile adult only child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh this post makes me so sad. Been trying to give ds a sibling and it’s not going to happen. I think about him being lonely all the time and it breaks my heart. I hope he marries into a big family and has a ton of kids of his own.

DH has 3 siblings. Drama, constant manipulations, requests for money and MIL enabling some f-ed up family dynamics.
No built in support, nobody organizes stuff. It’s all gimme, gimme...

It’s not wise to romanticize big families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adult only. I see it both ways. When my dad was dying with cancer, I was unmarried and childless and was able to help my mom (who lives out of state). Had I had kids in this situation it would have been very difficult. A decade later, my husband---who is now also an only since his only sibling passed away-- and I are each the sole caregivers of our moms, both of whom are living. Luckily I have a good relationship with my MIL and she is in much better health than my mom so she provides a lot of support when I have to travel to see my mom who is having health problems---because she knows that I will be supporting her son when it comes time to take care of her.

Am curious OP---is your husband Catholic? I've observed that my Catholic friends are much tighter with their sibs than many non-Catholics---even when there are disputes over money, elder care, they still pull it together whereas many protestant families (including my grandparents' generation) were willing to stay permanently estranged from their siblings. This may be a big overgeneralization---it's just what I have anecdotally observed.

But the good of being an only is that when it comes to these tough elder care decisions---it is all on you but there is also no one to second guess you.

Yes, and we are part of a catholic community here. Big, close-knit families are all around us all the time.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the adult only children who responded previously but I came back to add that it's not just my own loneliness that is an issue. My dad passed away 7 years ago. My mom is an introvert and lives far away from her own 2 sisters, and she's very lonely so it entirely falls on me to be her support system. We're not in the true "elder care" phase yet because she's only 69 and completely healthy. If she just needed help around the house, that would be a much easier problem to solve. She lives 3-4 hours from us but we're under enormous pressure, even more than before, to spend every single holiday with her instead of my DH's family and spend many many weekends visiting. Because if she's not with us, she's lonely and unhappy and I feel guilty for not being there. If I had a few siblings, I can't help but think that emotional responsibility would be spread out more instead of falling 100% on me.

She's hinted at moving in with us before, and I'm now sure that's the only way this will get any easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm one of the adult only children who responded previously but I came back to add that it's not just my own loneliness that is an issue. My dad passed away 7 years ago. My mom is an introvert and lives far away from her own 2 sisters, and she's very lonely so it entirely falls on me to be her support system. We're not in the true "elder care" phase yet because she's only 69 and completely healthy. If she just needed help around the house, that would be a much easier problem to solve. She lives 3-4 hours from us but we're under enormous pressure, even more than before, to spend every single holiday with her instead of my DH's family and spend many many weekends visiting. Because if she's not with us, she's lonely and unhappy and I feel guilty for not being there. If I had a few siblings, I can't help but think that emotional responsibility would be spread out more instead of falling 100% on me.

She's hinted at moving in with us before, and I'm now sure that's the only way this will get any easier.

Easier on you, but what about DH?

[Anonymous]

I'm an only child and both my parents died relatively young. Before he died, I spent 15 years taking care of my father mostly by myself (with some help from his sisters, thankfully. Thank God he had siblings. It was pretty rough and is one reason that I fought hard (with infertility treatment) to have two kids. But now my husband's family is basically my family and I have close friends. Agree with others on trying to forge your own family as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

Parent of an only:

I have always felt sad about this. DH has passed away, DS is 30, has some cousins on my side but not really close to them, his dad's only sibling married but they never had kids. I think it is good to know people who remember your childhood, people you will always feel at least some connection with. Only upside is we made friends with someone who had 8 kids and he is particularly close to a couple of those. My mom had a lot of what she called double cousins (3 brothers from one family married 3 sisters from another family) and have always envied what she described as her childhood into adulthood connections with her cousins.

Supporting each other is I think not valued that much in much of American culture.