Reply to Has Anyone Else Decided To Have Just One Child?

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "Has Anyone Else Decided To Have Just One Child?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I'm the PP who wrote this.  I was lonely as an only child mainly because a) we had no family nearby, all of them lived thousands of miles away so we never spent any holidays with family. [b] My parents didn't want to celebrate the holidays traditionally because "it was just the 3 of us" so for Thanksgiving we would go out for dinner, no homemade Thanksgiving dinner and this always bothered me, even as a child; b) we had basically no family traditions and I was upset by this even as a child; c) my parents wouldn't let me have a pet, which would have helped so much with the loneliness, and d) I was never allowed to bring friends on vacations[/b], so I grew to dislike traveling with my parents because we only did boring things for a child like art museums.

I was lonely as a child but am much, much lonlier as an adult--in an extistential sense of being all alone in the world.  This is exacerbated by the fact that my parents chose to move to California for their retirement, even though it meant we would only see them once a year.  My husband and I have no one to spend holidays with, no one to help out with big things like moving, etc.

I always felt self conscious as a child about our small family.  It made me feel different in a negative way, and I still feel this way as an adult.

I envy people who have large, extended families who get together once a year for a family reunion on the beach.  I have 17 first cousins and tons of aunts/uncles but none of them are interested in a relationship, and they all live thousands of miles away.

As a result, I am now preoccupied with the idea of a large family and making sure my child does not feel the same way I felt.  I plan to give her a sibling, perhaps have 2 more kids, and emphasize family traditions even though we really won't be seeing extended family very often.

I consider myself an introvert and am a very lonely person.  I think people can tell this about me even if they don't know me very well.[/quote]

This is what stood out to me as wrong -- sounds like your parents really made decisions that kept you isolated. I'm sorry, PP. I have an only child entirely by choice, but establishing and maintaining family traditions (such as holiday stuff) is something that DH and I make a big point of doing. We also make efforts to spend vacations with extended family so that our kid sees all the cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. (even though I personally could do with a little less of that).[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics