Only Children

[guywithashovel]

We've had a few threads about people who choose not to have kids for whatever reason. I think we've even had a few discussions about people who have large families (several kids). However, I don't think we've ever touched on the subject of only children (unless the search I did was flawed).

Just so we're all on the same page, "only child" refers to someone who has no siblings. You probably knew that already, but I have found that it's usually good to clear that stuff up just in case.

Only children sometimes get a bad rep. They are often stereotyped as selfish, antisocial, spoiled, and various other nasty things. However, I've also heard it said that only children sometimes end up being mature for their ages because of being around adults more than children.

A while ago, I was out having drinks with some people from work, and a lady I work with got to talking about this with me. I mentioned an aunt of mine who chose not to have kids and never did, and it turned out that she had a brother who did the same thing. She said, "My feeling is, if you don't want kids, you shouldn't have them, but if you do have them, you should try to have at least two, because I just had one, and I've had all kinds of problems because of that." I didn't ask her to go into detail about the problems because I was afraid of being too intrusive.

I've known a few only children in my life. One of them was pretty immature, spoiled, and prone to getting into trouble and blaming other people for it. However, the way his parents raised him probably had a lot to do with it. They were always making excuses for him, especially his mom. If he got in trouble at school, it was always the teacher's fault or some other kid's fault. His mom had all the maturity of a fifteen year-old, and his dad was too whipped to take much of a stand.

Do you find any of these stereotypes to be true? If you're an only child or are a parent to one, do you think it's healthy for a kid to grow up without siblings? Have you noticed any specific pros and cons?

I sometimes joke with myself that it's good for a couple to stop at one kid, because if you only have one, you had the kid outnumbered. Of course, that's just a joke.

[AdminAssistant]

My sister and I were so far apart age-wise that I don't know that it really helped me much. (She's five years older.) I've known plenty of only children that were not spoiled or selfish at all; it depends on the parenting. Personally, I only want one child.

[McDreidel09]

I've met only a few only children and all of them were very immature and selfish. My friend, L, had an only child as a room mate and this girl was BAD. She tried to sneak guys in when L was sleeping. She never took out the trash as she was supposed to. She consistently kicked L out of the room so she could do homework or have guys over, but L was willing to leave the room to do homework so Bitch could have friends over. At the end of the semester, Bitch stole the cable cord and the University ended up fining L for it.

There was much more that she did, but I won't talk about it because I get mad.

However, I will not judge all only children by the few I have met. It all comes down to personality and who the person really is.

[ExRetailDrone]

I'm an only child. What that woman said really irks me. My parents did not choose to have just me. Doctors had told them that my mom would never be able to get pregnant. Lo and behold, she somehow did get pregnant. Her pregnancy with me was a very tough one. She could easily have died giving birth to me because of all the complications. I was as healthy as I could be when I was born, but she was not in nearly as good of shape. She had to be rushed to surgery to have an emergency hysterectomy to stop the bleeding that was happening. She got to be pumped full of blood to replenish what she had lost (which she got hepatitis from...lucky she didn't get HIV given that blood was not being screened yet). There was no possible way after that to have any more children. So sometimes the parents don't have a choice in the matter.

Anyway, enough of that rant

I've been told throughout my life that I was/am very mature for my age. Don't get me wrong, I was spoiled to a point. I had a lot of toys and I think it took me longer to learn how to really share than it would have for kids with siblings. I had my issues as a child, but overall I think that I turned out pretty well. But, as the OP states, a lot of that has to do with parenting. My parents didn't take a whole lot of shit from me. But I was the type of kid who really didn't get into a lot of trouble anyway, so they honestly didn't have to punish me all that often. My worst aspect was my anger, which I'm pretty sure I got from my dad. I was a yeller and a door-slammer, and sometimes I would throw things. Not very often, though, because I once threw a figurine that a friend had gotten me and broke it slightly. I felt awful and fixed it the best I could (I still have that figurine, a unicorn, and the top of the horn that I broke off has since come unglued and has been lost) and really don't remember throwing much else after that. But I definitely have grown up knowing how to take responsibility for my actions and consider myself quite mature.

Everyone has their issues and flaws, but I really don't think it's fair to say that an only child will be more selfish and less responsible than someone with siblings because that's putting a very simple light on a complex subject. I've known people with many siblings to be much less responsible than myself. I've also known only children to fully fit the stereotype. There's just too many other factors that play into what kind of person someone becomes.

[HYHYBT]

Dad's an only child ("child" being an odd thing to call someone in his 60's, but there you are) and has often said he envies us, his children, because he never had a brother or sister, and can never know that kind of relationship except secondhand.

Of course, we can never know what it would have been like to be an only child (well, I *was,* of course, for almost two years, but can only just barely remember my first brother being born) but then, we get along quite well and wouldn't want not to have each other. Some families, of course, don't work out that way.

[Andara Bledin]

I've known four only children than I can think of off the top of my head: My father, my ex, a friend, and my current boyfriend.

There are two things that all of them shared. One was stunted socialization, which is pretty self-explanatory. The other was an underdeveloped ability to have an argument, which in my dad's and my ex's cases meant that the first big fight of each of their relationships, they honestly believed that it meant that the relationship was over.

I'm sure this doesn't hold true for everybody who grows up without siblings, but it was very much true for the four I know to have done so.

^-.-^

[Boozy]

"Only-child" symdrome and other personal characteristics associated with birth order is pseudo-science. There's never been any hard evidence that the existence or number of siblings have any major influence on the kind of person someone turns out to be.

Anecdotal evidence doesn't count. That's usually a matter of someone noticing a characteristic, and then attributing it to the fact that person was an only-child.

[patiokitty]

My son is an only child and he's got a pretty good head on his shoulders. A friend of mine, a single parent like myself, has one child and if he were mine there is no way he'd get away with even an eighth of the stuff he does. My son is in university, her son is a grade 7 drop-out. Yes, seriously, and she put all the blame on the teachers...even though my son had the same teachers two years previously and I called her out on her bullshit excuses.

I think a lot of it is parenting style. There are parents out there who lavish their children with all sorts of attention and put blinders on so they don't witness a lot of what their precious children are really doing. They blame everybody else but the true culprits - namely themselves and their children. It doesn't have to be an only child that acts like a spoiled rotten brat - I've seen entire broods of children act this way, or one or two out of a brood if they are the favoured children.

[anakhouri]

I may change my mind in the future, but for now I think Khan will be an only child.

People get all upset about it for some reason; their favorite arguments are that he will never be socialized (like he's a pet) and that when we get old and decrepit he will have to handle all the elderly parent crap by himself.

My answer? Husband sent me a paper from a super-elite science journal, of a study that found only children are socially behind at first, but completely catch up after a year in school. And I have a brother, and am still power of attorney/executor etc for my parents, because my brother is far too irresponsible to handle it. So there's no guarantee all that wouldn't fall on Khan anyway.

We don't spoil Khan with material goods. We give him all our attention (while he's awake at least) and one of the reasons I don't want more kids is that I don't want to split my attention or my love. You can't spoil a kid with love.

It's all in the parenting, like with any family no matter how many kids they have.

[guywithashovel]

I have a sister, and I don't have the best social skills in the world. In fact, for much of my childhood, I'd say I was socially stunted. Looking back on some of the ways I handled social situations, I wouldn't be afraid to bet that some people probably thought I was snobby, when in fact it was just shyness and a lack of social graces.

That whole argument about them getting stuck taking care of you when you're old is pretty dumb, too. People who don't have kids sometimes hear that, too, and it's just as lame then. If one kid is all you want, then it's probably best that you only have that one kid.

I think people just zero in on only children who have the stereotypical traits and ignore any other factors that could have caused them to have those traits. Maybe the kid is selfish and immature, but could something else have caused that?

[Gravekeeper]

<--- Only child. Always been told I was mature for my age, etc etc.

However this is entirely due to how I was raised and who I was raised by. Me thinks the parenting has more of an effect on a child then having or not having siblings ever does. -.-

[KellyHabersham]

Just a quick comment I have on this.......my daughter used to refer to herself as an only child because although she's got several half-sisters, they haven't been part of her life and she doesn't really know them.

[muses_nightmare]

I'm an only child, I have step-siblings, but they didn't come along until I was 14-15, and I don't associate with that side of the family anymore (my dad's side, long story). I'm not any more damaged or anything from not having siblings, and I'm well "socialized" whatever the heck that means. I never had issues with sharing or anything like that either.

I agree with what a lot of people said about how it's the style of parenting that's more important than the number of siblings.

[KnitShoni]

It's always been a pretty even split as far as maturity levels and socialization skills of the only children I've known. How (or whether) their parents worked with them had a lot to do with that.

SN: I've noticed that people will have something to say no matter how many children one decides to have or not have. People who have over a certain number get crap for having too many, people under a certain number get crap for not having more, people who don't have any get crap for not having any. I get crap for only having my daughter, never mind that she has a brother and sister, because they're so much older than she is that she "might as well be an only child" and she "needs someone to play with."

[tropicsgoddess]

I don't see anything wrong with a parent choosing only to have one child and the way the child comes out is all in how the parent raises them whether it's an only child or not. All the people I know that are the only children in their families (including SO) have good heads on their shoulders.