I am an only child. I am not the only person, as such. There are countless other sibling-less children in the world. (FYI / FWIW My mother couldn’t have any more children except me. She had to get a hystorectomy.)
Why is it then, so often, the majority of folks who learn one is an “only child” they seem completely astonished and regard being an only child with such a negative connotation?
Surely, “only children” are not that few in volume. Are they?
I’m the first of 5 kids, and when we were growing up, there was an accepted perception that “onlies” were self-centered, spoiled, conceited, self-absorbed… I have no idea where that conventional wisdom was birthed.
FWIW, my daughter is an only, and she is none of the above. She is, as I have mentioned, the Perfect Child[sup]TM[/sup]
Only child checking in here.
My only experience in negative perception has been the “spoiled rotten” perception. We could probably debate on whether or not that applies to me, so I won’t bother going there.
I found being an only child to be a positive experience, in that I learned how to deal with adults early on, and I most importantly learned how to entertain myself without feeling lonely. Good skills, I think.
I did sometimes wish I had a sibling, but not too often.
Besides, what the hell was I supposed to do about it? I can’t MAKE mom and dad have another kid. So you’ve just got to adapt to what you’re given.
Sorry I’ve nothing to add just yet, although I do have some vague as yet unarticulated feelings on the matter. My oldest who is now a young teen has been an “only” since he was six and leukemia came to our house, so I’m just posting to watch the replies.
I was an only for the first five years of my life, and like scout1222 learned to deal with adults very early on. I spent most of my time with my mom and her mother, on day trips to various places while dad worked and I apparently had a reputation for having a 30 year old mind in a 5 year old body. Not necessarily in a polite way, either. More in a smart-assed beyond one’s years way. I didn’t cause scenes with it, though, and given my mom’s recountings of things years later it seems it was more amusing than anything else. So she says 
Even after my brother was born I tended to lean towards being a solo kind of kid (I love my brother dearly, but the age difference meant we didn’t hang much until later on even though we’ve always been pretty close). I kind of like being by myself or being part of a smallish group of friends; I don’t know if that’s a nature or nurture thing. Would I be like this if I’d had more siblings nearer my age? Hard to say. I’d say the disadvantage, though, if indeed it’s based in being an only, though briefly, is that some people see me as antisocial and I do tend to be very resistant to being part of large groups or meeting brand new people. I’m getting over it (hey, I go to Dopefests!) but the shyness almost always kicks for a bit.
The one person I know who fits the self-centered, spoiled etc. mold mentioned by FairyChatMom is not only an only, but also a child of divorce (and her parents are both nutjobs, trust me on this). Each parent in that situation tried to spoil the girl rotten and they ended up creating the proverbial monster-- even in her adult life, she expects constant submission and attention from her friends. Of which I am no longer one (Syntax police? Hi!). I don’t know of any other onlies who play to the stereotype, although come to think of it I’m not positive I know any other onlies at all.
I agree that the stereotype is that only children are spoiled brats, don’t see much truth to that though. I’ve seen only GIRLS behave like brats because they are spoiled though.
Along the lines of stereotypical sibling behaviors I’ve seen more often: the oldest=too serious; middle=gets most attention/help but not grateful for it; youngest=least grip on reality
Not an expert or anything, just what I’ve seen in both mine and my spouse’s huge families.
I think this is mostly a case of “the grass is always greener.” People who have siblings (and all of the problems that come with them – including greater demands on parents’ time) tend to look somewhat enviously at only children (“I wouldn’t have to share my {bedroom}{clothes}{trips to the baseball game with Mom and Dad}{college tuition fund} etc. if I were an only child.”) That in turn leads to a perception of only children as spoiled and stuck-up. There’s also an element of the strongly pro-child attitude at work here – all of those threads in which people who don’t want children complain about the way they’re treated. If one child is good, two or three must be better, right? It all boils down to stereotyping those who are different.
I’m a ‘middle child’. I have one child. He bemoans his ‘only child’ status at times.
He says good points include : never having to share a room. more of the disposable income gets spent his way. more accesability to parents when desired.
Negatives include: more accesability to parents also means that parents have less distractions. He feels that (I don’t necessarily agree with this) that because he’s the ‘only’ mom tends to focus more fear on ‘what if’s’ and therefore is more overly protective.
He is also aware that when he gets older, his ‘family get togethers’ will be fewer and more distant, that no one else will have the shared memories he does of ‘growing up in that household’ (he sees my siblings and I sharing tales of when dad would pack the car for trips or ‘the cat’ or remember the time Karl Shot Shirley Temple and mom got all mad).
I tell him that after meeting him, I didn’t want to ‘risk it’ again ( 
joking, really, I love my son, honest)
This has been a topic of some interest in my house as we (thus far) think my son may end up an only.
To answer the OP: One of the other “drawbacks” that is frequently forwarded in these discussions is the fact that an only child has no chance for sibling support when the parents age and need caregiving.
To ramble a little away from the OP: This is a valid concern, although I know several adults who find that their siblings are little or no help when it comes to decisions about/support for aged parents. Indeed, I think that applies universally: having siblings is no guarantee that good sibling-related things will occur in your family or your life.
But just to recap, societally the “negatives” about only children seem to be:
Loneliness
Potential for selfishness
Potential for spoiling
Missing out on general sibling benefits
I grew up an only* in a neighborhood where there were no other kids my age. That on top of being “gifted” and an early reader. I don’t really think I’m spoiled or selfish -although I’d imagine very few spoiled or selfish people do think of themselves that way - but I’ve often wondered if I might have had better social skills if I’d had siblings; I’m pretty shy with strangers and have some difficulty making new friends even today. My advice is if you’re raising an only child, try to live in a neighborhood that has plenty of kids.
*Well, I have two half-sibs, but they always lived pretty far away and the younger one is about 15 years older than me, so it doesn’t really count.
I have encountered two people, one of whom was a roommate, who were only children and were very self-centered. On the other hand, I’ve encountered many self-centered people who weren’t only children. I only offer these as data, I draw no conclusions from them.
I can’t add anything profound to the intelligent observations already made, but can agree with all to an extent.
I was the youngest of nine siblings, six of whom survived to adulthood. I personally cannot imagine the solitude and deprivation of being an only child, although I am myself solitary to the point of near eccentricness [sp?] (but only in a nice way). I am six years younger than my next nearest sibling, as opposed to all the rest who were only a year or so apart, but still it was the sense of community I grew up with that I cannot imagine doing without.
Among my five surviving adult siblings are a total of two “grandchildren”, singular for health reasons in one case and because of a bad marriage in the other. Both are now in college and unlikely to ever have siblings. They seem as well-adjusted as one could expect for their particular circumstances, and would not want sympathy if asked. But I can’t help thinking about how much they have missed out on, especially in the difficult times of life, by having no brother or sister. In spite of your differences, even though they be subtantial, there is no substitute for siblings. And it may seem trivial, but I do wonder, as a symptom of something larger, what will “holiday” gatherings be like for them in the future? At present they gather with everyone and the house is full of family, but won’t it seem lonely when there is only them and…what, an old aunt or uncle?
BTW, I do think much of the attitudes about the subject arise from the factors others have mentioned, but I also think that the concepts of “normal” and what is expected, both on the part of parent and child, have been profoundly affected in the last two or three decades because readily-available and reliable birth control has made the single- or few-child family a common thing that it was not and could not reasonably be in the past.
I’m not only an only child, but an only grandchild on one side (and on the other I have a cousin who is 12 years younger than me). I grew up in a family with no other children; I’m close to my great-aunts and more distant cousins, but the closest older third cousin is 8 years older and the closest younger second cousin is 6 years younger.
I’m glad to have been an only child. My parents went through a very financially crunched time when I was younger, and one more mouth would have been the difference between not well off, and desperately poor. I only realized when I entered my 20’s that when my mom had made ground beef, mushroom soup, and rice, she wasn’t making it only because I loved the stuff (still do!) but because it was cheap and would feed all of us. I grew up with shoes that fit and clothes that weren’t too small, and I’m glad.
I married a man who was fifth of seven children, and while he loves his siblings, he also told me about being starving poor, being blamed for something he didn’t do by parents too busy making a living to realize their youngest child was a pathological liar, and even as an adult I saw him helping his siblings move at least six times a year, along with financial and babysitting help (not that I think families shouldn’t help each other, but we couldn’t afford to have a child because we were helping his sisters raise their kids).
If I have a child, it’ll be just one. I’ve seen enough people treat their children like packs of animals to realize that I can’t effectively parent more than one. I’m just glad to figure that out before I have any.
Corr
AbbySthrnAccent, I’m very sorry for your loss.
There is, as yet, only one Little Lagomorph. After 19 months of his life our household is only now reaching some semblance of routine and calm. Don’t get me wrong, I love him dearly, but he was born premature so was in the NICU for weeks, has some development issues, and had an unrelated problem with his GI tract that caused days and nights of screaming pain for him, and his two frazzled parents . This necessitated two visits to the Emergency Room followed by hospital admissions before we got the correct diagnosis. This was all in the first 8 months.
I don’t think there is going to be a Little Lagomorph sequel. I’m just not up to it.
Mrs. Lagomorph seems to think that only children are asocial freaks. This has not been my experience at all.
Lag, I can relate. We didn’t have the same level of problems that you did. But when it comes right down to it, I look at our family chaos and parenting, and the things that I don’t think we do very well would only get worse with another kid. And the stuff we do well now, I think, would suffer.
I do know multiple-kid households that seem to get it together and do it all well–it’s like the addition child(ren) force them to make things work. But I don’t feel confident the same would happen for us.
It’s not inconceivable to me that maybe in some number of years we’ll want another, and then perhaps we’ll do an international adoption. I won’t have to go through another pregnancy, and we might miss out on the woes of the earliest part of infancy, too. We’ll see.
Okay, so I strayed awfully from the OP, but Lag’s post hit home.
I have a brother who is four years younger than me. We fought A LOT until he was about 13. Then we were (and still are) best friends. I wouldn’t change that for the world. However, my husband and I are planning on only having one child. We don’t think we can handle more than one–financially or emotionally. I want to spend all of my time being a good parent and not have to split my time between two or more children. I have a ton of respect for parents that can raise more than one child and I marvel at their stamina, but even at 31 years old, I don’t think I can handle it.
I’m glad to see some positive experiences about being an only and, while I still feel guilty about it, you’ve all helped me feel a little better about our decision.
By the way, my sisters-in-law each have one child and they are very well-behaved and mature for their ages (I mean the children, not the SILs 
). That could just be the parenting and have nothing to do with being only children, but having no other child in the house, means spending more time with adults, which can be really beneficial.
king, you have just described me, except that my sibs (12 years older and 17 years older) are full blood. But everything else applies.
I had the further disadvantage of being alone in my age group in my extended family. One cousin is two years older than I am, the others are at least five years older, and the second wave started being born when I was 9. The cousin two years older was definitely spoiled: youngest of 5, once youngest of 6 (brother died when we were 4 and 6). I was constantly dragged to their house, their turf, where the older ones disregarded me, and Mr. Perfect tormented me. Another set of cousins would run from room to room to avoid me. “Rilch, why do you always hide in the basement reading a book? You’re so stuck up!”
Well, I’m an only child, I’m very happy with it. No complaints, and comparing myself with my cousins, a family of 5 children, I’d have to say that I am the healthier of the group.
Granted all our differences aren’t directly attributed to the number of kids, but I have little doubt that many of them are. Some very important ones at that.
Money was always tighter around their house for obvious reasons. This in itself isn’t a bad thing, but I think it tended to feed a handful of other problems. The parents tended to be more stressed of course, and it forced my Uncle to work long irregular hours. That detracted from the parenting. The most fundamental problem I think was the lack of discipline around their house. The long, odd hours, minimal attention to the young teens (parents dealing with toddlers and infants at the time), and eventual sense of surrender towards the last few years had a tangible effect.
There is obviously a cliche about only children being spoiled. I don’t think this is warranted. Most spoiled kids are spoiled because of either a parents percieved shortcoming, or simple fact that they have more money than they can spend. The most common case of spoiled kids is from divorced parents, followed by absentee parents (like travelling too much for work, etc.). Behind this however is the case where parents can simply afford to get their kids alot of things that their peers don’t get. Only children are prone to getting this treatment more than other kids, but not so much more so than kids who are part of a large age gap. Not to mention that rich kids get it, no matter what the numbers.
Of course money isn’t the only way to spoil a kid, but the above groups probably will see the lions share of attention and pampering as well.
What drawbacks are there to having only children? Well, I’d say they definately could develop in a manner that made it hard for them to socialize well. I had a next door neighbor who was my age, so I think this was diffused in my case. I think only children will develop nearly idnetically to siblings if they have close friends of similar ages and get into early daycare or preschool environments sooner than later.
I’d say the downsides of being a only are easier to negate than those of being a sibling. Parents should always carefully evaluate their decision to have children, and this doesn’t change after the first. In one family’s situation having a second might help his social skills, in another it might hurt your ability to parent and be extension hurt his development in other ways.
There’s certainly no right or wrong answer for everyone. And being a only is IMO not a negative in any regard.
I come from a family of two. I don’t have any children yet, but I hope to some day.
God-willing, I will probably have more than one child. I have no negative perceptions of only children, but I do fear leaving my child all alone in the world some day. I love my parents so much, and depend on them so much that I can’t imagine living without them, and it will break my heart to lose them - but this is the natural way of things, children outlive their parents. My folks are fairly young yet, and our lives aren’t shadowed with fear of impending loss, but it’s a fact that someday it will happen. And when that happens, I am going to need my brother more than anyone because he’s the only other person in the world who loves them like I love them.
I can’t imagine leaving my child to face the loss of the older generation without someone by their side. I hope to have at least two, and my SO says he wants four (he’s from a family of four himself).
I also grew up an only (well, I actually have 11 half-siblings, but the next closest to my age is 12 years older than I and she moved out of the parental home at a young age) and frankly, I loved it. I cherish my alone time, I’m selfish, I’m spoiled, I got all the attention at home, and I loved it. Truthfully, I was always a bit worried that my parents would have another child because I didn’t want to have to share stuff.
So in my case, there’s lots of negative connotations associated with being an only child, but hey, I like them!