I was an only child and I constantly was confronted by the assumption that I got all sorts of attention from my parents, got spoiled rotten, blah blah. It was such bullshit! I saw my dad for 2 weeks out of the year (he lived 2000 miles away) and he used to send me things like empty toilet paper tubes to play with because he was that poor. My mom could give two shits about me when I was a kid, so even though I lived in the same house with her, I rarely saw her and when I did I tiptoed around her hoping she wouldn’t get mad at my very existence. As for being spoiled, I can’t recall my mother ever buying me a toy. I used to get stuff like socks and bedsheets for Christmas. I would have done ANYTHING to have siblings. I wasn’t allowed to go to anyone’s house or have anyone over to our house, so I grew up isolated and lonely for the most part. I was so envious of people who had brothers and sisters, and got so angry when they tried to tell me how lucky I was.
I am more or less like some people have already said here(only child of one parent, half-siblings way older than me). I, like the posters have previously said, became maybe more “mature” in that I could talk to adults(hell, that was the rest of my family). Sometimes I wonder(been said in this thread too) if I would have been less shy(or antisocial tendencies) if my siblings where closer in age or I have had another (younger) one.
I accept I was spoiled. However, that did not keep my parents from giving me some discipline, and I once I noticed I was a spoiled child, I changed my ways. I have known only childs(or semi onlies, like me) who are very spoiled, but I have known others that are just ok(including in social life). I think it may depend more on the parents and how they raise the kids, and it is not just something inherent to being an only child.
People where also somewhat surprised when I told them I was an only child, and even more when I told them about my half-siblings. In my schools, families of only kids where the minority, most people assumed you had siblings. Students whose (half)siblings where much older than them where even more rare.
Do I regret being a (sort of) only child? No, other than the social things, and really, I don’t think I can blame anyone other than me with that part(parents tried unsuccessfully to make me more social). If I have had a younger sibling, things would probably be more difficult, at least in terms of economy. Dad had his two older kids to take care of(he did), and mom was the support of her family(parents, sister, nephews and nieces).
Would I have only a child? Depends, I do not think about that too much, but I believe in having as many children as I can support emocionally and financially, maybe adopting kids. That means I can have zero, one, three, or maybe more, just depending how life treats me, and I treat it.
OK, Corr, I’ll see you that and raise you ‘only grandchild on both sides’ 
Both my parents are only children. I have several great aunts and great uncles, although I was only close to one (Auntie D) because she helped raise my Dad.
My partner is an only child, and so is his father. His mum, bless her, has a sister.
People used to ask me if I was lonely, or if I wanted a little brother or sister to play with. I wasn’t sure of the right answer to that. I didn’t really want a little brother or sister, but I knew that I was supposed to want one. I can’t remember what response I gave. Maybe “maybe”.
As other people have already said, bring an only child meant that I could talk to adults. I was shy of strangers, though. My parents and I had a close relationship, and there was an element of equality to our relationship, although I respected their authority.
In my experience, being an only child also meant that neither my parents nor myself had the opportunity to observe parenting on a daily basis. Children with sibs see the parents parenting the sibs - it’s easier to tell whether things are fair or not.
Also, I felt that I had to fulfil all the roles. I had to be Clever Daughter, Beautiful Daughter, Good Daughter and Nice Daughter.
I don’t recall being directly confronted by friends or strangers with the stereotype of the spoilt only child, but I was definitely aware of it. I remember consciously not wanting to be spoilt. I didn’t ask for tons of presents at Christmas. I never asked to be bought things when we were out shopping. My partner, on the other hand, got pretty much everything he wanted from his folks. He is still a little spoiled, but he also has an extremely kind, generous nature.
Youngest of three boys. Certainly not spoiled and very independant. In adult life, I’m pretty close to my big brother, who is almost 10 years older than I am, and exchange annual birthday greetings with my second brother who is only 18 months and one school grade older.
I’ve got one awesome daughter, age 15 months. Life is starting to settle down finally since her birth. (Aside from her current fever that kept us up half the night last night). I love infants but not sure about going through that whole 2 year process from conception to toddlerhood. If I was 10 years younger, perhaps.
Because I am an American living in China with a Chinese wife, we are exempt from the one child policy. People, including strangers, are always telling us to have a son. The relatives we have trained to at least lobby for a second child rather than a son. Hell, they were lobbying for number two before we left the hospital with number one.
Now, China has the one child policy that has been very draconionly enforced at certain times and places and not at others. More or less, for the past 25 years, most couples have one child. Before that, big families were the norm, and I mean big. Pre-1949 revolution, 5-10 kids was pretty normal with a high mortality rate. After the revolution, Mao spent the 50’s saying that “every mouth has two hands” meaning to have big families because one had is for yourself and one to develop the nation. Mass starvation came out of that.
Okay, my point is that suddenly Chinese society has gone from a huge number of siblings to zero siblings. Pretty strange, everyone has a gazillion aunts and uncles but just a handful of cousins.
There is a lot in the domestic press here about the “little emporers” and “Little emporesses.” The only child getting spoiled rotten by usually two sets of grandparents, and one set of parents. Grandparents often live in the same house or nearby.
This could turn into a dissertation. For the OP, kids in China are pretty spoiled in a lot of ways. Because there are so many adults, they rarely give children freedom to develop independance. For example, kids are usually fed at meals by someone for years. Most parents don’t police what their kids eat, and relatives feed 'em all sorts of candy and stuff at a very young age. Obesity is growing as a problem among Chinese kids. Materially, kids get a lot of stuff that their parents never had, although a lot of that is owing to growing affluence. My wife only had homemade toys growing up because that was basically all there was.
Competition comes not from within the household but at school and now work. In the work world, I’ve found it is often 1-2 year battle to get brilliant college grads to learn how to play and work with others effectively in a group. Many never make the transition and a few don’t need to make the transition. The scholastic system is one based on passing standardized tests and memorizing information, and not critical or free thinking.
To stereotype, the system has ended up with a lot of fiercely independant twenty somethings who have always had their way and know how to do everything. (Kind of like MBA’s in the US!) Unfortunately, real life smacks them in the face and many are often ill equiped to roll with the punches.
Very, very mundane and pointless…
After reading this thread yesterday I was watching a video of some old “Little Rascals/Our Gang” shorts, and it ocurred to me that virtually none of the significant members of “The Gang”, throughout its various incarnations, were only children - even if their sibling/s had only insignificant parts standing around in the background, they were always portrayed as part of a multi-child family. The only exception I can think of to this is some of the little girls who played the femme fatale role - wasn’t Darla Hood an only child? - and their singularity essentially emphasized their “princess” status. When the antagonist was another kid (as opposed to mean adults, bears, etc), the bully/spoiled rich kid/cheater/etc was inevitably an only child. I freely admit that I’m no expert on the “Our Gang” series, and I suppose there are problably exceptions to these generalizations, but I have watched these films lots of times over the years and I am confident that this was a distinct pattern.
This adds absolutely nothing useful to the issue, of course, I just thought it was an interesting observation.
{“waaawaaaaaawaaaaaaaa” sound as Stymie pulls objects out of the cake, observing, “This IS a surprise!”}
I think you are right to bring this up. Although I know a lot of people who wish they were onlies at this point in their lives if only not to have the interference from the siblings.
‘You are going in a home Ma and no one can stop me! Bwah ha ha ha!’ Is something I know some people would say but their siblings (who live a 1000 miles from Ma and don’t have to deal with her day to day) say “Oh no she’s fine.”
feh
Plus there are no huge fights on who gets what in the will.
I am the youngest of six. A lot of people think the youngest is spoiled. (not true) I think the oldest is the spoiled one. They are the ones who when you fall down and scrap your knee they get all concerned and take you to the doctor and stuff. When you are the youngest of six by the time you come around your mom has plenty of emergency room expierence so when you get a nasty cut and the blood is gushing everywhere and you need some emotional support she just looks at you, gets annoyed that you are interrupting her making dinner, and says ‘three stiches tops’, sighs and drags you off.
did that sound bitter?
I’ve got a few coworkers and friends who have onlies or are intending to keep their first children (now infants) as onlies.
One friend was totally tangled up about the ‘only’ thing - she and her husband are both from sibling sets, but she really felt she didn’t have enough energy and time to go around for more than one child. She asked me what I knew about onlies (me, resident know-it-all-or-can-find-out)… So far, the only actual research I’ve actually seen suggests that onlies are very much like oldests, with a few additional advantages and disadvantages. They tend to make good leaders, communicate well, take their jobs seriously, and so forth. If they are properly socialized (that is, they have friends of all ages, and have had to learn to play or work with them without being extracted as soon as something doesn’t work perfectly), they do as well in teamwork and compromise as those with siblings.
My response to my friend was that she was not depriving her child by choosing to have him be an only - she would give as many advantages that way as any other way, it is just DIFFERENT from having siblings, not WORSE than having siblings. Some different choices need to be made, but that’s true for youngest vs oldest, too. Such as, it is more important for onlies to retain long-term friendships and relate to extended family, perhaps (for that ‘I remember when’ stuff)… but in general, it isn’t cruel to plan on only one.
The spoiling thing is (in my observation) less common than it used to be - IMHO, the only = spoiled thing is most common when the parents would have LIKED to have more than one, and feel they’ve deprived the child of siblings, so make up for it with other ‘stuff’, or have only one and load a family-worth of fear and expectations onto that one child. The most spoiled child I ever met was an only, but she was really spoiled not because she was an only, but because her parents had lost 7 pregnancies before her, and had her prematurely, and were desperately afraid of losing her, too - they gave her everything so that if they did lose her, they’d have no guilt about her having missed anything, ever, PERIOD. Or that was my analysis when I was 7 yrs old … (They used to ‘pay’ me to play with her, because I was the only one who could make her behave properly - basically, if they wanted to go somewhere nice, they’d take me along to keep her in line, since they couldn’t bear to do it themselves!) She did grow up into a normal person, thankfully! But she seemed to have some difficulty with her parents later on, as they never wanted to stop having things be perfect for her, and she seemed to have a better grasp of reality than that… I’ve also seen a lot of guilt at play in families with secondary infertility (infertile after the first child), where the parents try to ‘fill in’ the spaces that would otherwise be held by additional siblings… And also focus several-childrens-worth of attention, stuff, and so forth on that one child.
Anyway, the onlies I’ve seen that have been ‘only-by-intent’ (and, really, those who are only-with-self-aware-parents, no matter the original plan) have avoided the spoiling, because the parents have been aware of the assumed stigma, and do much to prevent it. These same kids also have been thrown into as many relationships as possible, sometimes more than necessary, to ENSURE that they develop the social and community skills that they’d otherwise learn from sibs.
Don’t know if that helps the discussion - my real point is that much of the perception of genuine (overall) disadvantage in being an ‘only’ stems from a generation or two of parents handling it badly. Yeah, there are disadvantages to not having sibs - but there are as many advantages, too. Same for the flip side - there are disadvantages to HAVING sibs, as well as advantages. You go with the bonuses you have, and ignore the negatives, right? No matter what set you have. Either way, the other ‘side’ missed out, and the other ‘side’ also got something you didn’t. Not worse, or better, overall, just not the same.
(and hopefully Chinese culture will adapt and ‘fix’ the emperor/empress thing in the next generation or two or three… )
(forgive the extensive use of CAPS, I was mentally in email mode by accident, and forgot to use vB)
What a response!
I’m finally all caught up…quite interesting insights, posted here.
It may be a “regional” thing, where I come from. I don’t know anyone at all, personally, who has been raised as an only, here in my region of north central Indiana. Most everyone I meet, locally, upon learning I’m an only, respond with a “you’re shittin’ me, right?” type of bewildered attitude.
As far as relatives go, I have virtually none, let alone any my age or even close to it. The majority of my relatives were all older, and have passed on. It’s entirely up to me to carry on my father’s family name. 