As already mentioned, I’m the eldest in a family of 1 girl & 2 boys. My husband is also the eldest and also from a family of 1 girl & 2 boys.
Only child, happy and proud to be one, fairly classic as such things go - precocious, academic overachiever, loner-but-not-lonely, moderately behind the curve socially, and I talk to myself (didn’t even know that was an only child thing until someone on this board told me about it. If the shoe fits…).
My might-as-well-be-married SO is a youngest, although all his siblings are the responsible one, so make of that what you will.
[QUOTE=PandaBear77]
If you’re the youngest of 6 and you were a menopause baby you may be the “baby” of the family, but if your next oldest sibling is 17 years older … you may as well be an only child. Even if the gap isn’t THAT extreme, any time you have 5 years or more between siblings you basically have two only children under the same roof.
[/QUOTE]
Sweetheart, I’m not sure what your experience being an only was like, but this quoted bit is just not true.
Do you remember that blank look you got when you answered “no” when people asked you if you had any siblings? That look is a pretty important part of the only child experience in my view (yours may be different of course. Not trying to define your experience for you.) Another important part is being raised by parents who have never raised a child before. And another is having your parents undivided attention and resources. Being an only is so much more that just not having same-age children in the house.
Your hypothetical “menopause” child or “stragler” would have none of those. They would share one aspect of only childedness only - having primarily adult rolemodels - and that just does not cut it.
The opposite is true though. A firstborn who is practically an adult when any siblings are born would indeed be “just like” an only child. Actually, anyone who was old enough to remember being an only child would probably identify very well with onlies - most firstborns do in my experience.
While I do agree that there are “complicated” only children - adoptees with biosibs, various step-sibling configurations and whatnot - I find comments that youngest children with full siblings who simply have large a age-gap are “just like” onlies mildly offensive. There is no comparison really.
Oldest of two (brother is 26 months younger). We fit the older/younger stereotypes pretty well.
I have three half siblings who are all significantly older than I am, but I barely know them (didn’t meet two of them until I was 11, they live on the other side of the country, and never met them again after that) so I fit the “only child” profile since I was raised as one.
I’m the older child, I have one younger brother.
We pretty well fit the sterotypes.
Normally, I skip these kinds of threads, but I can’t resist…
4th out of 11!!!1!!
Maybe, maybe not. I was already six when my brother was born, and I really really wanted a sibling, and consider myself lucky to have even one given that I heard “you’re going to have a little brother or sister” three more times than I ended up with a new sibling. So I identify with onlies who say they were lonely growing up…but not with ones who said they were just fine because I wasn’t fine, I was lonely.
I’m the eldest of three, and besides the “born leader” part (ha!) I fit the stereotype pretty well. Responsible, perfectionist, obedient, a high academic achiever, and I’ve chosen a career that requires a lot of precision.
elfkin477, I meant “identify with” in the sense that you’d be able to understand what the onlies were saying when sharing common experiences, not that you’d want to be one, or be like one. I’m glad you love your brother, and that your parents got the second child they wanted. I wanted a sibling when I was six too - at sixteen, not so much, at twentysix not at all. I’m happy to be an only - but I understand that having siblings is better for other people, and that some onlies might have been better off having siblings. I had a ton of cousins, and my neighborhood was full of children. That makes a difference too. There are drawbacks and benefits to all lifestyles.
Youngest of three. Don’t really see myself reflected in any of the stereotypes I’ve read.
My daughter is an only child. When we were living on an Air Force base, there were lots of kids her age in the surrounding houses, and she pretty much had as much company as she wanted. When Bill separated from the AF, we moved back to our hometown, where she had a lot of cousins either exactly her age, or within a couple of years of her age. Her grandparents were raising one of those cousins, so I frequently had that cousin over for company for Lisa, and to give the grandparents a break.
After Lisa was an adult, I asked her if she regretted being an only child. She said that she’d always had company when she wanted it, plus she had her parents all to herself, so she always felt that she had the best of both worlds. Not all onlies are lonely.
I’m the eldest by 5 1/2 and 7 1/2 years, so did a fair amount of ‘parenting’ and was very responsible about keeping my sisters safe (often from my mother…)
I don’t feel my sisters and I conform to the personality descriptors. All of us are oddly similar in many ways - for instance, we’re all apolitical atheist high-school drop-outs who are the black sheep in our strongly Democrat, fundie Christian, and academic family. I left home at 18, they both left home at 17, we all work for a living and don’t take from our parents so I’d say we’re equally responsible and independent. Other than that, me and the ‘baby’ are more alike, having always been quieter, cautious, reserved, serious, good at keeping the peace - while middle sis is loud, silly, thrill-seeking, extroverted, fun-loving, and horrible at conflict resolution now and then. I was by far the worst underachiever of the three of us, too. Youngest sis was the best student by far but left high school anyway. She’ll probably be the only one to go to college.
My SO is the youngest of three but is quite nurturing and has many personality similarities to me. My friends in life have been a pretty even mix of only children, eldest, and youngest - very few middle children now that I think about it. But that is partly because fewer families have more than two children.
Technically, I’m number 7 of 9, but my youngest older sibling was 12 years old when I was born. She moved out (was kicked out) at 18, and the rest had already left home by then. I have almost no memories of growing up with my older siblings, so while technically a middle child, I grew up as an oldest, and completely fit the oldest child profile.
My little sister is classic “baby of the family”, and it makes me crazy. We currently haven’t spoken in ten months because I finally told her that the way she treats our mother (and the rest of the family) is BS and just isn’t going to fly anymore. Selfish little (29 year old) brat.
Missed the edit window… Don’t know how much it matters in things, but my siblings play out like this:
Older: Three adopted brothers, one adopted sister, a half brother, and a half sister.
Younger: Full brother and sister.
Oldest of four – me (born 1959), sister (only girl of the bunch) born in '61, brother (born '63), youngest (born '65). Had Vatican II not estranged my father from the Roman Catholic Church, there’d have likely been several additional siblings…
First born of three.
I’m the oldest of 4 boys. My wife is an only child (we were born a month apart, in 1961).
Ours didn’t SEEM like a particularly large family in the Sixties and Seventies, but it seems enormous today.
Families may be getting smaller, but your family not seeming that large while growing up in it, but others of the same size seeming that way many years later isn’t always a generational thing. I grew up in the 80s/90s in a family of seven (two parents, five kids), and when I see a family of more than four, it strikes me. I saw a mom and dad herding four children along recently, and it looked like a bleeping army. Then I remembered, “Hey asshat, your parents had five kids!” It just never seemed like a big family when I was in it.
blinks
I saw my brother every couple weeks or months as I grew up. I spent more time with distant cousins than I did with my brother. I had my parents’ undivided attention. I guess financially I wasn’t the only one, but I never noticed. I had the same standard of living for the 20 years under their roof.
Being of the other gender, there were plenty of parenting firsts. Maybe when I was a baby my parents were better the second time around, but when I got older I was definitely treated like an only girl with overprotective parents.
My brother moved back to our hometown when I was 16. I see where you’re coming from with that, I don’t feel like an only any more. But from ages 6-16? I had none of the experiences my classmates with siblings had. I never fought with my brother, I never had to share anything with my brother, I never had to compete for attention with my brother.
I said other.
My sister is 11 years older than I am, my brother was 10 years older than me. So for the first 9 years of my life, I was the baby of the family, after that I was the only child.