I agree. I was talking to my dad (He adopted me when I was 4.) the other day, and I asked him if I looked at all like my mother. He said, no not really, maybe a little like my grandma. But he’s the only one I can ask, you know? And he’s a guy. Yeah, he’s basically my dad, but there is no resemblance, obviously. I can’t ask him about when I was little, or do my kids look like me, or was I that way, did I go through that stage. If I had siblings, there’s no guarantee they’d have the answer either, but at least there’d be some shared memories.
On the other hand, the posters that mentioned how hard it was to do everything without siblings when it came to the funeral, in a way it’s a blessing, haven’t you heard all the horror stories?
I’m an only and I agree that it was both easier and harder when my parents died; no one to argue with me but no one to grieve with me either.
Surprising how many of us are onlys here; I remarked to my husband that it must be because SDMB is home to intelligent people and onlys are…more intelligent. He said yes dear but I’m not sure he meant it (he has two brothers & a sister).
Intelligence and the influences on it is a somewhat controversial subject. However, you might want to read up on the nature of the self selecting population before concluding that there is a surprising number of only children on the SDMB.
That is, it could also be that an unsurprising number of only children responded to a thread which asks for opinions about being an only child.
My daughter is my only child, but my g/f’s third. However her other two children have left home now, so Rosa has the next 18 years as the only child in her house.