Only child?

A way to give that experience of having siblings while maintaining the one child home is to have friends over/letting your kid go play with friends a lot. One of my good friends growing up was an only child, but he constantly had someone over at his house playing basketball, Nintendo, whatever. Just another thought for ya to work with.

 

And my parents almost never let me have people over.

In hindsight, it was good, since we lived in a hellhole anyway.

A lot of my comments are biased, based on my upbringing.

Whatever you do, encourage your kid to get involved and make sure they have plenty of friends their age.

 

I'm an Only myself.
Take that for what it's worth.

 

I was on old child for 13 years. My mom had a couple miscarriages after me. Then they adopted my brother (in-family adoption. My mom's sister had him at 15). So I was an only child for 13 years. Now he's essentially an only child for 13 years.

If I've learned one thing, it's that's you can't make a blanket statement about how an only child will turn out. I tend to think, because people say it too, that I'm among the more mature, more responsible only-child group. It's early to say about my brother, especially at 13, but he's not as gounded as I was at his age.

 

It's great being a brother. It's better having a sibling. No one knows you like your sibling. Maybe I say that b/c my sister and I were born 15 months apart and had the same interests and same friends and were able to go thru a lot of things at or near the same time as the other. As an adult, it's great to share the familial history with someone else. Only a sibling can understand what a flake dad is, or can confirm you don't really suck when mom is playing the passive-aggressive game.

And at some point, I imagine, we will have to make some tough decisions about our parents. But after watching my mother and aunt do that with my grandma, I know it's easier for two people to do it than one.

That said, it's a whole lot different today than it was in the early '70s. My sister and her husband are better off than my parents were when they had us in 1973-74, but they have one son and they're planning to stop there. I can't blame them or W_B or anybody for looking 20 years to the future and figuring, for reasons both financial and societal, one kid is going to have to be enough.

 

My seven-year-old son brought this up just last night as a matter of fact. We were watching TV and he said, "I wish I had a little brother or sister." My wife said he mentions it on occasion but that may the first time I've heard it.

I'm 42 and my wife is 44 and we only planned on having one and have no plans for another. Based on the way he deals with younger kids he'd be an amazing big brother but he has loads of cousins and younger kids in the neighbourhood he plays with.

I wish I was an only child. I'm the oldest of three sons and haven't spoken to my brothers, other than the odd email, in ages (much to my mother's dismay) but my wife is very close to her two brothers so we've seen it from both sides.

 

Me and mrs.chef have one boy .....and that's all we're gonna have. (The Good Doctor made sure of that.......My actual Doctor, not the SJ The Good Doctor) He wants it that way, too. All of mine and wife's family are within minutes of each other, so he has (fairly educated guess) around 60 cousins within about 35 miles of us.

Yeah......I have a rather large family...I have one sister, who has 2 girls Brother-in-law has a brother with 3 kids...Dad is one of 4 brothers, (1 passed on) who all have at least 2 kids each, and now the kids have a kid, and one pregnant. Mom has 2 brothers (1 passed on) One had 2 kids, (who have 5 kids now) and the other had 4 kids.
Wife has 2 brothers and a sister, 1 brother has 3 kids, sister has 2 kids.

 

I have four sisters and a brother so I can't imagine being an only child.

I also have three sons (albeit mostly grown up) and if nothing else, they learned how to resolve conflicts /beat the crap out of each other when they were younger.

I always found it odd going to dinner at my university roommate's parent's house. Everything was directed towards him. He was the centre of their universe.

On the other hand when he came to my parent's place for dinner he was astonished that 1) we had no idea where some of our siblings were or what they were doing and 2) the size of our ketchup bottle.

 

Your Christmas meal must be fuckin epic.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Another only child here. Growing up it didn't really occur to me that I was an only child or that I was missing anything. I'd get knocked as spoiled or whathaveyou, but that's stereotyping. I think onlies have to wedge their way into adult conversations a lot of the time and might be at risk for some difficulties socializing with their own. But it's no stigma or disadvantage. Can't see that at all.

YHS, etc

 

W-B, if you and wife are absolutely, positively 100 percent sure you don't want more children, then don't have any more, no matter what the pros or cons are regarding raising an only child. Go and get thee snipped.

If you're only 98 percent sure, and you end up with Baby Accident, then I would say this: like with stock prices, past performance is not an indicator of future results. As in, just because you or someone you know has had difficult experiences with siblings does not mean your (hypothetical) children will.

 

My oldest sister is six years my senior, and we used to be very close -- share the same musical-movie interests, humor, even drinks. But that was because, of the four of us children, we were the most similar -- I've got a mentally retarded sister and a brother, who is six years younger than me -- 12 years younger than my oldest sister. So we paired together to have fun at family get-togethers and had laughs at my parents' expenses.

I know we'll be the two to take care of my parents, along with our significant others (I'm thinking wishfully) because my other sister, obviously, won't be able to handle that stuff and my brother -- although 18 -- is unbelievably selfish and immature; in part because he was the youngest and spoiled rotten (it works both ways).

Being a brother is great, but it can also be a bitch.

My family situation is a big confusing to an outsider. Despite having three siblings and two married parents, I felt like an only child for much of my life, and I feel I've turned out pretty well because of the independence instilled in me. I have been fortunate enough to have some very close friends, so I've never really been "alone"; I always had people over at my house and someone to keep me busy.

So long as your kid can socialize well with other people's children, she'll forget about not having a brother or sister and be thankful for the way she was raised. But that's just my opinion.