Why is growing up with a sibling different from being an only child? What are the advantages and disadvantages of of being a single child?
By Sam Craig from Lancaster, PA
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I have a unique perspective. While I am actually the baby of 6, I grew up more like an only child because they were all out of the home by the time I was 4. I was very lonely as a child. I begged my Mom to have/adopt another or more child(ren). I craved having someone to play with- that shelf of board games didn't work too well without another player :-(
We have an only child. He gets all of our attention and is somewhat spoiled, but he is the nicest kid ever and very into sharing with others. I do know he wishes he had siblings so he would have other kids to play with.
My parents could not have more children. It was lonely for me when a child but even more so as an adult. You watch others with their siblings and wish you had someone. Then as your parents age, you have total responsibility for their care. After they die, you feell so bereft, as tho you had become an orphan. I advised my daughter to have another child so her daughter would not have to face the loneliness. She truly loves her brother and is so glad to have him. All the talk about only children being spoiled cannot make up for the times when you feel so alone. I had wonderful parents and grandparents, but there is something about having a brother or sister that is so appealing.
I was one of 12 children. The first 6 were taken away by the state so I never knew them growing up. The rest were either adopted by relatives or kept in the original family. When I was 6 I was told who they all were, these "cousins" of mine.
The advantage of growing up in a large family is that you find out early on that life is not fair. (Source: "The Pursuit of Love " by Nancy Mitford).
I was an only child, and I must say I didn't have the negative feelings that most of the others had. I wasn't spoiled, and I wasn't lonely. I had friends and cousins to play with. What I didn't have was jealously and fighting and being picked on by siblings, which I know many from bigger families have.
My exhusband comes from a family of 5, and has spent as much as 10 years at a time not speaking to one or more of his brothers. I sometimes think I feel closer to some of his family than he does because I take the time to go and visit them, even though we have been divorced for 14 years.
I chose to have three children because that seemed to be the right number for my husband and I. We didn't base the decision on whether or not the children "needed" or wanted siblings. We based the decision on how we felt about the size of family, what we thought we could afford, what we thought we could handle as parents.
I know that having siblings can be very nice, as my mom and her sisters are best friends, and I have certainly enjoyed having lots of aunts and uncles and brothers-and sisiters-in law. However, as a child I never felt deprived. And as an adult, as my mom ages, she is my sole responsibility, but as I see my friends with siblings fight or feel resentment over care of their elderly parents, I can see there are certain advantages to that.
Actually, I was quite surprised that you have had so many negative replies, as the other "only children" I know are just as happy with their childhood experience and adult experience as I am. Do not feel that you have to have another child just because you think you are depriving your child if you do not. That simply isn't the case.
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