Only child

Is anyone here an only child

Blessing or curse?
Just wondering what its like. My surmisings are...

Blessings...keep you parents together cos if they split up they cant split you in half.. you are literally the peacemaker
Favoured as there is nobody else to spoil
peace and quiet

Curse...so much pressure to do well
Lonely, no siblings to share room with or talk to
socially awkward when you realise you might have to SHARE things since so used to having your own
stuck with your parents for a lot longer than necessary...you may not have your own life or be truly independent

hmm nobody?
everyone must have (pesky) bros and sisters then

well thats good in a way. All christians need to have spiritual siblings IMHO.

Yes, siblings keep us humble, hehe

Yep only child.

As an adult I notice the following reasons for parents having only 1 child:

1. They don't enjoy being parents.
2. Health reasons (difficult pregnancies or cant get pregnant)
3. Marital issues

My parents had all of these reasons. Lol None of these are the ideal situation obviously. I'm sure there are people out there who said we're happy, but just want 1 kid. I'm just not aware of any from a personal view.

Only children (especially nowadays) have a very lonely childhood. I grew up running all over the neighborhood with kids thankfully. Kids really don't or can't do that anymore.

I'm socially acceptable, but it doesn't come easy for me. I'm more of an introvert. Friends in this day in age rarely stay through all phases of life. Which means I never have anyone outside of immediate family/ parents to talk to. Cousins are the closest to siblings I have and it's definitely not the same. I'm extremely independent though.

I'm the only one responsible for my parents as they get older. So I'll have to not only be a wife, mother, work full time, and be the only caretaker possibly. My kids will never have cousins on my side so they will be the only kids during family events if my side.

My husband has a close brother and they will go out. They talk all the time. I'm like that with my mom though in fairness.

On a personal level I struggled for years trying to have a baby. I went through every painful procedure to have my first and then again for a 2nd. From my perspective I was happy with my 1st and didn't need any more. However I wanted to give him a sibling.

Now that I have the 2 of them I realize how much I missed out on my childhood as well. It's crazy how close they are. It makes them better people in my opinion having each other and they constantly learn from one another. I had to learn everything the hard way including socializing. But that's in the past and it made me who I am today.

Middle kid here. Comes with it's own blessings and cursings

hmm I know quite a few who have only one child and its hard on the child they get a lot of coddling but also burdens placed on them (I tend to assume its for health reasons rather than marital discord, esp if parents stay together)

some mothers complain they arent social enough but then who are they meant to talk to if they dont know how or theres nobody sharing the same room

I think if you become a parent you need to be all in because a child is going to pick up that you resent them

None of my aunts or uncles stopped at one they all had 2 or more.

some firstborns tend to act like they would rather be the only child. But second borns know and are thankful they have a sibling...although its rejection of a different kind when your older sibling just doesnt like you lol

I mean what made Cain kill his brother or did he have no idea at what he'd actually done. was it manslaughter or murder. Adam and Eve eventually had other children. I wonder if jealousy on the firstborns part of the younger sibling is always inevitable.

Naw. As a firstborn I've never felt jealous of my younger siblings (and I had a lot of them). Aggravation at always being told I was the oldest so I had to be responsible and be an example? Sure. But not jealous.

Husband, who is also a firstborn, doesn't remember feeling jealous.

My eldest (17) says she's never been jealous. She said she just feels nostalgia at how much simpler life was when she was younger.

hmm ok what do you think about Cain...did he kill Abel out of aggravation?

If I'm remembering correctly, Cain was jealous of Able and how Yahweh favored his brother's sacrifice and that's why he killed him.
But that doesn't mean every firstborn child is jealous of younger siblings.
Younger siblings, middle children, anyone can become jealous of another person.
Even Yahweh says He's jealous, so it's not always a necessarily bad emotion.

In my reading, I come across authors who are only child, and it seem like if they are female they just really REALLY want to be mothers and have lots of children.

One went on 138 dates before she met her partner and went on to have two children..she never gave up searching. I dont think she even married the guy in the end

The other I found out was the mother of the most famous missing child of all, but she also had twins who were a year younger and they were all conceived by IVF. There is some speculation that she was involved or knew (or the dad knew) about the disppearance they didnt tell the police, and the police suspected them of a coverup. But it seems they were lax parents overall and were just dropping them off at nursery/daycare all the time and not actually spending much time with them at all.

I guess if you are an only child you dont really have much clue on how to care for children (or the time and energy it takes) having never had to look after siblings.

My daughter's best friend is an only child.
She hangs out with us and her cousins enough that she knows the basics on kid-care.
I get that some only kids might be completely clueless but...

It's not that hard to learn how to change a diaper (though my teen son still puts them on his brother backwards. lol.), make lunch, fix a boo-boo, etc.
Especially for us gals. Having that first baby...there's a lot there that just seems to come naturally to us.

Doesn't matter if a person is an only child or has a house full of siblings, it's not until that person is a parent that they REALLY understand how much time or energy it takes to take care of kids. Although some older kids in large families probably have more of an inkling than others.

thats not the point - its that only children seem to desire to have their own family MORE than others, which is understandable
But also means they less likely to understand whats involved. Especially having children close in age to one another. Then multiple births can also throw them a bit.

I had another friend, an only child and when she had her first (and maybe only child) she had post partum depression but also, didnt know how to feed or settle her child to sleep. And she confessed she had no clue as she'd never had to look after any siblings.

its not the 'making kids lunch' stuff. Its the baby stuff. Babies dont just have breakfast lunch and dinner, they require milk and feeding often on demand, and carrying around, toilet training, bathing, dressing etc.

And eyes on the back of your head.

I also noticed she didnt know how to play with her child, didnt have any books to read with her, nothing. One thing to give children toys and something to do, but another to interact with their child, to talk and laugh etc.

I dont know if this is a class thing, but it does seem upper or middle class mothers are quite happy to pay someone else to look after their children even from birth, and go back to work or adult life themselves. These part time mothers are happy to drop their children off to nursery, daycare, or have nannies doing all the hands on stuff, changing nappies, feeding, walking, supervising, etc. The only thing they need to do then is pick them up and put them to bed. They miss out on all the things their baby is learning whle awake!

I dont quite get it but its very real, the mums doing this, going back to work and saying i cant stay at home, Despite the children hating HATING being dropped at someone elses home, or daycare for the entire day. And it may not be even for the reason of having to earn money, because the cost of that care just negates the mother staying with the child.

And all this time I wonder what the dads are doing. I do think dads should be equally involved with childcare and not palming their children off onto their mother doing it all. One do the night shift and one do morning how hard can that be and rotating. But often I just hear the dads have zero involvment, or only when it suits them. The mothers then get stressed.

Yup.

Well, I do remember with my first thinking, "What do I DO all day with this infant?" lol.
My mom did daycare, I had a baby brother when I was 16 that I helped take care of (bottles, diaper changes, potty training, etc), but there was still that adjustment period of how to interact with a new, helpless human.

I had all kinds of exposure...am not an only child...and still found my groove.

My point is that it doesn't matter if you were an only child or had a group of siblings, there will be an adjustment period to parenthood and for most of us, it's a natural instinct.

Being part of the whole daycare thing growing up, it was my understanding that many households just couldn't make it on one income. Hang out on a "baby/mom" site and you'll see a myriad of families that do the budget and find it's cheaper to both work and send the kids off to daycare. Those that find that daycare washes out the second income generally stay home.
I've also provided daycare before and the mother HATED leaving her babies and going off to work. She told me she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom but she and her husband didn't make enough for health care, etc. etc. unless she worked.

Are you as adamant against public school as you are daycare? A lot of kids hate that environment just as much as being dumped at daycare. My sister used to hold on to the front door and scream because she didn't want to go to school and mom had to pry her fingers loose and load her on the bus. I used to LOATHE public school and wished my mom would homeschool, like my stepmom did.

Look, I get what you're trying to say but you make everything so absolute when it's not.

Not all men are horrible fathers who sit on their rears and let the woman do all the work.
Not all mothers are glad to dump their kids at daycare.
Not all kids hate being at daycare (the kids my mom watched became my best friends and we had a wonderful time playing before and after school and during the summers).
Not all only children crave a large family or struggle to take care of kids because they haven't had as much exposure as kids in large families.

It's an individual thing, not an "all people like 'x' are this way" thing.

As an aside, I actually agree daycare isn't a good thing for kids. Children should be raised by their parents, train up a child, right? Can't do that if they're being raised by strangers at daycare or public school.

BUT

I understand why some (most?) families have to go that route.

um no saying its absolute, not sure where you getting that from

I work in a public school lol

I notice 'only child' do interact differently to children that have siblings thats all. It can be a marked difference and teachers usually explain it by saying well she/hes an only child so doesnt know..!

well its does come down to economics. Lets face it. children can be expensive to raise.
homeschooling isnt necessarily cheaper option or an option for parents that arent accustomed to teaching.

Thankfully children do have books though, though the importance of books in childhood is often overlooked. For an only child they are like friends.

although these days it would be more like video games and tv that parents have to tear their children away from. I sometimes did wnder why parents would complain about tv and video games all the time but they were the ones actually having it in the house, so it was like double standard.

But it turns out that one parent would buy the tv and games and the other parent didnt want it but the parent that did would overrule the other parent. As it kept the child occupied for hours.

Id be like have they not heard of coloured pencils and paper?!