Only Child

N ineteenth-century psychologists, it seems fair to say, did not always approve of only children. Soon afterwards, another psychologist called Eugene W Bohannon offered a devastating analysis of the only child. Such stereotypes about spoiled, lonely and peculiar only children have endured for more than a century, despite a wealth of research showing lone children are usually none of those things and often do better in many areas than children with siblings.

But despite one-child families becoming far more common, our fascination with their implied unusualness endures. This week, the actor and model Elizabeth Hurley — who has a year-old son, Damian — offered her own take on the issue, saying her one regret was not having more than one child. There are obvious reasons for this.

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• The truth about only children: are they more insular and confident?;
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• Raising an Only Child.
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Delayed parenthood, fertility problems, relationship breakdowns and financial pressures including housing and childcare costs can all result in a single-child family. But at the same time, evidence is mounting to show a one-child family can be a positive choice for both parents and child. Much of the only-child myth-debunking has been done by Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas, who has researched only children since the s.

As for being awkward and antisocial, one study from found that while adults who had been only children engaged in fewer social activities with relatives which may possibly be explained by having fewer relatives to begin with , they found no difference in the number of social engagements with others, such as friends and colleagues. A survey of more than 2, Spanish teenagers found only children experienced higher rates of peer victimisation, but Hughes points out this may be affected by their perception of victimisation: The other reason was only children were in the vast minority, so they often felt bullied and left out.

Second, way to be casually judgemental and insulting towards both me and my parents, hypothetical jerk.

I knew I got more Christmas and birthday presents than most of my friends, but was I spoiled or just part of an emotionally distant family that could only express love through the spending of what I assume was drug money? It's not a fun thing to worry about at a time when you're already worrying about how to get the attention of the cute girl in math class and why your penis is so much bigger than all the others in the locker room.

People who say things like that don't mean to be insulting; it's just a knee jerk reaction to a stereotype we all grew up with. I'm sure I annoy one-legged people when I ask them what their pet parrot is named. But where are all the only children perpetuating the stereotypes? Are there a bunch of Richie Rich types lurking in the suburbs that I'm not aware of?

It's annoying to discover that, despite a lack of evidence, some people are going to assume you're a brat and wait for you to demonstrate otherwise. On the Scale of Hurtful Stereotypes, assumptions about only children rank just above assumptions about how much fun you have in life based on your hair colour, and so far below actual damaging stereotypes that anything involving a black person is a distant speck on the racist horizon.

But if we're going to perpetuate stereotypes about only children, why not spread the fact that they tend to perform slightly better on IQ tests?

Raising an Only Child

I've yet to meet someone who's said, "You're an only child? You must be so smart!

I've never really felt pressured by my parents. And I'm not just saying that to assuage their guilt -- I'm pretty sure they'll never read this, so I can say whatever I want about them without consequence! I love you, Mom.

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• Only Children: Why "Only" Isn't Lonely;

But even if my parents haven't come out and said that they wish I had gone to law school instead of taking up mime street fighting please don't tell them I write Internet comedy, or they'll be even more disappointed , I feel pressured to accomplish, well, everything. And so do the other only children I know. OK, say you have a family with three kids. You have a family with three kids. The parents aren't terrible, so the kids want to make them proud. But because the siblings can spread the responsibility around, some of the pressure is off.

One son can marry young and pump out grandkids for Mom and Dad to fawn over, the daughter can put off family to be the rich, career-driven one who pays for the nursing home, and the other son can be the irredeemable fuckup. Mom and Dad get everything -- the continuation of the family line, financial security in their old age, and a black sheep to complain about after they drink too much at a family reunion.

My natural proclivity would be towards the fuckup role, but with no brothers or sisters to pass the hard parts onto, I can't enjoy the stress-free life of leisure that comes with completely failing to live up to your expectations. If you're an only child, you feel like you have to get the great career and get married and have kids and support your parents when they're elderly, and you have to accomplish it all in a short time frame. Rationally, I know it's not as overwhelming as I make it sound. Most adults, siblings or not, shoot for both financial security and a happy family life.

And I know my parents are understanding enough that they won't mind if I struggle with one, or both, or with the most basic of responsibilities. Or, if they do mind, they'll at least be nice enough to hide their disappointment until they whisper it in my ear on their deathbeds.

Only Child Boom

But without siblings to fall back on for help, it feels like you're performing a complex stunt without a safety net. Maybe one day I'll be late to pick up my dad and he'll miss a doctor's appointment, and because I don't have any new pictures of my cute niece to make up for it, he'll get cancer or explode. Literally every only child has worried about this exact hypothetical scenario, among many others.

I lied to you by omission earlier because, along with punching lions in the face to feel a rush and making up ridiculous claims about myself, lying by omission is one of my three bad habits. People have only judged my only childishness since around high school. Before that, the reaction tended to be along the lines of, "You're lucky, I wish I was an only child! Even though you're not being spoiled as an only child, you're getting percent of the praise, attention, and Pokemon cards your parents see fit to dole out.

When you're 8 years old, no one considers that their parents and yours might be splitting up the exact same child-rearing resources in different ways. Your friends just think it's bullshit that they had to give their Charizard to their little sister so she'd stop whining, while you somehow ended up with two. Wizards of the Coast That's right, I had two. My friends did acknowledge some downsides.

The truth about only children: are they more insular and confident? | Life and style | The Guardian

When they got in trouble, they could always try to blame their siblings, while my parents refused to believe that "Jeffery, who hisses and watches with blazing red eyes from the cracks in the ceiling as I dream restless dreams" was responsible for letting the cat eat a Pog. But I generally got envious looks when I told my friends I spent Saturday afternoon playing a new video game while they had to go to their sister's dumb ballet performance. And since my friends usually just complained about their siblings to me, not having them seemed like a pretty sweet deal.

On the other hand, I beat Banjo-Kazooie , like, three times! Now that I'm ostensibly an adult, those same people offer pitying remarks about how lonely it must be to not have a sibling to talk about life's problems or reminisce about forced ballet attendance with. And I agree with them. It would be nice to have a niece I could tell embarrassing stories about her mother to, or have a brother to consult when my parents start having conversations with their lamps.

It does feel a little lonely at times. However, I don't have any deadbeat siblings asking for beer money, my parents were able to put me through university, and I can do anything short of join ISIS and still end up with the biggest chunk of the inheritance. I'm not exactly losing sleep over it, but you do find yourself idly wondering how your life would have turned out with siblings.

Only child

I don't think other people speculate on what life as an only child would have been like nearly as often, unless their couch is currently being crashed on. Remember when you got a goddamn job? As I dictate this article from my sensory deprivation chamber deep within the bowels of my isolated abode, I reflect on another only child stereotype: It's ridiculous, of course. Why, just last night I hung out with the people I pay to be my friends. But what is true is that you adapt to, and get comfortable with, spending a lot of time on your own.

I had good friends growing up.