Raising an Only Child

I'm just here to spy.

I was the last of four kids. Mo for certain will be an only child. I have no idea of what works and what doesn't.

Each of my siblings has only one child - some turned out great and some not so great but then got better.

Cool to hear that sozlet traveled so well and had such a grand time.

I was, and still am for all practical sense of the word, an only child.

My brother wasnt born until I was 11. Old enough to handle myself and not completely rely on mommy..
to an extent.

The introduction of another child to me was horrid.
Loud crying baby who was always in my moms arms.
Everything we did / had was centered around the baby.
Oy vey..

It wasnt until i was 15 or so that I didnt mind it so much and actually started to like the little guy.
I think, as an 11 year old child, I was truly expecting something in common with the baby?
That we would have some kind of common ground and THAT would spark a relationship..

or I was just selfish. HA

Bean is, and will always be ( by nature that is) an only child. I cant carry another one.
If i could, i think I would.

Having 2 kids is a big desire for me.
More now that I have succesfully had ONE, then before she was born.
Pros and cons?
Dunno..
Companionship for the kids.
You ( some say) become a much more patient parent the second time around.

I have always questioned people with large families.
7 , 8 , 9 kids..

how do you give enough to each child?


not material things.
Love, attention, security...

An only child, if raised with whole parents , gets all of that and more.
Have a few more kids.. 2, maybe 3, and I can see how someone can still give those things to their kids.. but , it seems to me, not the way you can give it to just ....one.

make sense?

I'm another spy. Pay me no attention.

We have just the one, Soz. He is now an adult and has 95% flown the nest, but is happy, well balanced and laid back.

We often used to have chats about him being the only one, and he has always said that it never bothered him. We made a concious effort to get him to mix with other kids from a very early age, and for ten or so years we seemed to have four or five kids, as his friends seemed to spend more time at our house that they did in their own.
We also went down the family pets route, and he was given his own puppy to raise when he was about four (obviously, we took on most of the responsibilities, but officially it was "his" dog), a couple of cats soon followed, but he and the dog were inseperable.
We didn't choose to have just the one, but that's the way it worked out, but we have no regrets.

Hi all, good to see ya!

Ellpus, that's all very much in line with my thinking. Last night I said to E.G., so, if we're not having another kid, we're getting a dog. He made various ineffectual "ack!" motions, but he'll come around.

I am an only child myself, and those two things were major elements in what worked. My pets, and having a very active social life with people who remained in my life for a long time. I maneuvered to our current position -- living in a place we will stay for a long time before the kid hits kindergarten -- specifically with the idea that she'd be an only child in mind. She's building up a good network already.

Other ideas of what worked/ didn't work (incomplete):

Worked:
- Encouraging creativity/ ways to enjoy my own company without resorting to TV or whatever.
- Gave me plenty of individual attention, as shewolf mentioned.

Didn't work/ want to avoid:
- Too much emotional reliance on me from puberty on -- may well be the double whammy of only childhood and divorce (when I was 13). Neither of my parents had a good relationship with their own families, so I was IT in a lot of ways. I think a lot of that can be avoided just by keeping a strong relationship with E.G. and keeping up a good social network. Making the parent/ kid boundaries a little less permeable.

Brother of two sisters spying shamelessly. Everyone in my family has either no child or several. So I'm kind of curious what only-child-ness is like myself.

Lol! I am weird in that regard.

I have been one of three, one of two, and then, effectively speaking, an only.


It's all swings and roundabouts....there's good and bad.

I'm one of 2, so is RP, but both of our siblings have one son. So I'm spying for the 2 only children in my life (that sentence looks very odd, grammatically speaking).

Another parent of an only child checking in here.

After several years of fighting infertility and two miscarriages, we gave up trying. They said we had less than a 5% chance, so we settled back into perfectly happy DINKdom.

Three YEARS later...Surprise! Against all the odds, I got pregnant, and it was a good pregnancy this time. So we finally got to be parents after all. A minor miracle, really.

However, we were 40 when he was born and we barely had enough energy for it. The doctors emphasized that we had been extraordinarily lucky, and this would NOT increase our chances of having another child. So we didn't try. Besides, we knew we were too old to go through it again.

So that's why SonofEva is an only child.

My husband had one brother, and I had a brother and a sister, but we're both the oldest child so we relate well to an only child. Might not relate so well to a second. Anyway, I don't think having siblings taught me how to get along with people...instead, it taught me how to fight. If my son misses that lesson, so much the better for him.

Being an only child has definite advantages, and my son is very aware of this. He has friends who come to our house to avoid their pesky younger brothers and sisters, and others who never can get their parents' attention because of siblings with more problems. He is quite pleased to have us all to himself, and to have peace and quiet when he wants it. When he wants company, someone is always around. He has lots of friends and activities, so being bored is never a problem.

We are all quite content with our little family. After all, it's more than we thought we could have. We consider ourselves blessed.

That said, Soz...

If I were you, I wouldn't base your decision about adding another person to your family on how you felt holding someone else's infant. That's not a good indicator at all. The important thing is whether you think your family--your life--would be more complete with another child.

For some, one child is more than enough. For others, three children is not enough.

When you're an old woman and you look back on your life...will you be satisfied knowing you could have had more?

Those are the questions you ought to be asking.

Oh, of course! Heh. Hardly the basis of the decision. Have you seen this thread, Eva? (I think I remember you weighing in there):

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2626

That goes on for nearly three years and 13 pages about the whys and wherefores. This one isn't really about whys and wherefores, beyond saying we're the most certain we've been (for a variety of reasons, the two above only being the ones that sparked the conversation E.G. and I had).

The focus here is, assuming sozlet will be an only (which seems a safe but not completely definite assumption at this point), how to approach that?

Other miscellaneous thoughts:

- Learning to deal with people she doesn't want to deal with. Siblings have to learn to co-exist in a way that only children don't necessarily have to; in my childhood, that was mostly solved by having a familial relationship with neighbors (who were sometimes very annoying).

Hmm, I had another while I was away from the computer, but forgot.

I, myself, am one of five (second youngest).

Two older sisters, then an eight year gap, then us three boys, so basically, we were like two separate little families...the sisters using us as real life dolls when we were babies, and then moaning and groaning at us when we played gooseberry during their teenage dating.

All seven (5 sprogs, two parents) lived in a small, three bedroomed house, but that didn't seem to be anything but normal, really. One advantage was that the loo seat was never cold.

Other families around us were pretty much the same. In our Cul-de-sac (do you call them that in the USA?) had twenty four houses, and I've just done a calculation from memory that there were thiry six kids in our little enclave.
Everyone (including the neighbours) came in through the back door, and there was always noise, laundry and cooking going on from dawn to dusk.

Being the middle boy, I had the best of both worlds. I got beaten up by my older brother on regular occasions, but had the satisfaction of getting my own back on him, by beating up my younger brother.
We all three hated one another in a loving sort of way, but if anyone else laid a hand on one of us, we would go out of our way to back each other up.

During my teenage years, the house was quieter, as my sisters had buggered off to Australia (I didn't think that us boys were that bad) and my Mum left home when I was about 13/14 (maybe we WERE), and I turned out to be the one who organised all the household stuff from that time onwards. I was quite a good cook by the time I got married, and could iron shirts better than my wife.
Getting back to the only child bit......maybe that's why we chose (my wife is also from a big family) to have a constant source of noisy activity in our house, as our boy was growing up. I think that, because of this, he is now quite gregarious. Left to grow up on his own in a quiet household with not much interaction out of school hours, I'm not sure he would have ended up the always on the phone to his mates lad that he is today.

Give 'em friendly but noisy chaos, and as much laughter as possible. That's what I say.

I've always admired friendly but noisy chaos, am happiest when I am presiding over it (was the case with my center in L.A.), hope I can accomplish something similar here.

She's almost of the age where she can wander more widely; right now playing with kids is pretty much limited to next-door neighbors (7 and 3) and scheduled playdates with friends from school and other classes, but there are a lot of kids in the more general area.

36 kids in your little enclave! Wow. (Yep, we call 'em cul-de-sacs too.) I had a similar situation growing up, we'd play in the alley and in yards so it was one full blocks' worth ( all on one block, no crossing of streets). I think there must have been at least a dozen kids. We'd just do whatever until called in by our moms for lunch or dinner or whatever -- and then back out until it got dark.

I don't think sozlet will have it that good, but I do see kids around here from ~8 and up just doing there own thing -- riding their bikes to the library, or the pool, or whatever -- so I think she'll be able to have a similar experience before too long.

Oh, yeah. Okay. I'll shut up about that now.



I wouldn't worry about that. She'll have lots of situations where she has to learn to co-exist with annoying people...in school, in extracurricular activities, with weird relatives and family friends, etc...and as she becomes a teenager, even with her parents! As long as she's around people, there will always be someone she wishes wasn't there. The good thing about being an only child is that she is more likely to have her own space where she can escape them.

Good point.

My son, by the way, is very gregarious and already spends most of his free time on the phone or with friends. (Age 11) He usually has at least one friend over here every weekend.

I was one of three children, and I never had that much company.