only child

my boyfriend and i had a discussion last night about only children. i am one, and i'm proud of it. i love the distinguishment of being an only child. he, on the other hand, sees it as a disadvantage or a curse. he related a story of his parents asking him how many children he wanted to have. 'well, i wouldn't have just one,' he said. 'that's the worst thing you could do to a child,' his father responded. both laughed. 'he was just kidding, you know,' my boyfriend said to me. 'but i still want more than one child.'

he said he couldn't imagine an only child marrying an only child. funny enough, i've read an article by an only who married an only. she said she had seriously dated many men, all of whom had siblings, and none of whom really ever understood her. then she met and married her only child husband. he got her. he understood that she needed personal space and personal time from time to time, and in needing those things, she wasn't mad at him, she just needed some space. so did he.

i now feel the urge to validate my existance as an only child. i never realized being an only child was a stigma until i was older and people would say to me 'you don't seem to have the only child syndrome.' syndrome? what about being an only child was supposed to make me ill?

over time i've learned that -- according to the world of people with siblings -- only children are supposed to be selfish, spoiled, ill-socialized, greedy, etc. it horrified me to think i was grouped with such characteristics. in fact, my parents, my extended family and my friends have helped me to become anything but, at least in my humble opinion.

i've watched my friends who do have siblings grow up. i never felt any different than them. half of them -- including my boyfriend -- don't even get along with their sibling(s). i've watched them fight and disagree and love and cherish. and i've managed to love and cherish even without a brother or a sister and without having to fight and disagree. i have found family in my cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. i'd argue i've found an amazing sisterhood in my best friends, one that i would not trade simply to share blood with someone.

and regardless, my mother and father have always been my best friends. i can talk to them about mostly anything. we have a relationship that goes beyond nurturing, it's a companionship as well.

two of my very closest friends are onlies. i've love observing how they fit into the 'only child' mold. and of course, they don't. sure they're different, just like i know i am. they're free spirited, opinionated and stubborn. but among our larger group of friends they are also the most nurturing, the first to listen and the first everyone goes to for advice or support.

when i woke up this morning, i googled 'only child' and read up on what the world of the internet thinks it knows or wants to know about onlies. i was amazed at the number of articles and message boards offering help in raising your only child. why do people raising an only child need specific help? shouldn't it just be help in raising your child? again, there's the stigma that an only child will turn out a certain way, and gosh darn it, you better do this, this and this to ensure that they don't!

i would love to have only one child. i would love to have the same kind of relationship with my own child that my mother has with me. parents who are not onlies stress over the idea of an only child. i stress over the idea of having more than one. but, if i do have more than one, i will not treat my children any differently than if i only had one.

i did find this wonderful article that appears to have been published in the NY Times magazine in 1998. the article is written by Bill McKibben, author of Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single-Child Families. i encourage you to read it, but if you choose not to, i've broken out some of the more interesting bits.

in the late 1800s, the only child syndrom stigma was very much in full swing:

In fact, according to G. Stanley Hall, who oversaw the studies and was the acknowledged child expert of his day, being an only child was a ''disease in itself.''

For the next generation this view ruled unchallenged. In the first three decades of this century, while the foundations of modern psychology were being laid, no one else studied the question. Dozens of magazine articles repeated Hall's gospel. ''It would be best for the individual and the race if there were no only children,'' one journalist insisted. Finally, in 1928, a man named Norman Fenton conducted the first study to suggest that only children were, in fact, quite normal. But he published his work in the obscure Journal of Genetic Psychology. In any event, it was probably too late. The stereotype had taken hold.

The author spends time with only child Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology at the university of texas and one of the foremost authorities on only children. Falbo and associates have done study after study after study and found:

that ''only children scored significantly better than other groups in achievement motivation and personal adjustment,'' and were in all other respects indistinguishable from children with siblings. ... Other analyses show that only children score somewhat higher on achievement tests than children with siblings. Probably, say researchers, this is because parents' resources -- especially their time -- are diluted as additional children arrive. Only children have slightly higher I.Q.'s and complete slightly more years of school; they are read to more often; their vocabulary scores are markedly higher, probably because conversation in the household does not become as childlike.

and this:

Only children have as many friends, they're picked as quickly for teams,they score lower on indexes of anomie and resentment. They may even be better at sharing than other children, partly because they're used to the idea that their turn will come. When they grow up, they make as much money and they are slightly less likely to find themselves at the shrink.

the author, a father of an only, ends with this thought as he reflects on his own child:

As I lay in bed this morning, I could hear my 5-year-old daughter out in the living room, singing happily to herself as she worked a puzzle. A few hours later, we both suffered through a noisy timeout. Tonight we snuggled on the couch and read Roald Dahl.

She's not an only child, damn it. She's a child.