I am actually the only child of an only child

Only children are actually totally normal, according to science

Bill and Hillary have one. Franklin D. Roosevelt was one. And the chances are you probably know one or two. Even I have one of the selfish, lonely, and maladjusted creatures said to be populating America in greater numbers every year. I am referring to the “only child,” also known as singletons or onlies.

Despite the only child being a growing demographic, having one still attracts a surprising amount of criticism. At a playground in London, one mother told me she thought having an only child was tantamount to child abuse as she watched my daughter toddle alone in the sandbox. When I told my mother that I probably wouldn’t have any more children, she exclaimed disparagingly that one child was “simply not a family.” My husband, on the other hand, has not had any of these accusations leveled against him. The shaming of mothers of singletons is yet another arena in which guilt, scorn, and impossibly high expectations are heaped upon women, encouraged by society’s biased views.

After complications in my mom's pregnancy, my parents were told not to try again for at east several years, if at all, and when I was about school-age, my mother had her tubes tied. I don't know if she ever received any comments about not having more children, but I certainly have had plenty of the 'how sad, you never learned X because you didn't have siblings'. Any maladjustment, and there was plenty, in my psyche growing up, I suspect, had more to do with moving every 18 months or so as a military brat without siblings, rather than the actual lack of siblings. I attended three junior highs in three states across the US, for example, all in the space of two school years. Besides, I was a bookish child who played fine with other children, but preferred to sit in my house and read. True, I tended to have one or two close friends at the most. I was the youngest in my class (I'd skipped first grade because I could read at a third grade level), and between being smart and nerdy and somewhat socially inept, I certainly was not popular, and I was bullied, but I think that had more with skipping grades than being an only child. Because I was almost invisible in my home, and did not receive much positive attention or encouragement, my entire self-esteem depended on how I did in school, and in retrospect, I was one of those insufferable know-it-alls whose hand always shot up in class, so while I didn't 'deserve' bullying, in retrospect, I understand some of the reasons for it. In junior high a group of girls broke my glasses and tore my coat when they jumped me on the way home from school. In high school someone put gum in my hair (and my mom didn't know the peanut butter trick, so my hair got cut off), and then there were the fish guts from biology class that were put in my biology book in my locker. Not the terrible things that are done by kids to kids today, of course, but bullying nonetheless. By the time I got to the high school from which I graduated, I was in my junior year, was trying to handle my parents' divorce, and quite frankly had learned to keep a low-profile. I didn't really make friends with my peers, and only really interacted with the teachers. Was that because I was an only child? No, not really. Maybe if I'd had a sibling to talk things out with, when there was so much emotional baggage to be had, it might have make things better, but I don't really think so. I don't think it would have been better to have a sibling in that family dynamic--there'd just be two of us scarred, and I think a boy would have fared much worse.

I myself have made the decision years ago not to have children. One, the population is high as it is. Two, I am not emotionally or financially in a position to be a good mother, and I know it. Three, any child of mine is at a risk of genetic predispositions that I don't want to pass on. So yes, I'm glad I never had children. Am I being selfish about it? No. Would I change my mind if I were in a good relationship? No, not at this point in my life. While I am still possibly fertile, I am not going to start a family at age 48. At one point I considered adoption, but am not financially stable for that. Besides, while I like kids on principle and believe we should all protect children and encourage their strengths, I do not have an easy rapport with them. So I'll let good parents do their job. I just wish the bad parents weren't in the position to have kids, to be honest.