Just as it’s okay to have no children, it’s okay to stop at one. The only child, in fact, is becoming more common.
“The family dynamic is changing,” states Alex Hughes in a recent Science Focus article. “People all around the world are deciding not to have children at all, and those that do become parents are increasingly likely to have one child only. The so-called ‘one-and-done’ is growing in popularity so much that the future could see single-child families become the norm.”
Social psychologist, author, and parenting expert Susan Newman, PhD, debunks seven myths about being the only child (see her website):
- Only children are aggressive and bossy.
- All only children have imaginary companions to compensate for their loneliness.
- Only children are spoiled.
- Only childen are selfish.
- Only children must have their way.
- Only children are dependent.
- Only children become too mature too quickly.
The title of only-child Lauren Sandler‘s 2014 One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One says it all. But let’s look at the two parts of Sandler’s title separately:
I. “The freedom of having an only child.”
Words that rankle some. But here’s what Sandler reports regarding parents of more than one child: “I’ve watched most of my friends tread into the tunnel of second children, few of them to emerge as how I remember their former engaged selves. They tell me there’s hardly the time to even consider maintaining a self. ‘You don’t have any idea how hard it is—it’s more than twice as hard,’ many of them say repeatedly, impatient and dazed….”
A snippet from the Publishers Weekly review speaks to the freedom concept: “…(T)he point is to ‘live the life you want,’ making choices based on individual desires and what is best for one’s particular family.”
II. “The joy of being one.”
Like Newman, Sandler has combed through the research and finds that the myths are just that. Only kids are often well adjusted kids.
Lonely. Selfish. Maladjusted. These are the words that Toni Falbo, the leading researcher in the tiny field of only child studies, uses to explain our image of, and anxiety about, only children. I’ll unpack the myth at length, but here’s a teaser. On loneliness: as kids, we’re usually fine. As adolescents, we’re often disempowered and isolated. As adults, we face the logistical and existential nightmare of our parents’ aging and death alone. But the good news is we develop the strongest primary relationships with ourselves. On selfishness: as long as we go to school, we’re plenty socialized to play well with others. On maladjustment: we’re fine. In fact, we’re pretty fantastic.
Jessica Grose, The New Republic, also gets to the “it’s okay to be an only” premise: “Sandler musters a great deal of data to refute the persistent lonelyselfishmaladjusted drumbeat. On the loneliness front, onlies score no higher on measurements of loneliness than children with siblings; when it comes to selfishness, onlies are more generous than kids with brothers and sisters—perhaps because they take social cues from their parents, instead of their grabby, immature sibs; in terms of maladjustment, only children have higher educational and occupational achievement.”
