To ask for the positives of only having one child?

Yup.

Lol, what a shock. You're a parent of an only, talking for them.

This is unheard territory, a parent of an only child, declaring how great their child has it.

Take a seat next to my parents...

According to you, only children are desperate for siblings

Some. This is for the fourth time now. There is some real "hard of reading" on this thread. And as for your child not telling you, only children tend to be constantly seeking the validation and approval of their parents. When you're all they've got, they don't always tell you they aren't happy, because they can't afford to lose the only immediate family dynamic they have.

are unhappy through life

Aaaaand you've made that up too. But isn't it interesting how my actual words of "longing for a sibling" you've translated as being unhappy through life. Very interesting. I'm happy. There is a massive void in my life where a sibling should be. I wonder what your child will say as an adult. I'm sure you've already got that answered.

and their parents pretend they are happy

Yes, many do. Some, because they can't admit they might not have made the best choice for their child. And some, like my parents think that all the stuff they can throw at just one child, makes that child happier than a sibling.

I'll do it for a fifth time, as it seems necessary, not everyone will have the same experience.

Oh, and I just have to laugh at you thinking I've got a miserable life. How sad. I have a far better life than you could probably ever hope for. Incredibly privileged, all the things that people work, wish and strive for, way beyond the norms, done. Maybe that will help it sink in how much a sibling can mean to a child, when I would rather have none of it, but a brother or sister.

@Strawberriesandpears as much as you say you are entitled to your opinions, which is fine by the way, we are also entitled to ours.

Therefore we are entitled to disagree with you.
You think deep down we're worried for our only children.
Maybe we aren't worried at all. You're pressing on with your argument presuming that deep down, everyone feels the same way as you.
Maybe they don't?

@SummerAndSunPlease has described perfectly the lonliness of being an only child. It isn't about day to day lonliness. It's about existential lonliness. I think it's too deep for some of you to understand and appreciate.

And to all the parents of young children and teenagers saying 'oh they're perfectly fine'. Firstly, they may be now, but how do you know they will be in the future? I felt fine at that age. It's later in life that the existential lonliness has set in. Secondly, how do you know they are 'fine' now even? Maybe they are bottling their thoughts and feelings up. I certainly would never have said anything to my parents then or now.

Lastly, sorry that I am not giving positives, but this is a discussion. It has evolved. For me, the negatives outweigh the positives.

Can't believe someone had the nerve earlier to say that I can never understand what it is like to have siblings, without even giving a thought to the fact that they can surely never understand what it is like NOT to have them. It's like you are trying to make use second class citizens. Like we don't even know our own minds and we need all you 'sibling havers' to tell us what we are are thinking.

Basically, I think a lot of you are rattled because deep down you have these worries for your own only children. Obviously it is sad when you can't have the number of children you want, but that does not make my feelings (and others who have similar opinions to me) invalid. Kindly stop trying to tell me how I should feel. I wouldn't tell you how you should feel towards your siblings. It works both ways.

🙄🙄🙄

I've said it before on a previous thread regarding a pregnant couple planning on making 3 kids all share a room including a teen and the baby. But I was shouted down as apparently the teen would just be happy to have another sibling and would be overjoyed about sharing with a baby.

Well I did, in a roundabout way, but I don't want to be rude to the memory of my late parents, who I loved very much. But still, as I said, "I will always be vexed for them bringing me into the world".

It's funny isn't it, how so many think it's selfish to have just one child, yet so many have 3 or more kids when they clearly shouldn't, either for personal or financial reasons, because of this 'hormonal need to breed'. Some kids can really suffer from this dynamic.
Nobody really talks about how selfish that can be, do they?

Crikey, bit touchy aren't we?!

I literally quoted what you said, yet your accusing me of being dramatic?!

According to you, only children are desperate for siblings, are unhappy through life and their parents pretend they are happy.

My only child is none of the things you describe and has never wanted a siblings, even now at 16, they don't want one.

Stop assuming everyone's life as a single child is as miserable as yours was and clearly continues to be.

Ok, so you're saying if you suffer with MH issues, have another child so the second child can support your first child when your MH issues worsen, as a result of having the second child.

Right.

I don't think my MH would get as bad as it did the first time round, but I know for a fact I would struggle mentally to deal with lack of sleep and juggling two children's needs without considering my own.
The question is, is it all worth it to 'give my child a sibling'?

Life is easier with one child. Your priorities aren't split all the time. You are wealthier in time and money and you don't feel poorer for love. In fact there is more time for me to enjoy the parent child relationship. True, my "family" feeling is for three of us not four but I don't feel that's lacking anything. It just feels "family" to me.

I worried about being alone as an only child adult but I know people in their seventies who are alone because they have outlived their siblings. Being an only makes your friendship networks more robust. I had a rock solid sense of self worth as does my only, I think that is easier to instil when you don't need to compromise as much because of the needs of more than one child.

@Magnificentkitteh Yes, I agree there is research that concludes they are happier overall. i expect there are many happy children with siblings also, but if a family can only have one child, or chooses that, it makes sense that the child will receive more opportunities, resources, time etc.

Hate it when a thread asking for positives gets doomed on

They always do, every single time. No idea why - I wouldn’t go onto a thread started by e.g. someone unexpectedly pregnant with triplets asking for the benefits of a large family and tell them it sounded shit and awful.

As a flip side to this, when growing up with a parent who has MH issues having a sibling can be an immense support.
Hard to judge though as unless there's a long history it's easy for someone to expect their MH to improve and put it down to them just struggling with parenting a young child etc.

Hate it when a thread asking for positives gets doomed on - eg cousin argument. How do you know your only child will have any kids themselves ffs, having another child so that your first child's children will have cousins is ridiculous.

My daughter's oldest cousin was 16 when she was born and lives a 12 hour flight away.

I think there are studies that suggest only children are on average the happiest,?

This all over!

Only read the op but it's amazing. I'm one by choice but went through a lot of soul searching to make the choice.

She is so very close to me and my husband, we are a team, have a lot of fun, can give her all our time and attention, she makes friends very easily on holidays etc so no concerns there, and she's incredibly sociable and well liked. The main thing is the closeness of her relationships with both parents which in my mind is a lot more important than sibling relationships (and i'm one of 4 kids and we all get on great, I just think the bond with mum/dad tops that.

My dad and DH are only-children. One from a middle class family with 2 working parents that could afford to support him through public school and an Oxbridge phd, but couldn't have afforded it for two children. One raised by a single mum in a council flat, who worked long shifts at a badly paid job, but gave her one child all her attention and care. Given those circumstances, I believe they have both benefitted, albeit in very different ways, from being an only. They both having friends, social hobbies, good jobs, and loving families: they are not lonely. I had my first when I was over 40, no trouble conceiving, trouble-free pregnancy, very healthy baby, but I struggled for about a year after the birth. I am taking this blessing as enough, and I'm not going to push my luck, or my mental health, or our finances, or the amount of care I can give my existing DC, by having another. Just my experience, but I think there are some positive aspects to only having one.

I have five cousins. Two of them I wouldn't be able to pick out in a crowd, and I honestly do not know the last time I saw them. They grew up on the other side of the world, and when they came back my family and theirs hardly ever saw each other, due to location and nothing else.

The three cousins who live in my city were also a lot older than me (at least relatively as children, less so as adults, but the youngest was 14 when I was born), so I never saw them except if they were home from work when I was visiting their home.

Again, no animosity, they are just people who I don't know very well at all. The most I have spoken to any of them is since losing my mother last year. The concept of cousins doesn't always work even when there are plenty of them.

I don't get the cousins argument. Siblings don't always provide cousins either. My siblings don't have children. And I know many couples whose childen don't have cousins despite both parents have siblings. If not having cousins is an argument for not having an only child, then it's a very weak one at that.

Yes, if you are in a relationship with the father, or he still sees the child if separated.

If it's "just you" as a single mum, then there's no cousins. I know two women like this.

And even in the first instance, it's relying on the person you marry having the siblings you don't.

Of course your children can have cousins if you are an only child. I am an only child. My DS has cousins, because his father has a brother who has children. It's not hard to figure out!

I must have missed the bit where I said giving me a sibling would have meant they loved me.

I don't resent my parents. At all. I massively missed having a sibling then, and now, and this would have been somewhat in their control. It doesn't make them bad people. I just knew I wouldn't want that lonely life for any child of mine.

Perhaps they had fertility issues. I don't believe so. But not entirely unreasonable that they did, and I still remain unaware. They certainly had the money to adopt, but maybe that wasn't right for them. I think I was quite a bad birth, but it's hard to tell with my mother, she's so extra about everything, that it may indeed have been pretty normal. Maybe it was that bad she never wanted another.

A mother’s good mental health trumps anything a sibling can offer when it comes to raising happy, secure children. I speak from experience here. x