is it selfish to have just one child when you don’t have much extended family?

[lokienji]

we have my parents, one cousin of mine with her family, my auntie (lives in another country) DHs grandparents and that is it. my sibling isn’t good to be around so I have little to do with her

see so many pros to having the one, youd have more resources, more time, able to focus on career and relationship etc and just enjoy life and treat them to more experiences and trips. any siblings liking one another isnt a given and I know that firsthand.. but if we did stick at one they wouldn’t grow up with or around a brother or sister or cousins and so I am not sure if this would be a more sheltered life than necessary, is it better to have a sibling in most circumstances? i recognise i might be biased by my negative experience ofcourse

It's tougher being the only child of dead parents, especially when you have no other living relatives whatsoever, which is the situation I found myself in when I was 28.

It isn’t uncomfortable, it just contradicts my own experience.

But you must know that there's a world beyond your experiences. Just as I know that my experience of knowing more people who don't get along with their siblings than people who do, doesn't mean that plenty of others don't love their siblings and have a good relationship with them. But not loving your sibling really isn't extremely rare and there's plenty of evidence of that.

It's nice having people who "belong" to you so long as they're not psychopaths and are only averagely annoying.

Family are often the only people to whom we can show something less than our "best selves" and obviously that has advantages and disadvantages.

I’m getting a strong sense of confirmation bias from you though.

I just asked DH “Do you think you get along with your siblings?”

DH “No.”

Me “Do you think you’d prefer to be an only child?”

DH “No.”.

So I think it is a bit of a weird one to think that ‘getting along’ is the be all and end all.

It makes a difference if you know there is someone you can call at 3am in crisis and they’ll feel duty-bound to help you. Even if you aren’t best buds, there is still that.

Must be extremely tough. My parents were both dead when I was in my twenties too. Luckily I had my sister as well as some aunts, uncles, cousins and an aging grandmother at the time. Must be so tough to be on your own. Even if you don't always get on brilliantly, there's a wonderful sense of comfort you get from relatives. Yes some people have dreadful relatives but most people are ok.

This is precisely my experience too x

The thing is every single only child you speak to will have a different opinion on this.

I'm the only child of an only child so I didn't have cousins growing up, never bothered me. DM had a lot of friends with kids a similar age and was proactive in arranging play dates with my school friends etc.

I can honestly hand on heart say that I have never wanted a sibling. One of my oldest friends is also an only child, she hated it and has gone on to have 4 kids herself, I have another only.

I think my life would be a lot better if i was an only child.

I'm an only, DH is an only, DD will be an only. The only reason to have any number of children, whether that be 1 or 21 is because you and your partner (if there is one) want them.

It's mind boggling to me the thought process that says, "well, we don't really want another child, but we better have one anyway." Batshit to have a second purely out of obligation to the first. You're not just giving your child a sibling, you're creating another child, who you have to be a parent to. I might be a parent, but my life does still matter.

I had a second child as i didn't want ds to be an only child and im so glad i did.

I grew up as an only child of a young single mother who had no contact with siblings, so I had no aunties/uncles/cousins. I do now have a step dad & half siblings but we’re not close. My own DC is an only child & it does worry me that they’ll have practically no family when me & DH die (DH has v small family too) but I have to remind myself that coming from a small family has never really bothered me. By coincidence DC has lots of friends who are only children & it’s my hope that they’ll form their own urban family when they’re older.

People don't consider that their second may have disabilities and need life long care. It's rare but it's a possibility. Then you have the situation that your child loses their parents and has to take on the burden of caring for their sibling too.

I think that because being an only child is so common now, you will see onlys being more likely to form 'chosen families' in the future as a result of the trend.

I also think you shouldn't necessarily go by what people say in person about families. People have a habit of putting on a front. In private (or on anonymous forums) they may something totally different about their family. If your relationships are bound by fear and obligation that's not necessarily a great relationship.

I definitely can sympathise. Plenty of people though where they're looking after their parents while one or more siblings does nothing, and then fights over inheritance too. Grass isn't always greener. Life is a lottery, and it certainly isn't fair

Equally the parents could die and the only could end up in care, or suffer from a disability themselves and have nobody to care for them. All unlikely scenarios.

I don't get why it would be 'selfish'. People have only one child for all sorts of reasons.

My child (adult of course), is an only; I had intended to have more but things intervened. I have no regrets. I am pretty sure I am not selfish, neither was my husband and nobody has ever even considered we were. He's fine, always had plenty of friends and a good social life. I kept open house then. We don't have much in the way of extended family either. So what?

It's not that I think it's selfish, but it's very hard on the only child when they're older. My friends husband father died recently, his mother died a few years ago and he is an only child. Doesn't have much extended family and even though he's married into a big family now he said it still feels incredibly lonely as they having a young baby who now won't know anyone from his side.

In the end you are the one who has to raise the children so it is up to you. Just another perspective!

I’m getting a strong sense of confirmation bias from you though.

Likewise considering your insistence upon believing that siblings despising each other is extremely rare, not just rare or uncommon but extremely rare. It's clearly not hence the millions of posts, articles, news stories and pages, both paper and web pages dedicated to it. It's about as rare as affairs in a marriage. Perhaps not the norm but far from being extremely rare.

Absolutely.

To an extent it's about whether you have an attitude in life about planning for the worse hoping for the best or the other way round.

Your life experience will influence that.

You could look at these likelihoods unemotionally and coldly with stats and you'd still have people making different decisions based on the level of risk they feel comfortable with.

Like I say it comes back to the lack of crystal ball and the element of luck. There is no right or wrong answer to this question but I do find the judgment on only having one both unpalatable and nasty as it's unnecessary.

These things ultimately are beyond our control. You make the best of what you've got.

But if it’s not the norm then it’s not likely.

When I wanted a second baby and considered the impact on DD, I went with the most likely outcome - which is they’ll get along fine (even if not incredibly close).

Does anyone not marry because of the risk of affair?

Of course if you don’t want another baby for XYZ reason other than just this one, then that’s completely different. But using this as the only reason is silly because it’s unlikely.

A lot of our lives are out of our control anyway - your only DC could grow up strongly disliking you, or vice versa. But we don’t have kids even considering that despite the fact it’s every bit as common, if not more, than a poor sibling relationship.

I suppose what I was referring to, was you saying this sort of thing:

“the millions of posts, articles, news stories and pages, both paper and web pages dedicated to [siblings despising each other].”

You are aware of all of these millions of things which I have no particular reason to seek out. I see that human beings are complicated and any relationship can be fraught, even so, very few people choose to live in isolation.

There’s no evidence that sibling relationships are more fraught than parents and children, couples, grandparents, in laws, colleagues or friends. I really do not see a skewing towards sibling relationships as being tougher to navigate than the rest.

To me, it strikes me as a confirmation bias, that you seek out evidence to suggest that having siblings is a bad thing because you already believe it.

I’m not invested in proving that having siblings is amazing, but I did give thought to my family, how many children I have and the ages between them, with a view to giving them the best chance of getting along and supporting each other in the future based on what I know. Of course I don’t have a crystal ball, all I can do is give it my best shot. I don’t expect other parents to think it through, that may not be their style, but the fact the OP seems to be similar to me, wanting to give it thought, I am sharing that I believe it is better in the long run, throughout the generations, to have an extended family.

I don't think it's "selfish". Like everything in life you do what you can with what you can, doing what the think is best at the time.

You can't predict how things will play out etc, however, as a general rule of thumb I'd say it would be good to have a sibling in these situations.

You don't get on with your sibling, so you know that these things happen and that a sibling isn't always a good thing.

Like anything, there are pros and cons. Personally, my kids are young, and having each other is playmates is absolutely the best thing for them just now and they love each other so much (long may it last!). But you just have to weigh up the pros and cons and make your decision...whichever you decide it is not selfish.

That’s not remotely like what anyone said. The parent/ child relationship is very different from the sibling relationship for starters. And what most people are saying is that whilst siblings can be a benefit, they can also be a detriment and it’s impossible to know which, which isn’t the same as saying “having a family is so shit”. I know lots of people with good sibling relationships, lots with, for want of a better word, mediocre sibling relationships and lots with toxic sibling relationships. There is no guarantee that having a second child will benefit the first- it might benefit them enormously, it might make their life much harder.

The point is a child should not be conceived and born purely to be a companion to another child, that’s not fair on them, and it’s not even guaranteed to work. A child should be conceived and born because they are wanted in their own right.

The point is that some people are saying it’s selfish not to have 2 children presumably because they think a sibling is a guaranteed benefit to the first child. Lots of people come on with their valid, lived experience of their sibling not being a benefit to them and are having this dismissed as “worst case scenario” when in fact it demonstrates that there are no guarantees that a sibling will be a benefit. It’s not the reason not to have a second child, but it’s showing that purely having a child to provide is a sibling is not the reason to have a second child. Those are two different things.

Your other examples don’t work therefore, as they are about advising other people not to do something, and nobody here is telling anyone not to have a second child if they want one.

That’s a false equivalence. What would be more of an equivalent would be if someone said “it’s selfish not to get married, giving someone a spouse is a benefit to them” and then someone who didn’t want to get married pointed out that some marriages are miserable as part of the reason that it’s not necessarily a benefit.