To feel we aren't a proper family?

[Snowcherriesfromfrance]

Because we only have one child?
Everywhere I look it's families with at least two, all the adverts on tv have at least two, all my friends have at least two.

We can't have any more and it constantly feels like someone is missing. We don't feel like a proper real family at all. When we take ds out I feel like people must be feeling sorry for us. There hardly seems any point doing stuff just the three of us.

I felt exactly like that for ages when we wanted another and couldn't. I used to say the same thing "I feel as if someone is missing". I don't now though, I really enjoy our little family and the peace and relative ease with which we are able to do things.

I felt like this as a child. But my brother died. And the feeling was entrenched after my parents separation, and not seeing my father for over a decade.

Agree with the posters saying you're going through a mourning process and your feelings are wrapped up in that.

I completely sympathise OP, I am in the same situation and feel just the same. DD is the world to me and if I was only meant to have one child I'm so glad it was her. But I do feel I've let her down by not giving her a sibling, she'd have made a fantastic big sister. I tend to blame any problems on the way we've brought her up or the fact she is an only and I do feel people judge and make assumptions about us.

I think you have to accept though that the issues are yours and find a way to deal with them so how you feel doesn't affect your son. You are so lucky to have him and he is lucky to have you - make the most of it because childhood goes so very fast.

An only child doesn't have to be a lonely child, OP.
Mine treats me like I am his best friend: he wants to race with me, to show me the stones and worms he has picked in the garden, to watch spiderman cartoons together. I like to tell him about my day, to bake with him, to go out for cake together.

There's plenty you can do together, possibly more than you would be able to afford/organize if you had two DCs.

The Thomson advert with Simon the ogre is a couple with 1 girl. But I know how you feel and think about it all the time as we only have 1 too.

I feel for you. I have 3 kids and currently expecting another. There is nearly 4 years between my first and second and I pinned for my second when my first was 6 months, but we had financial goals and we had to stick to them. Society puts so much pressure on us to be perfect, have the hose before the kids, get married before kids, have kids young, have kids older and more established have only one for good lifestyle and only two, and educate private, or go for more etc. There is no perfect family and yes you may yearn for more, that never goes, I am on my way to having 4th and I deal with comments of selfishness, overpopulated world or that am I trying for a boy ( expecting a boy) daily. You are a mother, you are a family its not jusged by the number of kids you have. Just don't get obsessed with it, if you cannot change the situation, love what you have, you may end up with 10 grandchildren from the one child :)

It's just me and dd and we are definitely a family! I would have loved another child but it wasn't meant to be. It does mean we can do lots of things which are more tricky with lots of children. And we love each other very much.

I hope so because at the moment I just keep thinking of him all alone in the world when dh and I have died.

This is always so baffling. Why would mothers (of all people) assume their adult child will be single childless and friendless. Such a pessimistic vision to have of your own child's future. And so very unlikely.

What is a family though?

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/family

Ps. Whatever it is, you, OP, are definitely one.

I have a sister, we only talk on special occasions.

DW and I were a family before we had our singleton and while we were bringing him up and are still one now that he has moved out.

All those families who have 2+ children are likely looking at you wistfully thinking about all the fantastic things they could do if they only had one child. You have so much more time and money compared to if you have 2+, you can plan your days out and holidays around what your ds loves.

I'm pregnant with dc2, we assumed we'd only ever haveone dc for fertility reasons. Ds1 is only a toddler but he is extremely sociable, one of his first words was "people" and he gets so excited to see people especially other children and babies, I felt so sad that he'd probably be an only before I got pregnant, but I now feel really worried that he'll get half the time and energy that he gets now, so many things like swimming, cycling, spontaneous day trips are going to be so much harder or impossible with 2 children.

I completely understand how you feel but I also think my desire for dc2 and my grief over several miscarriages led me to stay in a situation with my husband which was damaging to me, because I put a lot of stuff down to lack of a baby, rather than unreasonable behaviour.

Do consider going to see your gp if the low mood continues

Siblings tend to be noisier, and the more they are the noisier it is. Also lots of people with "just one" often take a friend along with them.

One child on their own tends to be quieter, and at a play park etc. needs to make a friend before they can really play. However with my 3 they tended to go off and make their own friends pretty quickly.

In ads the "normal" family has 2 parents and 2 children, a boy and a girl - this is just to show that everyone can have fun with "Brand X washing up liquid" - it doesn't represent real life. Just as they rarely show the reality of life with 3 kids (everyone talking loudly and randomly at once).

If you want/can only have one child - enjoy them! There are advantages to only children.

Some DC fight all the time! Some DC resent every moment that their parents spend with one of the others.

I bet that some people are looking at you when you are out and thinking 'how lovely'. You can do more for a start as it costs less, you have time to talk to the one child and do what interests them- you don't have to pull yourself more ways with one child bored stiff because they are not interested.
I am baffled about the 'lonely as an adult bit' as if their life revolves around parents and siblings. It doesn't!

I have one dd.
She came after 3 miscarriages and I had 2 more since.

I am going to give it one more go and just spent £360 for some recurrent miscarriage investigation as can't get more NHS until 3 in a row.

I will then either have the second child or ask my GP for counselling to come to terms with having one child.

But as it was so hard to get her, I am so happy for one...

But I know where you are coming from.

Talk to your GP

I just can't understand why people would choose to only have one child, although my own mother says she did. However she was older when she had me so I so wonder if perhaps it just never happened for her either.

It's hearing friends say how their youngest dc adores the eldest. Friend's ds yesterday said his first word - her ds's name. I will never have this and nor will dh or ds. I know I'm missing previous time with ds by feeling like this but thinking that makes it even worse, I keep thinking 'stop it you'll never get this time back' and it makes me feel anxious and stressed out.

With respect snowcherries, you don't NEED to understand why people would choose to "only" have one child. Others choices have nothing to do with you.

I would suggest talking to your GP before this eats away at you and all these negative feelings start affecting your DS

Op you haven't fully come to terms with the fact you can't have more; it's making you anxious sad and you are hugely over thinking these situations... you are grieving for the life you might have had, which is making it impossible to see the joy you do have...
It took me a while but with help from my doc I am now excepting and happy with the family I have.

My stepmother comes from a large family. My dad was an only child. She used to tell him he wasn't from a 'proper family'. My dad had just 2 kids - she had 4. She'd also say to him that one day she'd have loads more grandkids than him, so yet again, he wasn't from a real family.

Fast forward 30 years. My dad ended up with 7 grandchildren. Stepmother? Zero. His genes are going on into the future! Her's - not. I wonder who is the proper family there, now..?

ETA: Reading that back - my stepmother's family was large but, reading between the lines, not very loving or close or even very happy. My dad had just his parents but they were incredibly close, fun-loving and very, very happy. (My grandma nearly died when he was born, so chose never to have another child). He adored his mum. They were absolutely a proper family and, as it turned out, more of one than my stepmother's large family who, when my generation go, will be wiped out forever.

A family is what you make it. I would see a doctor, it's not a great way to feel.

OP, I understand how you feel and I feel it too - irrational as it is. We have one 4yo DD and can't seem to have any more, ttc 2.5 yrs.

But a friend with two children said to me this week that she'd enjoyed looking at my Facebook photos of all the lovely things we've done this year (nothing extravagant, just two caravan holidays and lots of days out to attractions) but it made her jealous as she didn't have the money to take 2 kids on days out, plus she said 'you all look so relaxed all the time and I just look harrassed'.

So I suppose it works two ways.