I don't think my parents "had failings" when it came to raising a large family, they did the best they could. It's simply an illustration of what commonly happens in large families.
With respect Slug I hardly suppose that you can equate your parents' best efforts with those of other parents purely on the basis of family size. I'm certain that socioeconomics, parental temperament, birth spacing, the availability of extended family members, intellectual and cultural capital of the parents are all arguably more deterministic than sheer number of children.
I have not heard that it is common for parents of multiple children not to be familiar with the educational achievement/proclivity of their children.
In my opinion this is neglectful parenting and not something which is at all common in families of any size of my acquaintance.
As I mentioned previously my DP is the eldest of six, my mother is the seventh of eleven. They have never intimated to me that their parents were anything less than adequately involved in their educational and social attainment.
Having said all of that it should be expected that annecdata will differ.
It is mere conjecture and validates neither of our opinions to the other I would assume although entirely willing to be proven otherwise.
Logically similarly our differing experiences of life as a singleton are hardly about to cause a volte face in the others opinion of the relative benefits of our shared position.
I'm genuinely pleased that you had a more positive experience than I, I would in fact hate to imagine that my experience is universal in light of the burgeoning trend in one child families.
I very much hope that as only children become increasingly common it becomes a markedly less lonely and viscerally isolating experience for them. It is my hope that as their numbers increase they will find solace in each other when the inevitable death or infirmity of one or both parents occurs.
I know that when my own father died tragically and suddenly shortly before my twenty seventh birthday and my mother was both physically and psychologically eviscerated that it would have been inordinately beneficial for me to have had, if not a sibling then a contemporary whose own family circumstances were not so far aligned from my own.
In short somebody with a modicum of understanding of what the experience must have been like for me.
My friends were wonderfully sympathetic but couldn't understand how I felt being as they all had two healthy parents and at least one sibling.
That was wonderfully self indulgent I suppose but it serves to elucidate from where I draw my opinions and conclusions regarding the relative life long disadvantages of being an only child.
And yes as I have mentioned I did have a comparatively privileged childhood and have performed well academically.
I would personally trade my IQ for a sibling in the proverbial heartbeat.
To paraphrase an old cliche, academia/intellect won't make you happy and it isn't a valid reason to have an only child, in my opinion of course.
There are citations all around the internet that only children suffer poorer mental health than their counterparts later in life.
It wouldn't surprise me if that were true purely due to the inevitable circumstances which will undoubtedly prevail as the child reaches an age at which the parents become ever more dependent.
Is it fair to cause a child to be outnumbered by their elderly parents with all the ensuing melee, when frequently it comes at a point in life when they have adolescent/small children, are at the peak of their careers and in all likelihood are attempting to earn enough money to guarantee themselves a decent retirement/provide an inheritance for their children?
I don't consider this to be fair and of course circumstances will prevail where those with siblings will find themselves in exactly the same situation, but at least they always had a chance that it would turn out differently; only children are consigned to the inevitability of their parents later years and death resting squarely on their shoulders.
That's if they are fortunate enough for their parents to reach their dotage in the first instance.
Admittedly I have rambled on more than is surely strictly necessary;
It is just so very seldomly that I ever have the opportunity to voice this opinion, let alone provide my (wholly subjective) rationale for it.
The fact very much remains that it is exactly that; wholly subjective.
As are the opinions railing against the validity of the larger family.
Nobody has the answers, none of us are the oracle, we're all just going about our business trying to fuck our children up slightly less than our parents managed to fuck us up.
Perhaps in thirty years or so we'll be able to tell whether or not we made a less monumental cock up than our predecessors, perhaps my children will be on mumsnet bemoaning that they shared a bedroom or were driven around in an MPV or only had a foreign holiday every other year.
Perhaps those of you with only children will have ungrateful brats like myself eschewing their private education and parentally funded university education because they hankered after a sibling.
Who knows?
Does it really matter?
Is it worth making each other feel shit over?
I hope not.