To not want another child?

[QueenOfMyWorld]

My ds 4 has just said to me " I wish you had lots of kids so I had someone to play with" I feel so guilty when he says things like this because I have no plans to have another,I'm 38 and am v happy with just one child.He goes to nursery 2 full days and a half day a week and sees his cousins on a weekend I just feel so bad that he's wanting siblings

bunnyrabbit93 🤣

I have three children- at that age DS wanted me to have another child as he wanted a brother.

Took several of his friends parents pointing out he could end up with another sisiter for him to go off the idea - us pointing it out wasn't listened to. It's never mentioned now he is older.

We are lucky our current children mainly get on very well - that not true of all siblings.

and am v happy with just one child.
Is that your priority op your happiness?

As a child of four.. I would have loved to have been an only child.

I do love my brothers but my mum and dad simply didn't have the time for all of us, particularly when one took up every spare morsel of their energy and time and then there was the financial aspect of it. Myself and my older brother were often just left to fend for ourselves.

Currently pregnant with DD1 and I honestly don't believe that there will be anymore - I want to be able to give her everything that I couldn't have, obviously that's coming from my experience of being from a larger family but I definitely don't have any guilt around it right now - I understand why you would if your child was asking though but I do think when he's older, he'll appreciate it.

But point is Margaret that that figure had increased by 11% in ten years. That is a HUGE shift. Yes, some will go on to have a second child but the fact that over ten years 11% more families only have one child, coupled with people leaving it later to have children, the stats are clear.

Only children are absolutely becoming far, far, far more common and there are studies by Kent University among others that show a lot of couples are actively deciding to have just one child so that they can ensure a good standard of living all round and that number is increasing year on year.

Actually it's 47% of households have one dependent child, so it's overcounting only children twice (because only children aren't actually what they're measuring), as if you had two children with a four year age gap you'd have eight years of looking like an only child household: both before the birth of the second but also while the second is still classed as dependent but the first isn't.

I’m very interested in that statistic too.

My son would surely count as an only (because he is) but we are hopefully going to have another so then we won’t be.

Almost all the two year olds I know are only children ... so far. As the eldest child, I was an only for a while.

I wonder what the stats are on online where the child is at least ten, say?

Anyway as I say I’m trying for me but there’s a big bit of me that dreads it too and I’m selling horribly guilty about that.

I have 3 kids and my youngest is obsessed with the idea of me having another as he wants a brother. It's not happening. Families come in all shapes and sizes. There is no right or wrong. Advantages and disadvantages to all combinations. Please ignore unpleasant posts which are trying to suggest otherwise.

MyDC if you see my previous post then obviously no

Yes, sorry, I did say in my first post that there's no doubt numbers of only children are increasing and I agree the shift has been significant. I was just responding to the person saying that nearly 50% seemed like a really surprising figure that didn't chime at all with their own experience.

It really is your decision and you should feel no guilt.

I never wanted to only have 1 child but if that’s all I had been blessed with then I would have been a little disappointed but my only child would still have been happy.

I did have a 2nd and I’ve got to say the love they have for each other just amazes me. they fight like cat and dog but they do adore each other.

I feel no guilt though that I am having no more.

I'm an only. We will very likely only have one (if it happens at all). They won't have any cousins, but we have tons of friends with kids.

I see my cousins once or twice a year. My mum sees her brothers the same amount. My dad's brother moved to Australia last year, leaving my dad to manage everything for their 95 year old mum.

Families are not always close, and cannot be implicitly relied on to provide support.

It's your decision and yours alone. This trend of doing what your kids tell you because you are "best friends" needs to do one.

What kids are good at, is finding your weakness and exploiting it.

There's no right or wrong answer to this - all families are different and you can never say whether having more children would work out well for your family or not. There are good and bad points to both situations. All you can do is make the choice you feel is right, given your personal circumstances and hope for the best. There are no guarantees and kids being kids, they will always find something to complain about regardless of what you do.
Don't feel bad - you are doing whst you think is right and that's good enough

Found the figure of 'number of 45 year old women (assumed to be end of childbearing) who have one child' for 2016 - it was 18%, the same percentage as those who have no children. So of women who have children, about 22% stopped at one child. BUT obviously that's time delayed - they were measuring women who were 45 in 2016 - so given the trend the number of children being born now who will be only children is going to be higher than that.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/childbearingforwomenbornindifferentyearsenglandandwales/2016#women-have-fewer-children-than-previous-generations-and-more-of-them-remain-childless

To be clear, I think the statistics are interesting, but irrelevant to OP - having an only child sounds like the right thing for her family and whether it was the choice made by 1% or 90% of other families wouldn't change that.

@ShatnersWig
I don't think many people have multiple children in a bid to make sure the are looked after in old age however there is some merit in thinking that having more children will probably provide all members of the family a wider support network once the children reach adulthood. This may mean that the burden of caring for the old and sick in the family can be shared, but also this provides an element of security for everyone as they go through life and may find they need additional assistance. Of course there will always be examples where siblings do not get on and this support network has not formed despite the existence of multiple brothers/sisters but when siblings do get on the strength and importance of the associated support network should not be underestimated.

Listen to yourselves!

Every other culture in the world take care of its weak, vulnerable and elderly. Except the West - which farms them out to nurseries, care homes and hospices.

It's disgraceful the way our society treats those in most need.

I had a few friends in school that were only children, they were definitely more well off than those of us that had siblings and I don’t just mean financially. They never had to share a bedroom, their toys, fight for their parents attention etc. It hasn’t made them spoilt as adults either, they’re really great people actually.

It’s fairly normal for children to guilt trip their parents, he will get over it the older he gets.

I too have made the decision shortly after having my DD that i DO NOT want another child. At 7 most of her class have siblings and every now and again she will ask for one and i tell her truthfully that its not going to happen.

She is very sociable, well liked in school and has many friends and i do feel it is the right decision for both me and her. 99.9% of the time i feel no guilt for it but every now and again i get a little pang and remind myself of my reasons!

I am 1 of 4 children (the eldest) and didn't get on with my siblings very well growing up. We are not too close now to be fair and one i don't talk to at all.

My DD went through a phase of wanting a baby sibling when she was about 7 (lots of her friends Mums were pregnant) until she spent some time with a neighbours quite demanding toddler. Toddler also took a shine to me which brought out the fiercest jealousy in my DD. She was cured.

Every other culture in the world take care of its weak, vulnerable and elderly. Except the West - which farms them out to nurseries, care homes and hospices.

Yes but when life expectancies are 80s/90s it’s a different proposition isn’t it. I have family who talk about having grandparents etc living with them all in one big house in the 50s and it was very different - usually grandmothers because the grandfathers would have died already - and they were helpful and then themselves died after maybe a year or two of illness or what was in retrospect, dementia.
If all old people now return to live with their children they’ll be going to live with people who are themselves past retirement age and are likely to live a long time with impaired lives. It is vey different.

I'm Irish and come from a big family, which is very common. Half my parents siblings don't talk to each other, lots of my cousins only get on with some of their siblings, and out of my four siblings I only have regular contact with two, two I speak two every couple of years at funerals or weddings. My mother even said if contraception had been available, she would have only had one!

I'm an only child with no cousins similar ages to me but never felt I missed out.

I now have 3 dcs. The youngest is 1 and we're clearing out baby stuff as he outgrows it. The older 2 are very upset about this as they really want us to have another baby!

I wouldn't feel guilty op. If you give in once you may end up with a football team 😂😂😂

In any case, if he's already 4, even if you got pregnant tomorrow the age gap would be too big for playing together. I say that as one who had a nearly 5 year gap between self and older sibling, and 4 years between self and the younger one.

The only siblings in my family who played together were the 2 youngest, with about 18 months between them.

I have a 2 year old and no intention of having any more.

My friends who have 1 child at the moment all want another, like 2 kids is what you're supposed to do.

Sometimes I feel bad about it and worry that my DS will be missing out but then I just think about my own childhood and how much better it was when I was an only child for 11 years (I love my sister dearly but I was so spoilt before she came along and definitely a happier child, maybe the age gap didn't help).

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with wanting 1 child, 10 children or none. You do what feels right for you.