Can you tell someone is an only child?

[AllAloneInThisHouse]

I’ve had few times people say to me ”Oh, that males sense!” after they found oit I’m an only child.
What does that mean?

Also, why is there stereotype that only children are selfish and don’t care about others?
I’ve never seen correlation between selfishness and being an only child.
Plenty of people that have siblings has been selfish.

Not IME, people are always quite surprised to find out I don't have siblings.

No, you can't tell. People look for evidence that backs up their stereotype and discard anything that doesn't.

I was sitting on a park bench with two other school mum friends after school pick up chatting and watching our kids play - there was a younger child there (from the same school but reception or year 1) who was being a bit of a handful . The mum of three pipes up 'yes, you can tell he's an only child'. I gently pointed out to her that both me and the other mum only had one child, the response was 'on yes, but they're nothing like only children'. Right.

I'm very pleased to say that my son, who is now 18, is very sociable, empathetic and not selfish (within the parameters of being an 18 yr old!) - I think he would be like that if he had siblings too.

How ? Surely all only children are spoilt in a way, whether it be financially or having their parents all to themselves.

I think you can sometimes tell, but saying that you could tell someone is an only child seems rude- I don’t think I’d say it out loud.
I also think the way we view only children is ridiculously skewed negative. I quite like only having one. I’ve got 5 siblings myself, and while I like having siblings, I don’t think my son is missing out particularly.

What subtleties do you think only kids miss out on?

I have one child

Some of my best friends have been only children: I've always admired their ability to make friends, their confidence and outgoing personalities

My child loves sharing with others as she recognises that it helps to forge relationships

Never mind that. I hate the term 'only'. Sounds so negative and the actual word suggests it's a bit unfortunate.

My husband is an only child. He’s totally happy in his own company, which is great. He rarely gets bored and if he does he solves his own boredom.

I have a brother, but we weren’t close (in age or personality). So I’m not really a classic “sibling”? I don’t think you can tell if someone is an only child and if you can it’s for a positive reason 😄

Like home-ed kids, I thought the stereotype would be that onlys are more articulate & confident talking to adults. Is main thing.

My nephew is a golden child (an only, not by his parents' choice), never had a temper tantrum in his life, always high achieving, serious, shares his parents' exact same values. In comparison, I have relatively feral kids who often got in trouble in school.

I suspect it's easier to be perfectly behaved when many adults are always hovering with so much energy to figure out & answer your needs.

As the only child of two only children I've been thinking about this. My mother is deeply confident and loves to be the centre of attention and I think that's because she was desperately wanted, was the twin who survived and my grandparents couldn't have any more children. Whereas I was a mistake, my mother hated having a child/being a mother and all the restrictions it brought. My grandparents spoilt both of us but I didn't grow up spoilt iyswim.

My father's background was both complex and tragic and part of him.never recovered but he was a lovely man and I wish he were still here. Our personalities are not dissimilar.

The one thing I felt I missed out on was not having any aunts, uncles or cousins. The lack of family was why I ploughed on through secondary infertility to have another child.

On the other hand DH is one if three and they have 10 cousins on one side, not sure about the other but none of them.see each other and one of DH's sisters is so selfish I say thank you every day for the fact that she lives on another continent. So does his other sister but she is nicer. Effectively my DC have grown up without aunts, uncles and cousins too.

We are over 60 now and although my mother is a classic narcissist, I will make sire she is cared for in old age. DH's sisters wouldn't do a hand's turn.

My Dsis and I were talking about a relative that regularly only thinks of his own wants and needs, when arranging when or where to meet for example.
He is not an only child. However he is elderly and never had a live in partner, or children, or any pets so I think he's just never had to arrange his life around anyone else, or take anyone else into consideration.

I think there’s a lot of stereotypes about only children, such as:

• they get undivided love, time and attention
• they get showered with presents for Christmas/birthdays (less kids = more money)
• they don’t share
• they’re spoilt
• they cannot self occupy
• they’re impatient/are not taught to wait for things
• they are lonely

My step son is an only child, and I see some stereotypical traits in him, but also in many other kids who have siblings. He was taught to share, and he’s very sociable.

He does however gets showered with presents as the only child in the family by both sets of grandparents, step parents, parents, uncles, aunties, cousins etc. And it’s obvious how much he longs for the company of other kids ( he himself said he’d love a baby brother) .

Im the older sibling and I see how the dynamic was different in my case - it was always DRILLED in my head to share, to let go, not to argue, etc. And now I’ve got big issues with being assertive and standing up for myself.

There’s plenty of threads on MN about parents favouring one child over another, where one is treated like the only child while the other gets nothing. So having siblings won’t guarantee one grows up to be a better person than the only child.

It comes down to parenting really.

I suppose people assume that of someone is spoiled and self centred then that is evidence of being a only child.

I have one uncle who is incredible self centred - but his parents treated him like he was a little golden emperor (4 kids, he is youngest ), whereas I’m a younger of loads and my parents were very hands off with me (older siblings did most of the looking after) and very much an absolute insecure doormat.

DS is a single and he has single classmates - and to be honest, they are the same mix of lovely and brattish - the X factor is really the parents!

DS is an only. He inhaled his food and eats far quicker than all his friends with siblings.

Tribal community/close cohabitiation behaviours that you only get living with peers of a similar age 🤷🏼‍♀️ I don't know. It's not negatives. It's just different environmental conditioning.

Sometimes you can tell that someone is an only child. Depending on how they weee brought up, they can tend to be more self sufficient , more mature for their age as well as less swayed by social bartering that goes on between people who've been brought up with siblings. However they might have had friends that were over all the time, or step siblings or just been brought up differently by their parents. I also think you can sometimes tell you is the oldest child in a family (tend to be more confident and leadership like), middle pr youngest as birth order also has a correlation to certain traits. But it's a correlation not a certainty ie not the same for everyone and there are people who don't fit those traits.

It's neither negative nor positive to have traits that can be over represented in only children or in older or younger siblings etc.. even if someone does 'fit the mould' as each trait also has its own pros and cons. It's interesting and it's human to like to speculate and see patterns if they exist or say that is more unusual.

I would t be offended unless someone is denigrating Only Children by making generalisations from stereotypes

Both myself and my DH are only children and unless I’ve told someone I’m an only they’ve never said anything. On one occasion they replied ‘oh it’s ok for you then…….’Seriously they have NO idea. Both parents are local, in their 80s, Dad has Alzheimer’s. No other family around. It’s stressful at times, with no one else to help share the work.
You can’t tell who is an only child. Only children are not selfish at all but self sufficient.
Some folk spout such crap imo.

I have never been able to tell how many siblings someone has.

Yes you can sometimes.
the 3 women I know who are only children are friendly, sociable and confident but if you cross them they can be stubborn and very unforgiving.
people that have siblings tend to learn the skills of taking the rough with the smooth.

Yes sometimes, some only children are very caring and sociable but some want everything on their own term, don’t understand other POVs very well and can be self absorbed, and unaware of the fact. They often expect to be listened to even when others haven’t yet contributed etc.
especially those with overly indulgent parents, we have lots of onlys in dds year and it’s very much my way or the highway.
on the upside they seem happy in their own company even as adults.

I’m just curious what those traits are as I’m not sure

I wrote a paper at uni on impact of birth order on child development. It was all about statistically significant correlations (ie not all but more children than would be random occurrence were found to have....), with a section on Only Children, variables of different family arrangements made a difference blended families etc) as well. It was a fascinating topic.

What is interesting is that I have 3 DCs who all have brown up showing fairly typical traits for their birth orders!

Typo ... Who have grown up (not brown up!!) eeek

I have to say some only children we know talk and talk with such puffed up self importance and righteousness, it would never be tolerated with siblings! It’s particularly annoying if the parents gaze on in awe. They are doing their dc no favours.
it never ends well as they become terrible bores and other people find them hard to tolerate.

What was also interesting was 'Only of Onlys') only children of only children...) have more marked traits than first generation Onlys for eg in close big families of cousins

So it was a great debate regarding influence of birth order / nuclear family nurture v nature in development of measurable personality traits (remember it's about correlation not absolute)