To feel sad for my DD?

[SleepyElephant]

For various reasons, 1 YO DD will probably be an only child. She does have two sets of loving grandparents but one set live 4 hours away so she only sees them 3-4 times a year.

DH and I get on okay with our siblings, but we’re not especially close so although she’ll know her cousins, she’s not going to be best friends with them like you hear a lot of children are.

I think DH and I are feeling the absence of family a bit in our lives the older we get and it’s making me feel so sad for DD. I’m so worried about her being lonely, especially once she reaches adulthood.

I worry that she won’t have many friends growing up (no particular reason for this worry) and then where will she be? She’s only 1 so I know it’s pointless really worrying about all this now, but I do. I just want her to grow up happy, surrounded by people that love her and I’m worried that once she gets to teen/ adulthood, GP’s will no longer be around, she won’t have a particularly close relationship with her aunts/ uncles or cousins and probably no sibling…so who will she have apart from DH and I? 😞

Does anyone have an only that isn’t close to their cousins, or doesn’t have any? Are they lonely, do they yearn for a bigger family?

To counter argue the cousins and aunts / uncles, what if she had them but didn’t really like them. I have cousins I haven’t spoken to in years. Same with siblings, just because it’s a blood relation doesn’t mean you will be friends.

If anything your DD will make some amazing friends and it reminds me of the quote blood is thicker than water. Which is used wrong all the time:

The actual saying is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”. The meaning of this saying is actually the opposite of the way we use it. The saying actually means that bonds that you've made by choice are more important than the people that you are bound to by the water of the womb.

2 families at dcs' primary with an only used to holiday together and meet up regularly

Have you made friends with other parents? I do have family around that I’m close to, but we also spend a lot of time with other parents and their children (in fact, this forms an embarrassingly large part of my social life at the minute!).

Once she is older, she’ll make her own friends. But in the meantime, it’s nice to have some ‘go to’ people for children friendly socialising.

YABU. DS is an only child with no cousins and he's fine.

I've never lived close to my parents, my siblings didn't have children. They have cousins and grandparents on exh's side who were indifferent at best, similar aged cousins moved overseas, have much younger half ones who are more like niece/nephew relationship, see a handful of times a year as don't live nearby. Having family doesn't mean you'll be emotionally close even if close by location!

I think you're overthinking this. There is no reason why she won't make friends....unless you are a total recluse and don't encourage her to!
Family aren't everything.

You can build wonderful bonds with deep friendships and encourage more family fer togethers. Be community minded so she has a sense of belonging.

No guarantee with a big family that you stay close either. Both myself and DH have brothers and sisters, cousins for the kids and for a few years, when they were all younger, we had lots of get togethers and parties. As everyone got older, that has stopped. We are the youngest in both our families, so big age gaps, and not that much in common with our siblings. Big family fall outs over the years, so some family, are also now not talking to the rest! GP's also all dead, as they were older too. So, no guarantees, just luvd your life, your daughter will be fine, in her own loving family.

She will really be ok. My sister is very bitter and bullying towards me. It’s not a guarantee. You can build other family through close friendships etc. her DP when she is an adult might have a huge family. So many variables and you can’t worry too much. There are so many positives to just having one that I can see (objectively, as I am pre kids). More time for your DD. More money to help her when she’s an adult with life stages that are not getting cheaper - house buying, uni fees, learning to drive. You won’t have to worry about making birthday or Christmas presents equal, same for time spent. You can travel easier and cheaper. More time for yourself, your career and relationship with DH. Don’t feel bad.

Be aware also that your dd security comes from parents, that is the main source of feeling loved, valued and secure, the rest of its there is just icing.

Family is everything to me, so yes, I think if feel the same way and I do think family adds a LOT to a child's life. My kids adore their grandparents who they see a few times a week (one side anyway). And my 4 yr olds best friend is her cousin.

Having said that, not everything in life is ideal and we can't always control it. Also, no child's life is perfect. Yes, your child may feel lonely at times, but they'll feel love and safety, which isn't what every child experiences.

I really don't understand your post.

I'm an only. I wasn't close to any cousins etc but had friends and a great relationship with my parents.

My childhood was obviously so bad I had one child by choice. My child, now adult, isn't close to any cousins but is extremely close to me and her dad. We are divorced.

I'd consider any only child very lucky.

I think you're overthinking it if I'm honest. I've an only who is nearly 8. He's close to his cousin's but they're 45 mins away so only sees them every holiday and a few weekends. His others are 16&18 so not interested.

He is not lonely at all, never asked him outright but I can tell. He has many friends, we have regular play dates, he does after school clubs where he knows out of school people and we have neighbours in our close where he plays with others.

Don't worry about something that may never happen. They're still young so I'd get yourself to groups to make friends of a similar age, start a nursery if not already at one or preschool at 3 near to the school you plan on using so you know others potentially in the school then at starting school age, get involved in the class message group and over the summer before school starts start meeting up at the park with class mates.

Life is too short to feel sad. My choice of having an only was forced upon me due to medical reasons so I've had no choice but to embrace it, get on with life and make the best life I can for them.

I have 5 siblings and not in contact with any of them so having siblings doesn’t necessarily mean they will be close

You’re worrying unnecessarily (meant kindly)! I’m an only child and grew up in deep countryside with one grandparent who lived a 5 hour drive away and one cousin who was significantly older than me and also lived hours away. My parents made sure I had lots of friends round and took me to friends’ houses so I definitely had a good bunch of friends growing up and still do. I’m very happy and don’t know any different!

Only advice I have (apart from not worrying) is to make sure you facilitate friendships by having her friends over etc. Which is also not something to think about until she starts school. They rarely keep nursery friends long term in my experience but good to at least mix with other kids so school isn’t a shock!

To give you the flip side of this...I grew up in a big family and extended family, lots of cousins, aunts/uncles, GPs. We were all very close as young kids, early teens. As we have all grown up we have all gone our own ways and none of us are that close anymore.
Your little one is only 1 give her chance to grow up and make friends at nursery or school. You may also make new friends in the mums and grow your own support system.

Yes single mum to an only, she has LOTS of friends, and lots of them are onlies too. Completely normal - 25% of children are

I think you're overthinking it. I am not an only child and have several cousins, but haven't seen any of them since I was about 7 (and I'm now 50). Being related to someone doesn't mean you are going to be friends with them. When I was a child, it was just us and our parents as we lived a long way from both sets of grandparents. I didn't particularly play with my siblings as we all liked doing different things and had different friends. We all like one another but even now, I only see them a couple of times a year and rarely speak to them in between.

I think MN gives people an odd idea of what's normal, in that pretty much everyone on here seems to live next door to their parents, PIL, cousins, siblings etc.

Im an only and there have been two things I struggled with. First, in any friendship, I was always more keen to hang out with them than they were with me and as the OP said upthread, people can smell that off you. I was always kind of last to be picked in any group situation. But my parents made like absolutely no efforts in that direction- weekends and holidays I would get booted out at 9am and expected to entertain myself for the rest of the day. My parents had 8 siblings and 6 and found it totally implausible that I might sometimes have nobody to play with! If you can cultivate a few friendships from various sources, plan days out on the weekend and just kind of accept that you're going to spend a lot of time entertaining your DD you can take that pressure off her fairly easily I think.

The other time when I have struggled was when my dad and then my mother got sick and died. Neither of them ever talked about care plans or whatever and my mother spent about the last 12 months of her life suffering from mild dementia and as it turned out, liver cancer. She wouldn't see a doctor and wanted to stay at home even when she wasn't coping any more and I couldn't really help practically because I live abroad. She was only 2 weeks in hospital and then she died, and fair play to her for never having to go into residential care because I know she would have hated it but my advice to you us fgs think about what you would want in terms of care in the various scenarios when you get old and tell your DD. My MIL god bless her worked as a nurse in a care home and she is much more hard headed about this stuff, she's picked out the place she wants to go if she needs care.

Thanks for all the responses.

This definitely isn’t an ‘only child’ bashing thread, we could probably have another if we wanted, but we’re choosing not to for various reasons.

I guess I’m thinking about the only children I know around here, and they do all have cousins and lots of aunties/ uncles etc that they’re close to and I know she won’t have that.

To those saying could we make more of an effort to cultivate a relationship with family, trust me, we’ve tried. We don’t have an awful lot in common with our siblings, there’s no huge fallouts or hate etc, I think we all just acknowledge that we’re different people. We see each other every 2-3 months for meet ups, days out and BBQ’s etc and overall it’s nice when we do, but I don’t think either of us want to force closer relationships just for the sake of it. She’s lucky she has two sets of doting grandparents but one of those sets lives 4 hours away so she doesn’t see them that regularly and I’m just aware they’re probably not likely to be around anymore once she’s a teen/ young adult.

I think, as previously said, it doesn’t help that we do live in a place where everyone has lived since they were young and all their brothers/ sisters/ aunts etc live in the same village. A lot of my friends, I’d say in the last few years since having children now seem to prioritise spending time with their (extended) families at weekends and when I meet mums at baby groups etc it’s similar.

Yes, we are fairly sociable people and have friends with children and she does see them fairly regularly, bur again, these people all have huge families locally that they’re all really close to so at weekends, a lot do the time they’re hanging out with them rather than friends. We see my parents at weekends and occasionally my sibling and their family, but otherwise, it does just tend to be us atm. That could change as she gets older.

We will definitely be facilitating play dates and friendships as she gets older, I just hope she makes friends easily (neither me nor her father do. We’re lucky in that we both have networks of friends, but I wouldn’t say we make new ones easily really) so I hope she’s better than us at that!

I probably am worrying unnecessarily, I just love her so much and hate the thought of her getting to her 20’s/ early 30’s and thinking ‘fuck, mum and dad are old, grandparents are dead, I don’t see aunties or uncles really, who do I have?!’ I never want her to feel alone in this world but I know we can’t solve every problem for them.

Focus on the positive about her being an only child. As for friendships she will make some lasting friendships when is more important. Some at school, some later when she is a teen and so on.
My advice is to keep enrolling her in lots of activities outside school and from early age so she has the opportunity to meet a lot of people. Keep away from flakes if possible. Teach her values and do a lot of things together growing up.

I know where you're coming from as I feel a bit like this too.

We live near one set of elderly grandparents but DS has no cousins and isn't very likely to get any. He's 2.5. I worry he'll have no friends and will be bored and lonely.

I do make sure he goes on as many play dates as he can. He also plays with my friends kids. I think when he starts school and has his own little friends he'll be ok.

It's hard not to worry isn't it

I’m an only who grew up in a different country from my grandparents and cousins. I’m not close to my extended family but I have tons of friends and my dear friends are like family to me. I love being an only - please don’t worry.

I have one dc. We were living in a different country to my family until she was 8. The main driver for moving was to be near family. She now has aunts/ uncles/ cousins and grandparents and loves it. My childhood best friend lives near us with her dc. She's an only child. My dc and hers are more like cousins and we see them a lot. So family aren't the be all but good connections with friends can be just as good.

To add, now that dc is a teenager she actually wants to do more with her friends than family, which I think is pretty typical. She's never lonely and says she loves being an only child.