Really good thread!
I just wanted to leave this link below for those pondering why two or more is the norm. The author of the book I’ve linked to explains that a lot of this custom to have two or more, which as PPs say people often seem to follow blindly, is (from memory) rooted in a flawed study from the early 1900s claiming that only children are odd etc. She says the study was poorly evidenced and that further and better studies didn’t support those original findings yet the news/word out there got stuck with this idea. She also says something like how that study was funded by a farming body or had some other sort of link to farming, ie more children = more to work the land, emphasis on traditional values and the evils of moving to cities (of course also very political).
The book also says that 1/3 of US families are one child, or triangle, families. I wouldn’t have thought that before I read it.
The most interesting part of the book for me was about the types of only child you can be, eg being an only who’s basically the peacemaker between warring parents is going to mess someone up, particularly if there’s no “backup” in the form of siblings who might otherwise diffuse things. She gives a few other examples of “bad” ways to grow up for onlies, which I can’t remember without the book to hand. But the point there is that the family dynamic in those examples is damaging, not that being an only is doing this to someone automatically. The book also cites evidence that being an only and having a positive family dynamic only brings advantages, more resources, better social skills and often better academics, as PPs have also mentioned.
I think there’s going to be a growing trend for onlies in the coming decade, including onlies by choice. As ever, each to their own and being different is what makes the world interesting. But I do think it’s important to think about the decision as everyone on here is.
www.amazon.co.uk/One-Only-Freedom-Having-Child/dp/1451626967?tag=mumsnetforu03-21