What is life like with an only child?

[MDJ]

Hello!

My husband and I have a wonderful outgoing 2 year old son and are leaning towards being one and done because we are both introvert and prefer a calmer environment and don’t have tonnes of energy. We also like the idea of being able to afford some great holidays with our son to give him some amazing experiences.

I would be really grateful to hear others experiences of life with an only child, particularly older children (9-16). Do you spend a lot of time entertaining your child? Do they enjoy hanging out with you? What are holidays like? Do they do many extra curricular activities? How often do you ensure they socialise (is it stressful/worrying being responsible for your child’s friends?)

Thanks in advance!

DS has just gone off to university. He was quite self sufficient in keeping himself amused so we didn’t need to spend all our time entertaining him or finding playmates for him.

His favourite past time from quite an early age was eating out, so probably good from a money point of view we only had one!

Liked spending time with us, although started spending more time in his room in later teens (like many teens).

Just getting used to be being empty nesters (which would eventually happen in most families no matter how many DC you have)

We have one (by choice) he's just finished Uni, life is quiet and calm. Never felt we had to 'entertain' him as such, he was/is easy going, made friends very happily, joined in activities clubs, loads of confidence. Never had to 'work' at encouraging social engagements.
Holidays were always lovely .. he would find other children to 'hang out' with, or happily join in structured activities, kids clubs (if there were any).
He did quite a few extra curricular activities but they tended to be hobbies DH or I were involved with so it wasn't 'difficult' to facilitate.
Obviously I don't know any different but I have absolutely no regrets about having an only DC.

By equal measure, I know a few families with 2 kids who are constantly fighting and competing for attention. In fact, we had some as guests yesterday- the two kids spent the whole afternoon competing for my son's attention and telling each other they weren't welcome.

I can't think of anything worse than dealing with that dynamic all the time.

Imo it is often really great to have an only child if you are sociable and connected into your community, and are willing to facilitate your child's friendships and activities. Less great if you are introverted and isolated, in which case your child may feel rather lonely.

I am not an only myself. I was brought up rurally and would have felt very lonely without siblings (no close cousins). I know many happy onlies, but common features are that they grew up in urban or at least small town environments, with good public transport and a fairly large degree of freedom from a relatively young age, so they could forge their own friendships and hang out with friends rather than having to wait to be ferried around by parents.

I grew up rurally with siblings, having siblings doesn’t stop that being a lonely experience.

Mine's actually lonely. Younger years it didn't bother her but now being a bit older she is lonely. She was the only, only child in the family and seeing her cousins with their siblings was difficult for her. she's so excited to have her step brothers and sisters around now and she also has a little brother or sister on the way finally. I'm glad she will have someone when I'm gone and I'm also glad I waited so long between to have that time just me and her. She's going to be a great big sister.

Like many things in life, you just have to make your decision based on what is seems best for you and make the most of it.
I have 3 grown DC and loved the general mayhem it brought. Definitely more expensive than having an only one as they ate like horses, 3 lots of everything and most holidays were UK self catering (if they happened at all) but lovely family times made up for it in other ways - although it assumes they get on together. Luckily mine all rubbed along okay together.
I have two friends who are only children, and now have elderly parents. The whole caring / decision making process is entirely on them, which can be difficult. I appreciated having a sibling to share such things with. But siblings may not get on and be supportive and may actually be an extra source of stress so being an only child could be easier in some situations. There’s no guarantees, so just make your choice, cross your fingers and make the most of whatever size family you end up with.

My mum always said my only child cousins were spoiled. I think they had a lovely life each of them. They are nice people and better at making friends. I may as well be an only child (sibling is competitive). I used to always wish I had a sister and envy those who have close bonds with their siblings. I try to be happy for people but get a slight twang of envy occasionally.

My auntie couldn't have more kids, so I try to not judge people, it could be choice and it's their life or maybe they would have wanted more but can't for reasons out of their control.

I have 3 and it feels somewhat chaotic. It's happy but messy and rushed. Washing baskets galore and going anywhere costs a bloody bomb. Holidays are tricky.

I always thought I would have at least 2 kids but DD is an only due to fertility issues and having IVF to have her.
She’s nearly 5 now and I feel happy to only have her. Life is pretty easy, she has loads of friends and we can do so much more as she is the only one we have to consider. We have a group of friends who all have one and we have days out together etc and it just works.
I’m a big advocator of having one.

I'm an only child who has one child. Our life is much easier than people who have more - I can claw out some time inside the day when child is self entertaining now she's older. Admittedly 3 to 5 was hard, but I am not one for early years. She's incredibly secure, has amazing communication skills and is bright and happy and strong minded. She has a network of friends and I have a network of friends who support me in a way that I see the families of some of my friends NOT doing.

Having a sibling is not an automatic step to having lifelong support. I have seen many selfish, toxic or even just disinterested siblings. I also know people who are alone who had siblings but those siblings died young.

You can't protect against being alone by providing a sibling any more than you can by getting married. Great when it works well. So often doesn't.

We do activities three nights of the week and one weekend day. Playdates are much better when they get older, less.work for me.

Wonderful. She is 5 now and for us we have the perfect life. However the big difference is we are one by choice. Having been on here a while I find that often people with one who aren't as positive about their only tend to have an underlying sadness as they wanted more and sadly couldn't for whatever reason. Which is understandable.
We chose to live on a new build estate walking distance to school (as opposed to a barn conversion in the arse end of nowhere which would have been our choice!) That means she has constant friends round and is never lonely. But when she / we are ready for peace I just kick them out and we all just potter and chill. For us it's perfect.

Don't regret it for a moment. My child is awesome, they are great company, we can go wherever we like on holiday and they are happy to do interesting none obviously child stuff which is great. Occasionally it was tough when they were smaller, imaginative play was not my forte but we play loads of board games together and watch films. I know they will become more independent over time and I will feel a little lost but that's inevitable however many children you have.
We have flexibility to do what suits them. Just to say they are not remotely selfish and have several good friends, they occasionally worry about always getting to do what they want, we point out that if we didn't want to do something we wouldn't it's just much of the time it makes no odds to us so everyone is happy!

We have one DD, now 10. We had always olanned for another but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be and after secondary infertility struggles we decided we would focus on enjoying our DD, which we really have done.
We love being 3 of us now and just relish all the benefits of that, like many posters above.
She does get lonely sometimes but she's got lovely friends who we happily have over a lot and now they're older, we take away with us sometimes too.
We also made some adjustments to iur lifestyle, and went our first Hotel style AI holiday this year so that DD would be somewhere with lots of other children and it was a big success.
Advantage of having only one was we could afford a very nice Hotel and when she was in kids clubs which she LOVED, we got lots of time to relax alone!
She's our wonderful little companion, well adjusted, kind, outgoing & happy and life does feel 'easy' with one and it feels like it was meant to be this way for us (the first 3 years were NOT easy though..)

My son (now over 18) is an only child. This was our choice. I loved having enough disposable income to do anything we wanted. Holidays were great and by the time he turned 18, he had traveled to over 20 countries. He counted them, not me!

Of course the social part became my responsibility, so I organised activities and play dates, which to be honest, I found hard. At home he probably did watch a bit more TV than he would have done if he had a sibling. He was at private school so his days were long and surrounded by other children. He's very sociable person now, but seems very happy with his own company as well.

It’s great, they get a little more attention so it might be a bit longer before you realise you can train them to get their own snacks etc.

A huge advantage is no sibling rivalry. I was one of 2 with big age gap, so this was very like my childhood. The DH one of 4 with less than five years between oldest and youngest also thinks one is wonderful for avoiding sibling troubles.

Re what some have said about hols being harder work with one to entertain on beach, at pool - honestly, the level of supervision is the same, the interaction is pretty much the same with 2 as 1.

Re activities and extra curricular - it’s same. If you had 2, would they want to do the same at the same time in classes? Nope, just sitting there longer in swimming pool lobby for their separate classes.

I'm one and done by choice. She 5 and couldn't imagine sharing her with anyone else. She doesn't take a lot of entertaining she just happy being with us. I know lots of one child families. And there's absolutely no guarantee that you will get on with your siblings I have two brothers and haven't spoke to them for years.

👏

Thank you everyone for your helpful insights, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond and am pleased that the general consensus is positive 😊

Will you chill out. PP was referring to taking children OUTSIDE the family unit on holiday, and sharing her opinion that she preferred the idea of having more than one child so this wasn't necessary.

She wasn't in the slightest saying that a family unit in and if itself has to consist of more than one child.

I have one, she's almost 6.
I know people say you shouldn't say this but she's my best friend.
She's old headed and I'm a big kid deep down- we have lots of fun together. Holidays are fun and can be relaxed, she makes friends easily, often with other only girls. Lots of hobbies. She does bouldering lessons and I've gotten into it too! I love her company.

We often have loads of kids in our house as we live on an estate and they all want to come round here in the summer- I think not having siblings means that I can play with her and I can talk to her friends, play games with them. Some of them have told me their mums are too busy with young siblings to play.

I'll be honest, I still sometimes consider having a sibling for DD but I don't want to upset what we have now. I struggled a lot for the first few years but about age 4 something changed, I do feel fortunate to have 'only' her.

I've been OK all these years with an only child, my husband was too and our child, now well into adulthood, is fine and quite well adjusted with plenty of friends.

It was originally our intention to have more children but circumstances change and we, mostly me, made a decision not to. My husband didn't mind and we had no regrets about it.

There were a quite a few only children at school with mine so anyone stopping at one child should know theirs will not be the 'only' one without siblings.

When one thinks of those who are having fertility problems, all they desire is a baby. We are fortunate to be blessed with a child.

We had a great time with our only child. I can't say it was always calm and peaceful :-), he had lots of friends who often stayed over and they had fun. We took them out to concerts, festivals and the like. Holidays were fine but not extravagant. We didn't have much spare money back then, even with one child, but we got by.

Looking back it was good and I do feel nostalgic about those days sometimes. My son says he had a great childhood and he's turned out to be a good chap so that's what matters.

While I have a larger family, I was an only child and my two closest friends have only children. I have another six friends with only children too. I also baby-sat two only children families for years.

On the whole I would say their lives are calm and peaceful compared to life with more children. It's not true all only children families are wealthy or have higher levels of disposable income. Most of the families I know with only children would have higher than average wages/disposable income even with another dc. Yes, they'd have another 3 ish years of childcare which is undeniable but in the long run they aren't wealthy b/c they have only children.

The only families I know I would say their dc get a lot of time/attention and they are very thoughtful about how they parent - not survival mode at all. They are good parents and have wonderful dc!

Having said that, the only thing I would say I've noticed in the good friends but not closest friends of 'only' children is they are very meshed into their dc's worlds. A couple very much so, it's as if their dc's world is their world. They overshare about friendship woes, pictures of their dc's nights out as teens, they are only as 'ok' as their dc is and talk about their dc a lot, dominating every conversation. I feel it's unfair to say that all parents of only children do this, they don't. But in the case of a few I know it's something that's very noticeable and I think parents of only children need to be extra aware of those things in a way that parents of many don't typically need to - the last thing I want to do when catching up with friends is spend time in the conversation going through how each of my dc is. Though I'm sure there's things parents of many need to be aware of that parents of only don't. There's definitely no perfect family size and there's many benefits to having an only child.

I will say I have a few friends whose families have many of the same benefits of only children but have more than one, and those families tend to have a larger age gap - 5+ years. I know several families like this with dc 5-10 years apart, the dc are very close I think b/c there's not any competition and both benefit from many of the same positives only children benefit from, yet have each other too. If I only wanted a smaller family, I would have had two with a bigger age gap.

I noticed the issues much more in the secondary years- I always imagined a crowd of mates but it didn't work out like that and covid with just one child at home seemed particularly cruel on them. The separation of teens means it's hard to keep up 'family life', festivals, xmas etc unless you have a big wider family.

This isn't always a positive thing though. I hear this all the time and trust me, adult siblings don't always provide support when it comes to things like this, in fact they can make things far more stressful.

My mum has had nothing but drama and arguments with her siblings during the loss of my grandparents. She has said multiple times it would be so much less stressful if she was an only.

My dad is an only and when he lost his parents all the decisions were his to make, which while stressful in some ways was also much easier than having to agree decisions with siblings. He has had his own family, my mum, me, my brother, and close friends to support him so didn't feel the void of a sibling at all.