Bernice Sorensen

Email of the Month (Please note no email is printed unless the person has given their permission)

Dear Bernice,

I found your website purely by chance. I'm having a difficult time in my career right now and did a Google search on "suitable careers for an only child." I didn't find a suitable career, but read with great relish some of the narratives on your website.

My life has been rich and interesting. I was born to a female only child, who married my father, the eldest son with a younger sister. I was their product, and the product of my dad's second marriage. He had a daughter from his first marriage, another only child (who went on to marry an only child!), who I no longer see since my father's death.

I have fond memories of my childhood. We were very hard up when I was growing up, so while I had lots of love and affection I had very little materialistically. I had an imagination and my dad had a shed full of wood offcuts so I had lots of home made toys - how lucky!

I had lots of friends at school and again through university, but as they married, settled or created their own families they felt they had little in common with me.

Work has been rich too. I commenced a first degree in sociology, but left after a couple of years due to the death of my father - the only man I guess I will truly love. Ten years ago I decided to train to be anurse and am now a professional specialist nurse. I am having a few issues in my current role, mainly due to other's perceptions of me. I am fun loving, but also serious when I need to be. I am also zero tolerant to those who ridicule me, or who make personal remarks against me. This is a theme that I noticed seems to recur frequently in the narratives on your site, that we onlies lack the ability to laugh at ourselves, as those with siblings can.

A Happy Only
Dear Bernice, I am an only child, I have now reached the age of Eighty Years and have been a bachelor all those years and at no time have I regretted being an only child. My parents were not in any way different from their peers of that period. My father was a soldier and was serving in India at the time of my conception, my mother decided that she would return to England for the birth. My very early years were spent in military married quarters as my father was a warrent officer and thus entitled to accommodation. I went to an Army school where very strict discipline was maintained, but the education stood me in good stead for later life. At the age of eight I was sent to prep school as a full time border and it was excellent. At the age of ten thanks to the sacrifice of my father and mother I was sent to one of the best Public Schools in the country, I was in my element I prospered, due to my background and the fact that I had always been used to my own company and at no time did I have to refer to, or involve myself with siblings. I left school; as head boy and went straight into the Army and over the next twenty one years I rose to senior warrant rank, I achieved this rank at a quite young age, when I left the service, I returned to the UK and because I was not happy with the state of the country I went to France and offered my services to the Foreign Legion and was accepted and where I spent the next ten years and reached the highest rank that as a non French national one can reach in the Legion. Upon leaving I returned to the UK and went into industry and had my own company. I am aware that this E mail will sound like a trumpet blowing exercise but I want to state that being an only child is no bar at all to making a success of your life. My own personal view is that being an only child empowers you to do with your life as YOU want, and not having to have regard to what your siblings may say. In closing for what its worth being an only child has allowed me to remove myself from family ties of any kind, I have no contact with any member of my family, and all in all life is very very good.

Does adulthood pose more challenges to the only-child?

Dear Bernice,
After reading the honest, open and heartfelt contributions of other people who wanted to share their experiences, and after two tears formed on reading some, I knew writing to you was something that I had to do.

To give a little background, I was raised by my mother, and for a few years, her partner. My biological father was not on the scene, as they broke up before my birth.

My mother has two sisters and one brother. Due to family dynamic caused in part by sexual abuse within the family, my mother has a very strained relationship with my grandmother, her siblings, and the wider family. Hence, cousins did not play apart in my childhood.

I had lots of fun while growing up. I lived in an area which had lots of children, and made friends easily. I was good at sport, and good at school, but found navigating school friendship groups difficult. I played lots of social games outside the home, and had parents who would play with me when they had time. Also, became very good at playing two-people games by myself.

In all honesty, I think the real impact of being an only child became worse after childhood, levelling off more recently. When I was younger, I was very angry about not having a more normal family set-up, and was considered weak for wanting to feel part of a family. Though I understood why I was not part of the wider-family, it was painful for me, and in a way, always be. For so many years I have been very envious of people with siblings and good family relations. Its one of those things which has brought me to tears more times than I can count, and is something that, on occasion, still has the ability to.

More than missing someone to have played with back then, I feel very, very alone sometimes. Firstly, my mum is not very trusting of people, and generally thinks she does/and has not need people much. This has meant that since, and even during her time in a relationship, that she has relied of me to be daughter/sometimes mother/confidant/friend/partner. This is stressful. As is hearing her relationship views, cynicism, and general negativity. It took me years of talking before she agreed to see a counsellor, years before she started socialising outside the home. I think that she has not felt a burning need to do any of this because I have been ‘there’. I do think that the mother-only child relationship, especially when other family relationships are either non-existent or incredibly strained (e.g. my mother with my grandmother) is part of the reason. I have nobody to help me with my mum. I am ever more aware that she is getting older (is currently late forties), and that when she is old, I will have nobody to help me look after her. In addition, I feel the relationship I have with my mother suffocates me. We are very different in many ways, but she is often trying to compete with me and/or control my thinking in some way, even now. She has too much influence over my life and my thoughts, which is not helping me to life a fruitful life with choices different from her own. She cannot accept that there are things I do not agree with her about, and that I never will. The hardest part of all this living in a gold-fish bowl is that as much as I do not like it, I have had to take a long hard look at myself, and see how much I have, and do contribute to it.

I am also deeply worried about my own future. I am 27, have very little experience of relationships (not that I put this down to only-child status!), and am aware that if I don’t marry, I won’t have a family. In my experience, though friendships can be rich and beautiful, when it comes down to it, for the vast majority they are insignificant in comparison to family bonds. I am also scared of meeting potential consequences of not coming from a strong family. Constantly feeling like an outsider on other people’s dinner tables has made me feel quite vulnerable…as from experience I know it’s the opportunists’ playground. Friendships are and have been important to me, in ways that I don’t feel like others understand. Sadly, I can even see times where I have been scared to challenge a friend, or let go of the friendship, or even recognise that there was not a friendship really, because I have been scared to be alone…where I have not been as disciplined in maintaining boundaries as I should be just so I don’t feel as alone. Again, I would not put this all down to being an only child, but I do think that being an only child exacerbates it.

In terms of my own development, I think being an only child has, in some ways, given me a certain maturity, through having to consider things that some do not have to/at an earlier age than some I expect. I have young friends and older ones, and generally get on quite well with older people, that is a very good thing, as there is so much for me to learn. In other ways, I think being an only-child has impaired my development, and if I knew how sooner, I would have tried to balance-out these aspects of my character. For example, its only recently that I have been able to work through relationship bad-times, and is something I am still working on. Before, whenever a relationship was proving difficult, I would walk away, and think that if it was good, we would not have had the problems. In part, I think this is because I never had to work through relationships such as sibling-drama when I was young. Though I had friends, if I did not like something, I was always able to walk away.

Sometimes I feel too old for people my own age, and too young for people older than me, like being an only-child has given me some years on my age…but always a few short. When dating this tends to come to the fore; mentally, I find men my own age very difficult on the whole, but it is with a lot of reluctance that I consider older men.

Overall, I think that adult is posing far more issues and challenges for me as someone who grew up without siblings that childhood did. How do I prise myself away from an enhanced mother-daughter bond enough to take my own chances in my life? How do I minimise the effect of my mother’s own fears, choices and views? How do I live to be able to support her emotionally and financially when the time comes? How do I make sure my need of people and relationships does not eclipse my need for self-respect? How do I give to those that I care about? How will I make sure that my children will have rich childhoods despite not having cousins, aunts and uncles on my side of the family?

And like most others, an only-child, bar health-related reasons, is not something that I want to create.

Thank you for giving me the opportuinty to share with you,

Senna (August)

A Response to ‘Are there other people in the same boat?’ (see below- June 2008)

I'm responding to one of many posts I have seen on your website I relate closely with this one. I'm due to turn 30 this year, I'm an only child female with no children of my own as of yet?? I've only recently become aware of my loneliness as an only child in the past two years following a break up from my fiancé of 7 years. This may sound silly and believe what you may but it shocked me. I went to seee a medium to seek guidance at a very low point in my life when I didn't have anyone else to turn to. During this session he mentioned a little boy was standing nearby but stopped at that. He then appeared to be arguing with someone over weather or not to tell me something. In the end I asked him to be honest and he was. He warned me what he was about to say could upset my life but I asked him to go on, thinking he can't make grand accusations if they are not true or can he?? He went on to ask if I had ever given birth to a baby that was still born or if I had ever had a termination. I said no, he then said well this little boy is your brother then. I instantly starting crying as I've been on my own so long and the through of having someone was great, till I realised he wasn't alive and the conversation was past tense. I went home that evening to my grandmother who I was living with at the time and questioned her about this, turns out that some time before I was born my mother fell pregnant with someone elses child -whilst she was still with my dad and had the pregnancy terminated. I felt so lost and resentful that all the years on my own as a child with no one to play with all came flooding back..

Since then I have noticed little things when people mention "oh me and my sister/Brother are doing or have done this" and I feel really left out like I have missed out on a whole lot of life. I also now can make sense of the years of how hard i found it to make and keep friends, still to this day my friendships don't last for somereason. I have to work very hard to make my own relationship with my boyfriend work as well. I question if the insecurities that I have now are from the fact I no one to talk to and play with when little, if I had would I interact more easily?? I've only got my gradmother for family as such as my parents drink too much to stay in contact with them, so one side of my family is off limits not that we were ever that close anyway.

I'm really trying to find out how I can deal with these feelings now as I move on through my life, 30 years old almost seems late to be feeling these strange ways. I feel lost and alone and jealous when I see the bonds that some people have, knowing I'm never going to have that. Most of my friends from school all grew up to have kids of their own and make a family even I have started to think this but I'm scared as to what I can offer a child/children as I'd not have an only one. my family structure isn't perfect if any and I don't know what I can give to that child other than love and affection, but what if my problems rub off on them??

If anyone has any answers I'd be grateful. please feel free to respond to me at www.onlychildadult.com community page Click here
Living with guilt

I found your website very interesting. I am in my mid thirties and as an only child can relate to many of the issues that were discussed in your research interviews. One thing which I have lived with (and continue to do so) is the guilt and pressure you feel when you are the sole focus of your parents attention. My dad had me when he was in his early forties and I was very much a daddy's girl, my parents divorved and he died recently. I found that the iller he became the more distant I became towards him since i found the guilt of trying to live my own life overwhelming and could't stand the pressure of this guilt which was not coming from him but from me. Of course now he is no longer here I feel terrible and wish I could have done things differently. I am interested to know if any one has had a similar experience?

I have been lucky enough to have 2 children and that in itself was a deliberate choice since I didn't want an only child to have to go through the same feelings. I also believe being the only one has effected the way I am in my marriage and am very over sensitive to criticism and arguements since this was something that never happened in my childhood.

Email from the USA:

Thank you very much for showing the other side of the story! All I can find here in the USA are websites and articles telling how wonderful it is to be an only, how it doesn't make a difference and may be an advantage etc. I am past 50 yrs old, an only child. I have always hated it, and ashamed of it, to this day I tell people I have a sister. Talk about stereotypes...spoiled, overprotected, selfish. I am all of that. My parents were so afraid I'd get hurt, I never learned any sports, never even learned to ride a bicycle or drive a car. I can't cook, can barely boil water. My parents also had the idea they were better than everyone else, and had no friends; as a result, I had a big problem making friends. I have never had a boyfriend, never a date. I have no friends. The shame is, I was very intelligent as a child...if I had some encouragement to find my own way, not so sheltered, who knows what I might have accomplished? Let's face it, you have to get along with people to get anywhere in life. How true, not special but different!

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