Taking note of a previous comment made in response to one of the posts: that the use of only ‘child’ for an ‘adult-only-child’ is rather infantalising, I have decided in this post to use ‘adult-only’ as suggested. However in my experience when the ‘child’ part is taken out, most people do not associate ‘adult-only’ with having no siblings. Rather something quite different! Similarly ‘singleton’, another word to substitute only child, is often understood as someone without a partner rather than some one without siblings. So after this post I will probably revert to only child adult! Another comment suggested all the people who I have interviewed or have written to me have come from dysfunctional families. Not true – of course many only children are brought up in functional families but that does not mean they will always have a positive view of their only child status. The recent article [...]
This was the crux of the article published in the Daily Mail on the 16th April. Having been asked to comment about this, on live radio, I was interested to read Caroline Jones article on her experience of the overwhelming expectations from others, even complete strangers, that she should have another child to ensure her child would not be an only. She said she felt ‘bullied’ by people’s opinions and that her wish to have only one was viewed as ‘selfish’. Am I surprised by her experience? No! One of the interesting aspects, revealed in my evidence based research, is the continual pressure placed on one child families to have another child. She is absolutely right when she says that it is worse after you have had one child, as when you have none people are more sensitive to potential fertility problems. But have one child and that all changes. [...]
Over the last ten years, of my own only-child adult research, I have also encouraged other people with theirs. Here is a piece of research Carla Preston is undertaking for her Psychotherapy MA. It is particularly specific to people in the profession of counselling and psychotherapy, so I hope anyone in that position will feel able to take part in this useful research so that we can continue to expand the knowledge of the only child experience. Bernice Research Question Being Everything: An exploration into the relational impact on the therapy when a therapist is an only-child. Carla Preston I am a Humanistic counsellor studying for my Masters in Integrative Psychotherapy and I am in the process of starting to write my thesis about the experience of therapists who are only-children. My interest stems from my own work in therapy and discussion about my relating patterns which might be a result of my upbringing as an only child. As a child I felt and still as an [...]
I am continuing to look at that thorny subject of sharing and I was particularly pleased to receive thoughts from various people after my article on ‘Do only children know how to share?’ I have incorporated these ideas with some of my own to take the discussion further. In my experience it is often true that as Kei says: ‘while only children are less inclined towards “sharing”, we are much more sensitive and opposed to “taking.”’ As an only-child I would not have dreamed of taking my parent things without asking – I would expect that is true of most children. However when my own children were growing up I found it surprising how often they took each other’s things – and often mine now I think about it! When I remarried (another only child) his biggest difficulty was the way he saw my children helping themselves to his cd’s, [...]
When ever there are article’s about only children in the newspapers or programmes about people who have many children; like the recent programme ‘Fifteen Kids and Counting’ on Channel 4, it givs rise to a great deal of media coverage e.g. news papers such as the Guardian and Telegraph. I then often get phone calls from journalists writing an article or I am asked to give an opinion on local radio somewhere in the country. What I find interesting is some of the parallels that arise in the choice of having only one child compared to choosing to have many children. One of the most common questions I am asked on local radio is why do some people choose to have only one child? Well there are, of course, a number of reasons but for many there was no actual choice. This may be because of fertility issues, death of a [...]
Bernice continues her discussion of Life Stages from the perspective of the only-child adult. After the Middle Adult life-stage, when we are actively involved in generativity – that is helping the next generation either through raising children or contributing to the welfare of future generations in paid or voluntary work – we arrive at Late Adulthood. (Erikson 1959) sees Late Adulthood as a time when people come to terms with their lives and reassess what they have done or achieved in the light of what they still would like to do. At this stage people are focused towards the latter years of their lives. This life stage is a time that can be particularly difficult for the adult only child who by now often has very little, if any family. This is a time when some people can feel despair. For the adult only child, a sense of despair can [...]
Bernice: I received this email which resonated very much with me because ‘watching’ people was something I did from a very young age. I also used to have imaginary conversation with them whilst they were talking to someone else. I was very shy as a child so found it hard just to speak to peers so this was a way of observing conversation with out the necessity of actually taking the risk to enter into it! I was fascinated by large families and yes envied them to some extent mostly the fact they could all play board games together and not like me, playing on my own. However I am also aware tht as I grew older having a sibling seemed less interesting possibility as I became more ware of some of the advantages, mostly economic, that I benefited from. However when I finally did my research on adult only [...]
Western culture and American culture particularly prizes the independent personality – the man and presumably woman – who can get on with his/her own life, make his/her own decisions, be self–sufficient, go it alone, beholden to know one. Only children can be brought up to be particularly independent, sometimes by design, at other times a result of being on the periphery of their parent/s relationship. (The opposite, of course, is the only child who is overly protected, coddled and who is anything but self – sufficient – however this post is not about them!) Learning to be independent is a good thing as we cannot expect to rely on someone all of the time – this has been a problem with some Chinese only children who have been so cocooned from the harsh realities of life that they often have a sense of entitlement which makes living with others hard. [...]
Bernice continues her discussion of Life Stages from the perspective of the only-child adult. After the Young adult life -stage, which is concerned with making relationships and settling down, we move into the middle-adult, life-stage. Middle adulthood is the time when we are actively involved in generativity. This is about helping the next generation and could be through raising children or contributing to the welfare of future generations through paid or voluntary work, or even perhaps in some other way. However it is also at this stage that many only children and non onlies, find themselves caring for elderly parents. My research suggests that this phase of caring for elderly parents is particularly challenging for onlies, who often have strong feelings of responsibility toward parents’ and at the same time no siblings to share these feelings with. It also means that for some only-children the projected responsibility of elderly parents [...]
Lets face it – this is something that only children are often accused of being bad at! But is it true? – To a certain extent it probably is. If we look at when and how we learn to share – this is done as children, usually in the family home. When there are siblings, it is one of the important processes siblings learn to deal with: learning to share toys, games, food, treats etc. It is a very different process for the only child learning to share with a parent. Parents’ are much more likely to be indulgent. They are not going to make a fuss if they don’t get the cherry on the top or the larger piece of cake. Having said that, some parents of an only child are very mindful of these things. However it is still not the same as sharing with a vociferous older [...]
