Bernice Sorensen

About the book:
This book presents accounts of the experience of growing up without siblings
across the world. These stories offer a range of only-child voices which speak
of the challenges and differences only-children face throughout their lives.

The stories were collected through interviews and this website and they give
witness to the lives of adult onlies. The complexity and multidimensional
nature of the private, personal and public worlds of the only-child are
discussed from a social and psychological perspective.

The book also offers important insights for people in the helping professions working with child and adult only-children. Above all the book demonstrates the importance of witnessing and existential validation for only-children whilst providing understanding to help guide parents and partners of only-children.

Only-child Experience and Adulthood
I would like to thank all those people who have kindly written to me with their experiences. I have included as much as I can from those people who offered to help.

Do you want a say?
Are you an only child?
There are both good and bad things about the experience, but my interest is to see how a lack of siblings affects a person's development, particularly relationally. Most books and articles about only-children are for parenting an only child, rather than the experience itself. Over the past six years, I have been collecting stories, from men and women, that give an insight into the world of the only child. These I am publishing (see Only-Child research). You can get a flavour of them in the responses below, on Only Child Emails; the Noticeboard; and the Only Child Stories page.

I would love some feedback to this website
I would be grateful for your views, ideas, reactions etc. as a result of my website. click here I answer all emails.

One of the strongest messages that has appeared from my research is that, as only children we often have little opportunity in sharing our experiences of childhood with another. We have no siblings with whom to reminisce and when our parents die, no one to share that stage or compare memories.

Although my research was specifically aimed at therapists, to enable them to understand and resonate with an experience that may be different to theirs, it is also very infomative to anyone who has grown up an only-child


If you are interested in reading my articles:(email me if you would like to receive them as an attachment)- This work is copyrighted ©. All rights reserved. No part may be used or transmitted in any form without permission of the author.

Therapy Today: April 2006 Spoilt or Spoiled: The Shame of Being an Only.

Self & Society: July/August 2006 Not Special but Different: The Only-child Experience.

The Journal of Counselling Children and Adolescence: October 2006: Only Child Challenges and How Counsellors can Help.

Recent emails- for more see Only Child Emails

If you wish to reply to any of the emails on this site please email me and I will forward your reply to the sender. (most emails can be found on the 'only-child email' page and 'noticeboard')

Jan 2008- An Australian living in France
I would very much like to make contact with a surrogate brother and/or sister. I desperately feel the need to communicate with someone who has traversed the same road.
I am a 61 year old only "child". I have hated it all my life, always being the odd one out with no brother or sister. My father was an only child too, and I have never been able to find out why I was also doomed to this solitary life. I find that I STILL have to explain to people that I don't have any siblings and I STILL get the same looks of incomprehension and distrust that I first noticed at primary school. I get the feeling that they think it is my fault that I have to live like this. At primary school I used to hear other kids say that " my brother'll come and get you" etc when bullied, but I had no such luck and occasionally "invented" a brother. That ruse didn't last long as I was soon found out, but eventually ignored. Children are cruel - I was taunted over my lack of siblings. I had no idea how to play with other kids- play was just not a part of my life -and I used, to watch the other kids thinking how "childish" they were with their imaginings, although there was a part of me that would dearly have liked to join in, I was seldom asked to and retired into a book instead. In fact reading has been my great solace. I often just cried from loneliness during my primary school years when I saw the others going out with their siblings. At secondary school I didn't cry as much - I was too busy studying and at 20 I got married to escape this solitary life. Then with married life and work I managed to put my sibling-deficiency on the back-burner for a while. I had 3 children and now wish that I had had more, but at the time I felt guilty over the pleasure they brought me. I now realise that it is normal to enjoy one's children but that had not been my experience growing up. Now in my 60's I find that the cycle seems to be starting again. My
grandchildren just cannot understand my lack of siblings and the concurrent lack of relations. I am just a dead-end. I have my children and grand-children and that is it. For the first time in many years I think every day of my "missing" siblings and I cry again. When I am out shopping for example and I see obvious brothers and sisters happily going about together I almost dissolve in tears, much to my embarrassment. I really thought that I had become hardened to being alone and would never cry again, let alone at 60! I am Australian, living in France, and there it is even more of an oddity to be an onlychild, and I find myself having to "explain". I am so glad to havefound your site - I have searched many times previously for some network of "onlies". The popular opinion is that we are spoilt - how wrong that is. My parents discouraged other children from visiting after school, and I never made any long-lasting friends.

Dec 2007- I just wondered if there are other 'only's who also have been unable to forge a marriage and family?
It's Boxing Day and, as I've done for many years now, I have just managed to 'get through' another Christmas. All around everyone seems to be moaning about being stuck with the family having no idea what it's like to be, as it were, standing outside in the snow and cold looking through the window at family life. I was born just after the war at a time when women obtained their only status by becoming a wife and mother. My mother had to wait six years before I came along and, whilst I now appreciate how difficult that must have been for her, I have always felt that my only reason for being alive is to give my mother the status of 'mother'. She rarely praised me (though she was never unkind) because she was so scared I'd be seen as a 'spoilt only'. This was all about her being seen as a bad mother not about me being loved by others. So the comments on your noticeboard about being spoilt really struck a chord.

The other thing I noticed was the number of people who commented how difficult it is to make realtionships when you haven't been able to experience the normal 'cut and throat' atmosphere of siblings and arguments. I think people with siblings take it for granted they can be absolutely obnoxious but will still have a 'family' to accept them. My mother was so scared about 'what will people think' that the least lack of encouragement (mainly perceived by me rather than real) has made me run from people and assume they hate me because I'm not perfect.

Consequently I don't even have a family of my own and every Christmas brings this home a bit more. I do make an effort to be positive about life, I'm just using this site to be particularly introspective.

Useful Reading

Surprisingly there is not much to be read that is in print! However a new book on the experiences of growing up an only child will shortly be avaiable and is written by well known adult authors who are only-children in the US:

NEW!Seigal, D. Uviller, D.(Eds) (2006) Only Child - Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo. Random House, US. A highly enjoyable read, giving lots of examples of the different aspects of growing up an only child by some well known authors.

Falbo T (1984) The Single Child Family. York: Guilford
Can be ordered from British library. Lots of quantative research studies, not recommended if you are not user friendly with statistics. However a seminal work which most other books base their statistics on. Out of print

Laybourn A (1994) Only Child: Myths and Reality. London: TSO
Useful book for parents and by a British researcher, somewhat polemical in saying the only child experience is not different, and unfortunately out of print

Nachman P and Thompson A (1997) You and Your only Child: The Joys, myths and challenges of raising an Only Child. New York: Harper Collins
Useful material for parents, with an US slant

Newman, S. (2001) Parenting an Only Child Broadway Books
Probably the most available book, the message is ‘positive’ for the only child: they are an advantaged group, enabling parents to have it all. Very much written for US market.

Pitkeathley J Emerson D (1994). Only child. London: Souvenir Press
Recommended as both readable and useful to only child adults as well as parents, very inclusive, although some people find it not ‘positive’ enough! The good news is it is back in print!

Pickhardt, Carl. (1997) Keys to Parenting the Only Child. Barron’s Parenting keys: New York.
Best book I have read for parents. He really looks at the dilemmas for the only child and for the parents. Out of print.

NEW!Pickhardt, Carl. (2008) The Future of Your Only Child, Palgrave, USA.
I am eagerly awaiting for a copy and will write my thoughts when read.

Roberts L and White Blanton P (2001) ‘I Always Knew Mom and Dad Loved Me Best’: Experiences of Only Children. Journal of Individual Psychology. Volume 57:2 P125 – 140 University of Texas Press
Interesting article, worth reading even though based on US experience

Sifford D (1989) The only Child: Being One, Loving One, Understanding One, Raising One New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Journalistic and at times rather contradictory. The author is an only-child and is very pro the experienc. He shares much of his own life, which to my mind though great, hardly supports his case!