August 2010

I’d like to make contact wiht a surrogate sibling…

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 [...]

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An only child ‘is NOT a more lonely teenager’

By Fiona Macrae,
 Daily Mail, 6th August 2010 They are often dismissed as being spoiled, selfish and lonely. But as they reach their teens, only children have just as many friends as other youngsters, a study has found. Research shows that while growing up without brothers and sisters may leave children awkward and tongue-tied initially, by the time they start secondary school they are as socially adept as classmates from bigger families. Urging parents not to worry that the apple of their eye won’t fit in at school, researcher Dr Donna Bobbitt-Zeher said: ‘As family sizes get smaller in industrialised countries, there is concern about what it might mean for society as more children grow up without brothers and sisters.’ ‘I don’t think anyone has to be concerned that if you don’t have siblings you won’t learn the social skills you need to get along with other students in high [...]

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I read ‘Spoilt or Spoiled’ and was moved to share my story

I’ve just read the article ‘Spoilt or spoiled’ in Therapy Today (April 2006) and felt moved to relate my own story. My only-child experience came about through being an illegitimate child born in the 1950’s. Placed in children’s home for the next 9 months or so certainly destroyed any hopes of a secure attachment. Eventually I was adopted, but remained an only child, as my adoptive parents were not able to take on any more children, as I was decreed by the social worker ‘quite a handful.’ Quite a damning label to have. Sadly, both for my adoptive parents and the resultant knock-on effect on myself that the realisation of being unable to have your own children had never been resolved. In fact it remains unresolved to this day and my ‘mother’ refers to the fact that she couldn’t have her own children nearly every time I see her. So, [...]

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What it feels like… to have just one child

An only child, Erica Wagner, reveals her reservations and delight at having just one son The Sunday Times, 27 June 2010 “How many children do you have?” is an everyday question I’ve come to dread. “One,” I reply, humbly. “Only one?” Eyebrows shoot skyward. Uncomfortable surprise turns to downright horror when it is established that my only child is nine, and therefore I’m unlikely to be planning another baby. “Oh, a lonely only,” one mother commented, with a devastated sigh. Having only one child works for me, but my decision is obviously hard for some to understand; I seem to defy logic. My husband and I both work from home, we have flexible careers that would accommodate a baker’s dozen, and we both adore our nine-year-old son, Conrad. Yet one is enough for us. Mothers of more sometimes appear to disapprove of my choice. Besides the “lonely only” comment, complete [...]

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