I note with both interest and a great deal of pleasure that I have received a number of emails after my recent posts on the characteristic of adult onlies, as partners. Not just from adult onlies but also their partners. I am now going to post some of the former as they offer more insights into the range of only child experience to both onlies and non-onlies! You will soon see familiar themes! I believe other people’s stories help us to feel more comfortable with our own experience. When you have no siblings to share your memories, and you move into middle age, there is often no one to help you remember incidents from your early life or share and compare experiences. I think this often leaves onlies feeling separate and apart from others and this, I believe, becomes greater the older we get, especially after the death of our parents. [...]
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Barbara MacMahon, Times June 15th http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/families/article3791173.ece Well this old chestnut returns again! Barbara MacMahon’s article in the Times describes the controversy surrounding Lauren Sandlers new book “One and Only’ — the Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One. Lauren Sandler has been surprised by the level of criticism she has received on her opinion from various people, that only children are not disadvantaged, specifically British author Zadie Smith. Apparently, Louise Doughty is also very scathing about Lauren Sandlers research (Guardian Friday 14 June 2013). Having been interviewed by Lauren when she was researching her book our dialogue on the only child experience seems a little different to what is being stated here by Barbara MacMahon: “In her book Sandler debunks many of these myths. Hundreds of studies, she says, show that being raised alone makes little difference to the person you turn out to be and that there can [...]
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