Articles

Do parents of only children tend to be more passive-aggressive and/or narcissistic?

I thought this was an interesting question put to me in the following email: “Is passive-aggressive and narcissistic behaviour usually common among parents of onlies? Because my parents have been that way all through my marriage, and since I’ve stood up to them they’ve been worse, almost to the point of manipulation. I find myself angry a lot because they just won’t be adults and have the emotional maturity to recognize things could be a lot better. I find myself wondering what I should be thinking and doing- I have trouble thinking for myself, and question if I’m right. It’s tough. Any help or advice would be great.” Tom I considered that it might be useful to respond to these questions. However I would also like to open it to others to give their experience.I suppose my first reaction is no I don’t think this statement “Do parents of only [...]

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New Fiction about only child adults: No 1 on Amazon!

Lesley Thomson: ‘The Detectives Daughter’: A thriller featuring two disparate only child adults! Lesley Thomson’s new novel is a fantastic read, although you do need to be fairly keen on reading books with twists and turns and good descriptive prose. Lesley, an only child herself, has written a really stunning thriller that will keep you wanting to read more. The two main characters are only child adults – not ones you will immediately take to but ones who have all the quirkiness we only children often have. If you like crime fiction this definitely will appeal. Personally I am not always that keen on this genre, but I have to say the book gripped me throughout, despite not having a great deal of empathy for the two main characters. Perhaps that sounds harsh but they do embody some of those aspects of adult onlies, which I know I find difficult, [...]

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Jenni Murray: The lifelong pain of being a ‘lonely only’

As it’s revealed one-child families will soon be the norm, JENNI MURRAY mourns the sibling she never had. By Jenni Murray His name is David Robert and he’s my baby brother. He was born only last night. This was my boast to the school dinner ladies. But the truth was that I didn’t have a baby brother — a lie that was humiliatingly revealed when my mother turned up to a school function that night and was teased for having a pregnancy that had never shown. The next day I faced the full force of her fury. I was smacked for telling such a whopper, denied a month’s pocket money and grounded for two weeks (child psychology in Barnsley was, I fear, in its infancy in the Fifties).  But the truth was, at the age of seven, I desperately wanted a brother (David Robert was the name I would have [...]

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Solitary refinement: by Anna Sansom

Here is an interesting article by Anna Sansom - Published in Viewpoint magazine November 2012  More and more parents in the west are choosing to have just one child. Will this siblingless society share the difficulties that have arisen from the policy in China? As an only child herself, Eve Bitoun – a French actress in her late 30s – is particularly conscious of how she is single-handedly bringing up her three-year-old only son, Richard. ‘I’m aware that you have to teach your child to share, because they receive what two or three children would receive,’ she says. ‘So they have to be able to give more. I also want to try to help my son avoid the same mistake of taking on the burden of a parent’s problems. Sometimes you feel responsible and guilty very young and this hampers your development.’ Asked if she wishes that she had a sibling, Bitoun replies, ‘I didn’t [...]

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A chance to offer your perspective!

Rise of the Onlies – A feature length documentary After making her first documentary Seeking Happily Ever After Michelle Cove understood the blood, sweat, tears that go into taking on such a project. She vowed she was done with films—unless something truly irresistible came up.  Then the idea struck: Michelle, mom to an only child by choice, became fascinated by the world of one-child families, the fastest growing family type in the U.S. (She is filming only in the U.S. but plans to seek international distribution.) So once again, Michelle picked up her video camera and started shooting her next feature-length documentary Rise of the Onlies (www.riseoftheonlies.com). In this feature-length film, Michelle will be exploring what stereotypes of only children still exist, why they persist, and which can be debunked; what, if any, generalizations CAN be made about only children; and how others can understand what is quickly becoming the [...]

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Are only children happier? Bernice responds to recent articles that say they are.

Households with a single child now outnumber those with two (by more than half a million) and make up 46 per cent of all families. An article in the The Daily Mail stated that recent research concluded only children were happier than sibling children: Why an only child is happier than those who have brothers and sisters. Similarly the Observer article:  An only child is a happy child  claimed, from the same research: that because children with siblings encounter sibling rivalry and reduced parental attention, and worse still sibling bullying, an only child must be happier simply because they do not have a sibling. More recently “The Week” also published a similar article: Are Only Children Happier? Is this true? First of all, the research as far as I have read, is based on a large scale survey conducted in Britain by the Economic and Social Research Council. It does [...]

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The Best Reasons for Having More Than One Child

Here is an article by April Peveteaux September 2011 who is reviewing a new book on the importance of siblings which talks about similar things that my research raised. April Peveteaux It turns out my rah-rahing for having a second baby is actually backed up by science. Who knew? Well now we all do thanks to this new book The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger, and his interview on Salon. Kluger tell us that yes, siblings really do matter. And if you have one, you should take full advantage of that relationship, because it’s the only one you’ll have for your entire life. Kluger acknowledges that not everyone has an awesome relationship with their brothers and sisters, but after he shows why it’s so important, he encourages us all to pick up the phone and foster closeness with the sibs. Something we should also try and do with our own [...]

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The Only Child: Debunking the Myths

By Lauren Sandler It’s a conversation I have most weeks — if not most days. This time, it happens when my 2-year-old daughter and I are buying milk at the supermarket. The cashiers fawn over her pink cheeks and applaud when she twirls for them, and then I endure the usual dialogue. “Your first?”, “Yup.” “Another one coming soon?”. “Nope — it might be just this one.” “You’ll have more. You’ll see.” “At the moment, I’m not planning on it.” “You wouldn’t do that to your child. You’ll see.” I offer no retort, but if I did, I’d start by asking these young minimum-wage earners to consider the following: the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that the average child in the U.S. costs his or her parents about $286,050 — before college. Those costs have actually risen during the recession. The milk I’m buying adds up to $50 a month, [...]

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Are only children happier?

A new study finds that quarreling siblings increase stress for the children as well as the parents.

Published in ‘The Week’  Is one the loneliest number? A new study says kids without siblings may be better off — thanks to an absence of bullying at home A new study finds that quarreling siblings increase stress for the children as well as the parents. Conventional wisdom holds that children without brothers and sisters are maladjusted and lonely compared to those with siblings. Not so, says a new British study from the University of Essex, which suggests that only children may have a better chance of happiness. Here’s a concise guide: What did the study find? Only children are happier than those with siblings, which may reflect the fact that they endure less bullying — something more than half of kids with siblings in the study reported. “Quarreling siblings increase stress for parents and some [parents] just give up intervening or intervene inconsistently, leaving the field wide open for [...]

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Only Child Syndrome?

What is only child syndrome? Bernice thought this article from Durango would be an interesting opener – feel free to add your comments. Left is a German cartoon. The German on the right is saying, “He’s an only child, isn’t he?” To which the one on the left says, “He is now!” by Durango Texas:- The Only Children I’ve known have all pretty much matched the cliches about children who had no siblings. Spoiled, bratty, self-centered, selfish, an odd sense of entitlement, difficult to get along with plus a tendency to say inappropriate things that are rude and ill-mannered. Yet being extremely hyper-sensitive and brittle about even the most remotely critical remark going in their direction. In other words, Only Children give themselves the permission to act, without expecting a consequence, in ways that when others act in a similar way to the Only Child, the Only Child becomes irrationally [...]

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