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Trooper: A happy 80 year old only child.

Here is a heart warming story from ‘Trooper’ who celebrates his life as an only child demonstrating the challenges and ways to overcome them. I am now in my eighty third year and I am an “only child”.  I have never married, I have never felt the need to be tied. I walked away from all family ties after my mother passed away in 1982 (my father having pre deceased her) even before this I had little contact with the family at large for a number of years (my choice). It was made very plain to me at the age of six that I would be the only one, there would be no other siblings, so I had best understand I was to be my own man. My father was a professional soldier, and working hard to improve his position, my mother was a senior Civil Servant in the Foreign [...]

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I loved being an only-child!

I have read your website and it’s postings with great interest. With the exception of a few it seems that being an only child is perceived as a negative thing, and seems to have had a predominantly detrimental impact on many of your readers and contributors lives. I can relate to many of the observations, not being able to play board games alone (although I had a bloody good try), the worry of ending up alone should anything happen to your parents (I live with this to this day) , and the jealousy of others and their relationships with their siblings. I never thought anyone felt that way, as I did, and as I expect we all have at one time or another. I am the only child of two devoted older parents, I am now 24, my father will be 77 this year and my mother 67. When I [...]

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‘Working the Room’ by Geoff Dyer

© Geoff Dyer. Extracted from ‘Working the Room’ by Geoff Dyer, to be published by Canongate on November 4th 2010 Almost half the children born in Britain today will never have a sibling. Geoff Dyer, acclaimed writer and only child, describes what it was like to grow up a singleton My mother often quoted with approval the maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Unfortunately she thought this was intended as an exhortation rather than a warning. The mother’s instinct to indulge her only child was thereby reinforced by a higher authority. I was so spoilt that on the day my parents unexpectedly came to pick me up at primary school in the middle of the morning – I was about 8 at the time – I told the teacher that it was probably because they wanted to buy me a toy. In fact, it was to go to [...]

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