Being An ‘Only Child’

Issue 10 -

Ann Richardson is a Counsellor and Psychotherapist in private practice. For the last ten years she has been working with both child and adult ‘onlies’. Ann works on a one to one therapy basis, via the Internet and also runs workshops for adults who have grown up as an only child. She is the Director of the newly formed not for profit company, BeingAnOnly.

Ann talks exclusively to Flying Start Magazine.

There has been a lot of publicity recently about the family tree changing shape. No longer are we creating large families that broaden out over generations to form a tree with a broad canopy. We are increasingly having only one child.

According to recent reports an estimated 17% of families in Britain have only one child. This phenomenon has been named the ‘beanpole family’.

The reasons are many including women choosing to have children later, the one child option as a lifestyle choice or maybe marriage breakdown. Whatever the reason, it has become more important for us to better understand the experience of growing up as the only child in a family unit. It is not better or worse than growing up with siblings, but it is different.

Worries/Concerns

Many parents worry the old stereotype is true, that their child is going to grow up spoilt and anti social. It is more often the case that he/she will turn out capable, mature, a good friend to others, independent, have a well developed imagination and the ability to be creative.

Famous only children include Al Pacino, Charlize Theron, Tiger Woods, Anthony Hopkins, Lauren Bacall, Franklin Roosevelt, John Lennon, Oprah Winfrey and Drew Barrymore. It can be hard for both parents and children when bigger families constantly surround you, or well-meaning friends and relations repetitively ask you when you’re having the next one as if a family with one child isn’t a ‘proper’ family. Sometimes hanging out with other parents of onlies, going away together and talking can be supportive and allay concerns.

Siblings

The one thing that an only child obviously doesn’t have to deal with is a sibling. To kids or adults with siblings this might seem like a very good thing! It’s true; the only child gets everything that’s going – the toys, the attention, the love.

But there’s a flip side too. How then does the only child get to learn some of the lessons that are thrashed out in the sibling relationship? For example, sharing, competing, fighting, negotiating, confiding and closing rank against outsiders or the parents?

Perhaps they don’t.

Instead, they develop other qualities. An only child is often surrounded by adults rather than other children. In many ways they tend to mature early. They learn to deal with the adult world with ease. They can focus, take responsibility, appear confident and be independent.

In the alone times they occupy themselves. An only child will spend a lot of time drawing, reading, making up games with his/her toys and going on imaginary journeys with them. This helps them to develop their creativity and imagination, which often becomes a rich and well-honed tool.

Other Children

Joining in with other kids can be a challenging experience at first. The only child’s home is likely to be quieter than a home with lots of children in it. So arriving in a playground or playgroup where other kids seem to be whizzing around a lot can feel quite alien. They can find teasing a painful mystery. Why is this kid being so horrid to another? They just don’t get it. Why would they do that? Being naughty. What’s the point, you’d never get away with it. But other kids seem to think it’s cool and do it all the time, why? Trying new things and risking ‘getting it wrong’ can be a big thing. It can all add up to a bewildering experience for an only child who is unlikely to have had much practice at it!

But yet friends will be extremely important for the only child. In a sense friends take on a status of surrogate sibling and it makes the only child an extremely loyal friend, both in child and adulthood. Inviting friends home to play is obviously a good way of offering your child the opportunity to bond, share, negotiate and communicate with other children, as it is when they go to friends’ houses or join in play groups or clubs.

But when your child comes home, or the friends go home, he/she is alone again and it’s worth being aware of these in between times - not as a problem, just as a fact.

An only child is likely to be fascinated by bigger families and how they work. What is it like to have brothers and sisters? In my experience, most onlies love/d spending time in friends’ houses, staying overnight, being part of a bigger unit for a little while, absorbing some of the rough and tumble that is inevitable in a larger family. Coming home to some peace and quiet can be a relief too.

Parent/s

With just one child, whether there are two parents or one, the power rests with the adult/s. In a larger family the dynamics are shared out amongst the children. This makes for an intense relationship between parent/s and child. If something goes missing for example, how often does it happen in a larger family that one kid says, ‘it wasn’t me.’, I’m not advocating lying, but in the case of the only child, the spotlight is glaringly on him/her.

The sense of constantly being in the spotlight, for good or bad, can feel overwhelming. In this small unit the parent/s always knows what the child is up to. He/she is the object of all interest and attention. Don’t feel offended if they don’t tell you everything or deliberately keep something to themselves. Every child has a right to some privacy, to one or two secrets, don’t they? Having all your parents’ hopes and expectations focussed on you can feel like a heavy burden and sometimes if things aren’t going so well a child can find him/herself being drawn to side with one parent against the other, or used as a go between or confidante.

Achieving

Only children often do well in school. They can focus and keep their attention on the task in hand. They will want to please their parent/s and are likely to work hard. Parents might also find themselves being ambitious on behalf of their one child.

In working with adult onlies in workshops, what has struck me the most is the fact that they have never before sat with a group of other only children and compared notes. In almost every case this has been an extraordinary eye opener for them. Until that point they had to some extent imagined themselves alone in their story. What they discovered is that they have a lot in common, precisely because they grew up as the only child in a family unit. It sounds obvious but it seems not to have been.

If this is such a good experience for adults, how would it be if there were specific opportunities for younger children to meet and play together in groups of ‘only children’, where being an only child would be the norm, not the exception. Automatically they would have something in common and through facilitated play with their ‘surrogate siblings’ they could try out some new things in a safe environment.

BeingAnOnly is a ‘not for profit’ organisation, set up to offer services for only children of all ages. The website gives details of workshops and other resources for parents, children and adult onlies. We are running our first international conference in London on the 9th of July 2005.

If you are the parent of an only child, don’t be frightened that the experience will be different from having two or more, because it is. We all have a unique story, whatever our family history. As onlies, only children have that in common with each other. As the numbers increase, they are no longer in such a minority.

‘Love your only child and let them go. They’re precious to you of course, but the world and their friends need them too.’

For information about being an only child visit: http://www.beinganonly.com or http://www.onlychild.com/

This article was exclusively written for FlyingStart and cannot not be reproduced in any way without prior permission. © Ann Richardson 09/2004