I think some of the parents here may have raised an old child (either a daughter or a son.)
What are the pros and cons of raising an old child in your experience?
For a record, we raised an only child. It was mostly out of necessity because we started to have our child relatively late (when we were in 30s.) We tried to arrange playmates as much as we could when he was young, in order to remedy the situation. But still, it is not the same; it is likely it is better for him to have a sibling.
Also, in human’s history, there was a large scale, arguably somewhat inhumane “social experiment” executed with an iron wrist by a purely political means: China’s one-child policy which was just ended this Octobor. Some claims that the policy change has been instituted too late. The “modern” version of China has already inherited many “social ills” of the modern society: People get married later if getting married at all, choose to have fewer children if any at all.
We are raising an only. After a $20K IVF cycle and then post-partum congestive heart failure we were thrilled with our one and figured that was how our world was meant to be.
Through many conversations with our daughter, I would say that list of pros and cons is pretty spot on. We made a huge effort to surround her with cousins though, frequently sacrificing flashy trips in order to spend time off with family. She will admit to some loneliness and she relates really well to adults. She does not even remotely know how to fight so that one is spot on!
Part of me wishes we had aggressively pursued adoption when she was younger and I have some regrets that she will not have a sibling as we start to age. On the other hand, I have watched the hands play out in my own family and have seen that having siblings is most definitely not a guarantee of sibling companionship to share the burden of elderly parents.
The part about “she does not remotely know how to fight” is so true. When DS was about 3 years old, he was once together with his cousin who was about the same age. This cousin has a sibling. She is much better at “protecting what she has, like her favorite toys”, while DS had never had such an experience: Other kid, even one in the same age, might come by to take away his toys without his agreement. But he learned fast. However, such an experience was relatively short. (The cousin left after a short stay at our home.) Soon, he got back into the world where all people (i.e., adults) around him would never take his toys away from him and he never had to learn how to defend himself.
We raised an only child. There is one reason for that. I have a focused mind and a limited amount of emotion to share. I’ve been a pretty good dad. I am convince I would have been half a good dad for each of two kids.
People say, No no, you would have done great. That’s because some people only know their own minds. They don’t know my mind, and I’ve never been like everyone else. I know darned well I would have messed up two kids. But I’m very proud of the way the one has turned out.
I was raised an only. I biologically have a sister but she lived with her mom and was rarely around.
I was never lonely but I wasn’t always around kids my age. Probably one of the reasons I’ve always felt more at home with those a generation above me.
That list for the pros is pretty spot on, but for me, the negatives miss the mark. I know how to fight and how to listen to others’ opinions, but that’s from having a father who was a union president and would take me to those meetings.
Being an only, for me, was a fine experience because I had above and beyond wonderful parents who supported me but didn’t revolve their lives around mine. I am not looking forward to when they get older and pass away as I know I have no one to share that burden with.
Raising an only, with no regrets. We started later too, I was 36, my husband 40 when daughter was born. While I got pregnant easily and felt fine throughout, turns out I was pregnancy impaired and spent 16.5 weeks in bed. I was happy to get my one from serious preemie risk to full-term, and the concept of doing another quarter year in bed with a toddler in the house just didn’t seem doable. We had a mass of student loans to pay off and both had to work. So like @carachel2 this is the way our world was meant to be.
The pros of course are having lots of attention and resources to give to one child. Our first overseas job came with nice housing and free (and wonderful) child care on the work site, and we managed to slam down those student loans to 0 within a very short time. It was easy to travel the world with one small person, and she has an amazing world view as the result of our experiences. I would say that because of our overseas lifestyle and the fact that she is an only, we are very close as a family. While I think I am close to my own mother, it is nothing like the relationship that I have with my daughter. I really appreciate that. We have been able to give her every musical instrument she wanted to take up, lessons to go with them, foreign language lessons, school trips, and pretty much everything she ever needed.
The cons, I grew up with three siblings and a plethora of cousins (my father had 9 siblings), and she doesn’t really have either because of our lifestyle. I know siblings fight like heck, but she also has missed the gigglefests and the shared experiences and memories of siblings. Sadly, I am not that close to my siblings now, though we have a good time when we do get together every few years. My daughter has cousins but she is younger than all of them, and has always lived away from them. I also grew up in the same neighborhood my whole childhood and still have friends from those days. She has lived in lots of countries where we are the foreigners, and other western friends have moved in and out as they are global nomads too.
I guess there are trade offs to every choice we make in life. I do think society seems to have a negative view of being an only, but I think my daughter has had a happy childhood, but for different reasons than why I thought mine was happy. I wouldn’t be surprised though if she has several children when the time comes.
When I myself was a child (I am not an only), I noticed that one of my cousins who is an only knew a lot of “big” words for her age. It was almost like: in her verbal development, she skipped the “baby or child talk” stage and jumped directly to the “grown-up” stage. Some adults thought she was particularly smart. In a relatively young age, she talked as if she were an adult.
I consider myself lucky to have my one child, since I had her at 40. I often feel guilty that she doesn’t have a sibling but honestly most of her friends are only children since you have to be rich to have more than one where we live.
Only children fare better than their multi-sibling peers on nearly every dimension. Parents have more resources for them-emotional and tangible. They do better academically, professionally and they do just fine socially. They appear to have closer relationships with peers which may suggest that peers become sibling substitutions with the benefit that they are chosen. A concern may be ensuring that the only child is raised to be a capable person rather than enmeshed with the same gendered parent. So if you have an “only”, it is best to raise your only to be self sufficient, independent and strong rather than dependent, insufferable, spoiled, entitled, privileged & clueless. But I’d say that for those who have many children too.
Also, only’s may be more likely to learn to spend time by themselves-to be able to entertain themselves-which is a very important thing to be able to do.
@NorthernMom61, I suspect that the relationship between my wife (not so much for me because I did not share so much time with our child when he grew up, as compared to my wife) and our only child could be similar to that between you and your only child.
Our child had very limited exposure to the “world view”. He rarely got out of the state in which we were living, let alone get out of the country. He did not study abroad in college either.
The second link of post #1 points to an article in which some researchers claim that:
"The researchers concluded that the “one-child-policy” players were less trusting, less trustworthy, less competitive and more risk-averse than the older ones.
And on the basis of a personality test, they were also “less conscientious, more neurotic and more pessimistic,” said an author of the study, Lisa Cameron, an economist at Monash University in Australia."
Ouch, these seem to be negative attributes:
less trusting,
less trustworthy,
less competitive,
more risk-averse,
less conscientious,
more neurotic,
more pessimistic
It seems they painted a relatively negative view on this.
But do we trust the results of such a research? Or, at least some of them could have some truth in it?
When an only got married with another only, is there any positive or negative consequence statistically speaking? (e.g., more challenging to adjust with each other?)
Also, will an “only” be less or more inclined to get married? less or more likely to have more children?
Sometimes I still can’t believe I get to have this awesome person in my life! I miss her terribly now that she is at school, but I am also so excited that she is there learning and thriving.
As for the world view, it is great and all, but she doesn’t have the down home local view, the friends and community for life view. Again, trade offs.
Those negative attributes have not been supported by studies of “only” children in the USA. Only children in China are entirely different. There is little to no support for the idea that only children in the US are disadvantaged or have problematic personalities. You can absolutely not generalize from Cameron’s findings to the US at all. that would be absurd. So no, you can not “trust” that those result say anything at all about how only children in the US fare. There have been studies of US kids and the results suggest they do better than or as well as their multi-sibling peers on almost every dimension.
Cameron’s results are irrelevant to understanding children in the USA.
When DS came back home for the first time (it was the Thanksgiving break in his freshman year), he asked his mom when we picked him up from the airport and drove him back home: “What did you do every day for the past several months when I was on campus?” He was genuinely concerned that his mom “had lost her main job” and did not have anything to do when he was not at home. (He was not concerned about me because he thought I was just doing the same thing every day as before.)
@lostaccount, Your post #12 is music to my ear, for an apparent reason: Our child is an only, and he grew up in the first world, the US.
@mcat2, I can’t imagine my daughter thinking that. I have never been a stay home mom, and because our living and working environments have been so linked, she has had a lot of exposure to our work environments (unlike when I grew up and never in my life saw my father’s office). My husband and I are also in the same field, so she has listened to us discuss work during her entire lifetime.
I’m an only and absolutely hate it which is why I have 3 kids. Not only was I the only child but the only grandchild on my moms side and the only grandchild on my dads side until I was 16. Sure it was great getting everything you wanted, but I would’ve traded it for siblings. Both of my parents, divorced, are still living but I wouldn’t say we are close. They both show their love thru giving but emotionally they are lacking.
Growing up, I really didn’t mind not having siblings but it really hit me as I got older. Many of my friends have aging parent issues and its nice to have someone to share the burden, though I know there is no guarantee. I will say sometimes even at my age a part of me is happy to be an only , as I see SO many parents play favorites with their kids, and it does a lot of harm.
I have an only child. I grew up with many siblings.
Before I give you the pro and con of having many siblings you need to tell me if the siblings have their act together or are they screwballs.
My siblings are great and now that our parents are older the list of pro’s are many. If you happen to have siblings that are screw offs the con list would be as well