liseuse requested: Being an only child. Is there a different rhetoric about being an only child in Hawai'i/the States to the one you've noticed in the UK? Do you like being an only child? (I ask this as an only child, I like gathering anecdata about other only children!)
Uh yeah, so it turns out I may have some unresolved bitterness around talking about being an only child.
I’m unsure whether or not this is related to age, but I have rarely experienced being told, “You probably exhibit X behaviour because you’re an only child”, in the UK. Whereas I remember being told that all the damn time in the States, usually in a negative context. That, plus the, “Oh you poor thing”, attitude from people who seem to think that your parents have deprived you from the opportunity to learn essential life lessons by not providing you with siblings contrives to make talking about being an only child a fairly tedious experience.
I like being an only child. I had the undivided attention of my parents and was surrounded by adults as a child. There was one older cousin with whom I was (and still am) very close. He’s 4.5 years older than I am, and we spent a good deal of time together as children. I suppose these factors have led me to spend most of my life seeking the company of persons either in or older than my peer group and less those who are significantly younger. I never felt as if there were person-shaped gaps in my life because I didn’t have siblings. If anything, I felt like I missed out on more conflict, because that was what I tended to notice at school or at my friends’ houses between siblings. Maybe that conflict would have built my character differently. There’s no way to tell whether that would have been to my improvement or my detriment. At this point in my life, I feel it would make little difference.
The only reason I regret not having a sibling or two now is that my peripatetic youth has landed me quite far away from my aging parents. Of course, there’s no guarantee that [a] sibling[s] would not have had the same wanderlust I did and ended up in, say, Argentina rather than sticking close by home to provide them with care and companionship. But it would have increased the chances.
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I think I get "I'd never have guessed you were an only child!" more than "you probably behave this way because you're an only child". And I don't know what that even means! Well, I guess it's to do with the stereotyping of only children as being unable to share or interact with groups, but, you know, that's what nursery and the first years of primary school are for.
I definitely feel like I missed out on conflict - which is good! I am really conflict averse! (Although maybe I would be better at it if I'd experienced it as a child) But that came with parents who had the time to reason with me and who didn't need to balance the needs of two children of different ages and desires. I kind of feel I got to the 'adult relationship with my parents' stage earlier than some of my friends, and in part it's because I'm an only child.
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"I'd never have guessed you were an only child!"
This raises my hackles possibly even higher than the other variation, because it's phrased as a compliment. Which just goes to show that the stereotypes surrounding only-childhood are mostly negative. *grump*
As you say, if you're in nursery or in some kind of daycare involving multiple children, which I was from an early age because my mom worked, then you have plenty of interaction with your peer group.
I'm also quite conflict-averse and until recently, felt like I often handled it badly. I think this has less to do with growing up as an only child and more to do with growing up around happy people who were generally interested in staying happy and getting through conflict either by ignoring it/pretending it didn't happen (not so great) or resolving it quickly (mostly good!).
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Basically everyone I was surrounded with growing up was of the 'ignore it/pretend it didn't happen' sort, and that is my default. My mother blows up over small things, but as a family we just Do Not Talk About It and then bring our grievances up in giant dumps of AAAARGH. It's not a great mechanism, but I loathe discussing my feelings about family conflict with my family, so I have internalised it and will probably never give it up.
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And I was basically the daughter who was meant to stay at home and care for her parents, and that was pretty toxic too.
Wow, sorry you hit me in the feels. *blushes*
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Yep, especially when you add poverty into the equation. I've heard and read a shocking number of people saying that the poor basically shouldn't breed, which is just horrible.
Ouch. OUCH! That's a tremendous amount of pressure to be under, especially if you know it from an early age. :(
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But I'm now effectively an only child, and I do feel bad/guilty sometimes for not being around my parents (...and not giving them grandchildren). In some way I feel cheated because my brother ewas "supposed" to cover all that staying-home marrying-someone-respectable having-kids stuff, which helped me feel better about not doing those things myself. It's ridiculous, but there you go. I do think it's kind of a burden to be solely responsible, and I envy some of my friends their grown-up relationships with their siblings, especially in relation to their parents/family, but then I always wonder if I'd think differently if I'd always known it'd be "just" me, rather than having this only-child-osity suddenly thrust on me at the cusp of adulthood.
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It was just one of many assumptions I'd been taking for granted so thoroughly that I didn't even know it existed until I stopped being able to do that any more.
Thanks for creating a place where I felt I could share this. I really don't have any mechanisms I feel very comfortable with for talking about stuff like this (I don't want to dump such depressing-sounding stuff on people too much, and I certainly don't want my friends to feel bad or weird or self-conscious for talking about their siblings around me, or anything like that). So mostly I don't say anything like this, and not being able to talk or at least write on a subject means I hardly even know what I think about it. Just writing this comment has sparked off other ponderables I'd never explicitly pondered before.
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I'm always surprised when someone around my age talks about a sibling, especially if they are from the city, since the restrictions were a lot stricter back then.
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