Raising an Only Child, Single Parent Families

Quality Instead of Quantity

By Leanne Nighman

Since my husband and I decided to delay having a child, for the first few years of our marriage the pitter and patter of little feet came from our dog Buddy. One evening, after another very long work day for both my husband and myself, I looked at Buddy and saw an expression of boredom on his face. We decided that he needed a playmate who would take the pressure off us to keep him amused and interested. Later that week we went to the pet store and got Buddy a little Dalmatian sister named Trixie.

A few years later we had a child of our own. Emily is now 19 months, and we find ourselves in a similar situation of deciding whether Emily needs a playmate in the form of a brother or sister. But the reasons for providing such a playmate are not the same as they were for Buddy. I stay home from work now and Emily pretty much gets my undivided attention. We shop together, go to Kindermusik and the library, and visit with friends and relatives. I had a difficult pregnancy and so I am not in a hurry to possibly go through another similar situation. There are many other factors that make having just one child a lot more attractive. We could certainly do more for Emily and provide her with more opportunities if we did not have to split our finances or time.

I am an only child so I have been surprised by how difficult this decision has been for me. My childhood was very happy: I was close to my parents, we traveled extensively, and I was able to attend university without running up huge student loans. Yet, all my life I have always been asked the same question, "Didn't you miss not having a brother or sister?" My response was always that I could not miss something that was never there to begin with. Nevertheless, there is still something in the back of my mind telling me that my daughter might miss out on a special type of relationship by not having a sibling. Perhaps it is because society dictates that the perfect normal family includes two children, thus suggesting that having just one child is somehow less fulfilling, both for the parents and for the child. For this reason, I am left with the feeling that, if we do decide to stop with Emily, I'll spend my days trying to justify or make excuses for why we stopped at one.

Using the internet, I had a look at what information there was about single child families. I was surprised by how long it took me to find something. There is one site totally devoted to only children. It includes a mission statement and a newsletter with informative articles about raising one child. There is also a celebrity section where the lives of famous only children are discussed, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Shirley Jones, Frank Sinatra and Lauren Bacall (to name a few). However, personally, I have to say that I am sorry to see the use of "only" child as the name of the site. To me that always suggested that this was somehow an unsatisfactory situation. I have certainly never heard anyone refer to having "only two" children!

There was an interesting article about single child families. The author is an environmentalist with one child. He explains how environmentally-friendly it is to keep the size of the family smaller. For this reason, the author predicts that more people will decide to stop at one child and that this will become the norm. He goes on to list ways in which to build your single child's self-esteem.

The best article I found was entitled "Raising an Only Child". The article by Cynthia Burns provides some background which suggests why there are so many misconceptions about only children. Moreover, Burns goes on to say that single child families are becoming more commonplace than when she was an only child in the 1960s, citing such reasons as women in the workforce, the convenience of birth control, and the cost of having a large family. She states that currently there are between 18 and 20 million only children living in the U.S.

While we have not completely made up our minds about having another child, it has certainly been interesting to read about other families' experiences. One thing is for certain, we will never use such adjectives as "only" or "just when describing Emily. I have come to realize that her happiness, self-confidence and security does not depend upon whether she has any siblings, but upon the experiences and guidance that we as Emily's parents can offer her.