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“One night, my 3-year-old asked me if she could sleep in my bed. I told her no. She said, “That’s not fair! Why does Daddy get to sleep in your bed?” READ MORE
Early Years (2-6)
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Dispelling the worries of the only child “It’s nice that your son has a friend who lives nearby,” the well-intentioned woman told me. “It’s so good for both of them,” she added meaningfully. We were at the playground, finding something to admire in everyone else’s children and our own. I find myself increasingly egalitarian and generous on these occasions, pretty agreeable in the politician-kissing-baby way, so that I agreed with her – but not with this woman’s reasoning. Yes, it was terrific that my son had made fast friends with the little girl who lived down the lane. But, no, it wasn’t because my son was an only child and that the little girl was also an “only.” I valued their friendship because the girl, two years older than he, was obviously smart and patient and kind, a wonderful role model in all things: a Brownie and a trick-or-treating comrade and a joke teller, a reader and thinker, regardless of how many siblings she didn’t have. But Mrs. Good Intentions saw something else. She saw what many people seem to see: only children are at risk; only children are lonely; only children are sad, shy, lack social skills; only children are spoiled. Only children need “help” in order to grow and develop like children with siblings. Families with single children are somehow not as “real” – just like couples without children somehow are not “families.” It seems a pervasive and deep prejudice. I find myself falling for it at times, worried about all the attention I give my son, concerned at times by his own relatively long attention span, so un-childlike, and the time he spends alone. I wonder if I am denying him something. Like most parents of only children, I grew up in a larger family and find myself comparing my childhood experience with his, sometimes favorably, sometimes not so. Guilt and worry, those eager and corrosive twins of parenting motivators, duke it out in my head. As so, feeling that I need not ammunition as much as simple information, I do what I have done in the past: I turn to books. The facts do help. And yes, like every trend or syndrome or wrinkle on the forehead of the body politic, there are thoughtful books on this theme. The only child, the singleton, the family of three (or in the case of single parents with single children – two) has inspired a shelf of its own. First, the politics. In “Maybe One: A Casefor Smaller Families,” author and father of one Bill McKibben offers the history of large families in our once rural society, the prejudice against the single child – and offers the ecological argument, familiar to many, about the dangers of overpopulation and depleted resources. For parent citizens like the always reliably conscientious McKibben, an only child is a conscious choice. For others, of course, it is simply a twist of fate: timing, fertility, love or luck. Either way, “onlies” are now officially part of a larger trend that finds many American families smaller, with almost one-third with single children. Dr. Susan Newman, with the scholar/researcher angle, offers the sociological explanation, but echoes some of McKibben in her book, “Parenting an Only Child: The Joys and Challenges of Raising Your One and Only.” She also includes chapter-length strategies for handling the special dynamics of the only-child family: The Super-Child Syndrome; Who’s Running the Show; The Wedge, the Pawn, the Other Manipulations; Set Boundaries: Define Acceptable Behavior, etc. But a quick appraisal underscores what other parents will already know: Many of these parenting strategies are just as likely to be effectively deployed with children who have siblings. In “The Seven Common Sins of Parenting An Only Child: A Guide for Parents and Families” Carolyn White, editor of Only Child magazine, explores her own experience as the mother of a single child and relies on hundreds of interviews with similar parents. While I cringed a bit at the title and its use of the word “sin,” White’s straightforward approach takes on the preconceptions and realities without hesitation, offering that kind of practical hands-on advice studded with anecdotes that many desire: overindulgence, overprotection, discipline, overcompensation, the tendency to treat the “only” as an adult; the dangers of perfectionism. All three books cite what we have known for years: Single children turn out just fine. And all three books should reassure, support and encourage parents of single children – and those like Mrs. Good Intentions, who worry about them too. Lisa Alvarez is a regular contributor. |
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