Ever wonder what it is like to be a single child? Well, being an only child, I have taken it on myself to tell you how exactly it feels to be a single child.
Being a single child has its share of both pros and cons. And if you are a single child, you know how we thank the Lord at one moment for not having any siblings and curse him at the other for the very same reason!
Like any family, having an only child has its advantages and disadvantages.
I can understand why individuals would decide to only have one child from the perspective of a parent. It takes a lot of time, effort, and resources to raise even one child.
Compared to families with more than one child, parents raising one child frequently have more savings. The cost of raising one child is less.
So here are the pros and cons of being a single child.
1. We Get All the Good Stuff!
Since our parents don’t have to spend a lot of their income to buy two, three, or seven things for all their children, we usually get the best of best things, one of the perks of parents not having more than one kid.
We are usually those annoying kids at school who have the ’75 Colours’ coloring set instead of 42, like everybody else! Sorry!
2. No Sharing!
Do you remember when you didn’t want to share something, but your mother while raising children very sternly said that you have to share it with your siblings?
Well, I don’t! We single children, unlike other kids with siblings never had to share anything with anybody at home. We had all the best things, and we had it all to ourselves!
Unless, of course, that annoying cousin visits. Then it’s just war and a lot of screaming!
3. Centre of Attention
There is nobody to steal our attention away from us. And let’s admit it! Every child wants their parents’ attention.
There are no annoying brothers to keep our mothers from taking us shopping or no annoying sister who takes up all of our fathers’ time!
They are always looking out for us and only us! How amazing is that, especially with elderly parents?
4. Having a Room All to Ourselves!
One room, usually the best one in the house, is all ours! We don’t have to deal with our brother’s half-eaten pizza lying on the floor or our sister’s jewelry scattered all over the place.
Nope. Our room is basically our kingdom! We rule over it! It is made as per our choices, keeping in mind our favorite colors.
And we have no sibling rivalry because of how many children there are at home. Exactly! I’m the only one.
We can rearrange the furniture according to our convenience. We can put up posters of our favorite bands all over. And the best part nobody to object!
5. Becoming Independent
As the only child, we are, more often than not, left alone at home. This is the only reason we can do a lot of stuff on our own.
This is the only reason we are self-sufficient and most one-child families are. This is also why we can never understand why you can’t do certain kinds of stuff as the only person on your own.
You tell us that you can make some snacks on your own, and in our minds, we say, “Whaaaat? How does he survive? Is he that useless”
We aren’t judgmental; we can’t understand how you are going on with life being a complete imbecile.
Jealous much? Well, now let’s come to the cons, and why I would want better for my own kids.
6. Making Mistakes
As the only child, if we make a mistake, we can not blame it on anybody else and will probably never hear the end of it!
Parents expect a lot from us from an early age in order to apparently boost our self-confidence, and ‘motivate‘ us to be better than more children out in the world.
We break a glass today, and a year from now, our mothers will still not let us near anything that can break, saying, “Remember that time when you broke my favorite glass?”
God, Mom, that was one time! When will you get over it? It is probably because it’s only one child’s mistake that they have to deal with, and it is easier for them to remember each of them.
7. Loneliness
Even with all the pros of being a single child, loneliness overwhelms us. We have no one to share our thoughts with, except for a diary that can’t talk, feel, or comfort us.
When people think about only children, this is typically the first drawback that comes to mind although we have other social skills.
We have no one to take advice from and no one to hold us when we are feeling down although we enjoy our alone time.
And no matter how close we are to our parents, every one of us knows that even if we are bursting to express ourselves, we won’t go to them, because we can’t scare them with reality!
8. Over-Protectiveness
We are the only child they have, so our parents get very protective of us. And when I say very overprotective, I mean VERY PROTECTIVE. We are not allowed to stay out with friends for a very long time. We are not allowed to go on school trips.
We are not allowed to do anything remotely dangerous as having to come back from school alone if we ever have to stay back for some extracurricular work and miss the school bus, whose conductor has been specifically told to drop us right in front of our house.
Trust me, and it is suffocating! It gets very annoying, and we can’t do anything about it. Unless our parents are really cool, which seldom they are.
Srijonee Basu
Originally posted 2015-10-03 14:00:13.
