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Do you feel generally happy in life? Yes, I'm generally happy.
Are you very close to your parents? My mother lives in the same town as I do but my father lives in another state. That said, however, I am still very close to both.
Are you the type who enjoys/prefers the solitude that you probably had from not having siblings growing up OR have you made sure you mostly surrounded yourself with friends? I'd have to say both. I still enjoy my alone time, but there are still times when I wish I'd had siblings growing up.
Do you know any other only children? Actually, I don't think I do.
Any other comments? My situation is kind of strange. I have half-siblings from both of my parents but didn't actually meet any of them until I was an adult. That makes me my parents' only child and I was raised as such. When I did meet my siblings I was happy and felt a sense of loss at the same time. I think it was that I was sad that we had missed so much time that we can never get back as siblings. I don't dwell on it since that time cannot ever be regained, but instead I just enjoy the times we have had together and look forward to new ones.
I actually grew up in a big family. I have 2 sisters, and 2 brothers, and I'm the oldest.
That said, I have an 'only child' niece, and an 'only child' nephew. Both of them married to lovely people. My nephew was close to his cousins on his mom's side (not my side) of the family growing up. I'd say his cousins were his best friends. But he and his wife come to all family events (on my side of the family) and they get along and have fun with all of us. And sometimes, he, his wife, and my son all get together and play video games all night. lol He is close to both of his parents.
My "only child" niece is married, and they have 4 children. One of them is adopted. She has some friends, one in particular, that she's known since she was a little girl, and these friends come to all the kids birthday parties. That's been my observation. And on Facebook, those friends often comment on this and that, so I think it's safe to say she has at least, a few close friends. She is very close to both of her parents.
I used to have an 'only child' good friend, and she hated being an only child. An interesting observation that she and I both had talked about before, was that she basically had no boundaries regarding privacy, and sharing private information. She was the type, that IMO, she shared more than she should. Me, coming from a big family, I CRAVED alone time and privacy, where she HATED being alone.
She told me once that she used to have recurring nightmares, where she was locked in her bedroom, and there was a phone in the bedroom that would periodically ring and ring. When she'd try to answer the phone, there was never anyone on the other end. When she would try to dial out, the phone wouldn't work.
Her father died when she was in gradeschool, and she kind of hero worshipped him. She did not get along very well with her mother. She, in turn, doesn't get along with her adult daughter, who she's estranged from. But she gets along well with her 2 adult sons.
She has been happily married to the same man since...I don't know...1980 maybe? When you think of the word 'Mate' that's what they are to each other. They're a solid unit.
I am the youngest of 6 children BECAUSE my mother was an only child. She has told me many times she was lonely as a child and never wanted that for her own kids. She was close to her cousins growing up but she's never had any close friends as an adult. Only "work friends" She married my father at 16 and they were together for 57 years until he passed and now she's pretty much alone except for us kids and a few cousins still living. She's friendly with her coffee group and some volunteer groups but no close friends.
My mother was an only child, in a time when being an only was uncommon. Her mother died when she was in elementary school. I thought I'd try to answer some of the OP's questions for her:
Do you feel generally happy in life? My mother was insecure and volatile. I suppose she had some happy times. I think she enjoyed her grandchildren, who seemed to give her happiness.
Are you very close to your parents? My mother had a fraught relationship with her stepmother, but she cared for her until she died. She was not really close with her father, that I ever saw. She actually eloped when she got married to my father.
Are you the type who enjoys/prefers the solitude that you probably had from not having siblings growing up OR have you made sure you mostly surrounded yourself with friends? My mother was a great teacher. She loved teaching, and she was outgoing. She always said she wished for brothers or sisters. After my father died she was lonely. But she rebuilt her social life rather well.
Any other comments? She did not have a happy childhood. She told me and my sibs a lot about her upbringing, as if it was a sort of therapy. It was hard on us to hear it as a constant refrain throughout our lives. If she had had siblings, she might have been able to weather the loss of her mother better. I do think she must have been lonely throughout much of her childhood.
I'm an only child too. I have some questions regarding your life:
Do you feel generally happy in life?
Are you very close to your parents?
Are you the type who enjoys/prefers the solitude that you probably had from not having siblings growing up OR have you made sure you mostly surrounded yourself with friends?
Do you know any other only children?
Any other comments?
I don’t think I’ve already responded.
Do I feel generally happy in life? No, I’d say that I generally feel content. I realize that my life (currently) is pretty easy and could be a lot worse. But my pessimism and anxiety issues prevent me from being a generally happy person.
Am I very close to my parents? Yes, we’re close in that we see each other and talk regularly. But it’s not all good. My mom and I butt heads a lot. Nothing that would ever cause us to stop speaking, but we annoy each other. I don’t treat her the way she treated her own mother, and that bothers her. She thinks that because she’s my mother, I should do anything for her, spoil her, etc. but I don’t really agree.
Do I enjoy/prefer solitude? Yes. Of course it’d be nice to have good friends, but I don’t have any. I recently had some important (happy) events happen in my life and two people who I considered to be my close friends were nowhere to be found. So for the most part, I find people to be unreliable and don’t trust them.
Do I know any other only children? I’m sure I do, but none that I’m particularly close to or associate with regularly.
Any other comments? I don’t really think that being an only child is a good thing. I feel like I have no family besides my parents. Extended relatives don’t really count to me. I rarely see them and they have their own families.
I had a wonderful childhood and was never lonely. I never wanted siblings. I have no complaints about being an only child and I don't view it as a bad thing at all. In fact, I think it's kinda weird that people actually do view onlies as a bad thing. Or maybe it's not weird. Maybe they're just jealous.
I think a lot has to do with how you were raised as an only. I don't think either is better or worse in and of itself. My only view is through my mother's eyes and she said it was lonely although it was also nice at times because she didn't have to share or have things get broken by a younger sibling. That said her parent's also divorced and she spent much of her childhood with her grandparents so the whole situation wasn't ideal regardless if it was one child or six. I do know she lost her mother just a year before our dad died and she said at that time we were luckier to have each other.
I think there is something to the idea that only a sibling knows what it was like to grow up in your house but then again I was the youngest of 6 and my older siblings are 9-11 years older than I am. I've often said I was raised by different parents than they were. Mine were older. When my siblings were young Dad farmed and Mom stayed home. When I came along Mom worked full time and Dad had sold the farm and worked in town. Even within the same family I had closer to an only child experience because they were teens while I was in elementary school and when I was a teen they were adults. I often think I had the best and the worst of both worlds since I grew up alone but had the financial constraints of a large family. I've never wished to be a true only but I have, in the past, wished the siblings I had were closer in age to me.
Location: When things get hot they expand. Im not fat. Im hot.
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Im one of the onlies. Mom had one brother who was the golden child. Her family considered her awkward and ugly because she was tall and larger boned. She had a very unhappy childhood and married a man twice her age to escape. He abused her and then me so she left him when I was very young.
I have always been an old soul. I don't ever remember being a kid. Mom always treated me like a grownup. Because I was tall/big for my age with an adult vocabulary I didn't fit with kids my own age. And if I acted my age adults would give me grief for acting childish.
Do I feel generally happy in life? Not happy now. But I’d say that I generally feel okay. It could be a lot worse.
Am I very close to my parents? All of my relatives are gone now. Don't remember much about my Dad. Had a few stepfathers. All of them have passed away too. We were opposites so Im sure Mom and I got on each others nerves but we got along. Mom could write the book on being unhappy. Even when something good happened she could find something. Even as a kid I would question this. And when I got much older I would tell her to knock it off.
Do I enjoy/prefer solitude? Yes. But Im an introvert. Probably why I don't have kids. It would be nice to have friends but I don’t have any now. The ones I had have passed away.
Do I know any other only children? No
Any other comments? I don’t really think that being an only child was a good or a bad thing. One thing you cant blame things on your siblings. Mom always knew exactly who did it when something got broke. Also when she got older and needed care I didn't have to get a consensus.
Do you feel generally happy in life? At times but right now, not really. Too stressed with family life and personal issues.
Are you very close to your parents? No. Never have been.
Are you the type who enjoys/prefers the solitude that you probably had from not having siblings growing up OR have you made sure you mostly surrounded yourself with friends? I like a mixture of me time and time with friends. Problem is I never truly feel I have good close friends so I am frequently lonely and feel like I am in the outside looking in.
Do you know any other only children? Yes and most seem to like it. I am the oddball that has always hated it. Ideally, I'd love to be apart of a close-nit loving family with a bunch of fun siblings. I envy my friends with that.
Do you feel generally happy in life? At times but right now, not really. Too stressed with family life and personal issues.
Are you very close to your parents? No. Never have been.
Are you the type who enjoys/prefers the solitude that you probably had from not having siblings growing up OR have you made sure you mostly surrounded yourself with friends? I like a mixture of me time and time with friends. Problem is I never truly feel I have good close friends so I am frequently lonely and feel like I am in the outside looking in.
Do you know any other only children? Yes and most seem to like it. I am the oddball that has always hated it. Ideally, I'd love to be apart of a close-nit loving family with a bunch of fun siblings. I envy my friends with that.
Yes, both of my parents come from big families, but I see that it's not a guarantee that everyone will get along. My dad has 7 siblings, but he only talks to three of them (and two of those live out of town, so not regularly). My mom has 5 siblings, and she only talks to one of them regularly although she is not on bad terms with any of the others.
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