she wore the dress and i stayed home

[keryx]

When I was 4 or 5, I really wanted a twin. Other than that, I don't recall having a strong desire to have siblings when I was young, and the idea is so foreign to me that I can't even imagine what it's like to be an adult with adult brothers and/or sisters. I imagine I might worry less about what caring for my parents might entail as we all get older - it's more a concern as a single only child, though.

A couple of times recently, people have implied that being an only child somehow sucks, and I'm curious if this is a widely held opinion.
[Poll #1082682]

Comments

[finefinemusic.livejournal.com]

It was a little complicated for me - I was ten when my mom started to have more kids (with another father.) She had twins when I was 10, female and male, and another boy when I was 14. The youngest boy's father also had two previous daughters, one my age and one who was 7. It was nutty but wonderful - I couldn't ask for anything different. Being spoiled as an only child for 10 years (and from my father for my whole life!) was great, but the siblings are worth much more. Awww. Thanks for making me think about how special they are!

Us*, three weeks ago:

*Thanks to Facebook I am still in touch with my stepsisters, but they only really visited on the weekends when we were kids so we don't see each other often.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Is this the kid sister you talk about on your right?

You're all adorable, by the way. I love their little hipsterness.

[finefinemusic.livejournal.com]

That's her indeed. The twins are 15 now, John 11. Aren't the three of them so much hipper than me? It's actually quite depressing.

[fancymcsnazsnaz.livejournal.com]

So, I'm oldest of three, love my little brothers, and am very glad not to have been an only child. However, Ruby is and will stay an only child, because as much as I would like it to be the case that I could handle pregnancy, living with an infant, and early childhood again with another kid, it isn't. So I think in her case being an only child will suck a whole lot less than being one of a pair or more of kids that I can't handle. :P

FTR, plenty of the only children I've known have been perfectly happy and well-adjusted, and plenty of the besiblinged people I've known have been fuckups.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I totally get where you're coming from with Ruby. I'm pretty sure my mother's experience was the same - having a kid was NOT A GOOD TIME at first, and not something she'd have been able to repeat.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I often think, morbidly, that it would be nice to have someone to talk to when my parents pass away who knew them as well as I do.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the kind of thing I think about now. And like, after the funeral, who would look at photos with me and be all "hey, you remember when Dad did that?"

I blame my parents for this morbid streak.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

And further, this is one of the things that makes me think having a kid would be cool. Cause then my parents could know more people with their genetic material. It feels like the family tree stopped and restarted again with my nuclear family, and that any extension thereof is consequently up to me. Not that my parents have ever pressured me to have kids, just that I feel like all three of us miss out to some extent if I don't.

Does that make ANY sense at all?

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

TONS

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

See, the last question is complicated. Because we will only biologically have one CHILD (Bean's really really invested in that), but we will foster teenagers. Probably a lot of them. Probably one or two at a time for ... years. A lot of years. So the answer is "1 child, an unknown [probably large, if I get my way] quantity of teenagers and older pre-teens"

[keryx.livejournal.com]

That totally counts as 4 or more. I think it's who you parent that matters, not who you birth.

[belladonnalin.livejournal.com]

Right. I think the larger difference for me is that we're not actually going to have a lot of children in our home. But we will have a lot of 13-18 year olds. God help both of us.

I'm mostly being melodramatic there. I'm fucking GREAT with teenagers. And both Bean and I have the resources (training, psychological, emotional) to take on "troubled" teenagers, which are the kids who nobody else want. Give me the 14 year old with a sexual abuse history and a meth problem who thinks he might be a girl. PLEASE, give him to us and not to someone else or a shelter, you know?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Please DO give him to you. It fucking rocks that y'all are good with the teens and the trouble, because cool people can help those kids become cool people, too.

This post is making me all warm and fuzzy with how awesome my LJ peeps are.

[maryjholliday.livejournal.com]

I didn't quite know how to respond to this. My mother and father never had other children, but my father re-married when I was young, so I acquired three step-sibs for a few years. I only saw them every couple of weeks, so I don't think it counts.

The thing I'm most sad about being an only child is that I don't get to be an Auntie.

[zorah.livejournal.com]

I was tight with my middle brother when I was very young, but that got pretty much shredded as his addictions took over and eventually we had no relationship. My eldest brother is like a ghost - I barely remember anything about growing up with him. We haven't spoken for 16 years-ish.

The Kid is an only, but he did share his parents with a Fosterling for 2.5 years and now X is here part-time. But neither of those relationships is sibling-like for The Kid for lots of reasons. Even when you live with a partner and their kid, you can co-parent, but for years the child is theirs and your child is yours and a similar thing occurs with the kids. I don't know when M. went from The Kid's Mom's Boyfriend to The Kid's Dad, but it took a long time.

X and The Kid are so far apart in age that they do not live in parallel like siblings. Plus both of them are here part time, and their schedules do not always mesh.

I think that The Kid would do badly with a sibling, frankly. He is HIGH maintenance. A large part of my decision to stop after him had to do with the amount of parenting he needs and my ability to give the same (if not more) to another child.

So I have raised one and helped raise two more. I used to think I would foster more and often, but I think my work is going to take all that energy. I need to have an adult life separate from being a mom. Which is something I am barely learning to do right now!

[zorah.livejournal.com]

Also, I OFTEN long for sib relationships, especially when I see the rad interactions between Ash and her sis, who are so great together and supportive of each other. But then I also wish I had parents, so it is all of a piece.

But I also often feel grateful that I have no family to answer to, or feelings of not living up to expectations - because no one in my life has the right to expect anything from me. Well, except The Kid.

[zorah.livejournal.com]

On reading this I realized that I say 'also' entirely too much!

[orkid.livejournal.com]

it's exciting to read about all your lj peeps' different family/sib situations. mine is a bit more complicated than my answers might suggest.

i have a much younger half-sister and had many steps over the years, but in some ways the only one who ever really felt like my sibling was my brother. we're only 18 months apart in age and were always pretty tight growing up, especially when it seemed that our parents were too distracted with their own issues to pay much attention to us. we're not close these days, though, and i miss him a lot.

if, and it's a big if, i ever have any biological kids, i'd probably stop after one. at this point, i'm feeling more drawn to fostering kids than to having my own, though.

[orkid.livejournal.com]

oh, i just remembered! i always wished i had a cool older sister who could give me advice and style tips and stuff like that.

[drownophelia.livejournal.com]

with regards to the question regarding the suckitude of being an only child: sometimes it does. i think that onlies have different relationships with their parents to people with siblings; it's always two-against-one when you're an only with two parents, and that can kind of suck sometimes. however, being an only means that i get/got a lot of attention from them, and they've been able to support me incredibly well.

with regards the question of your sibling-status: i have a much older half-sister from my dad's first marriage. she's probably in her late 30s by now, and i have never had contact with her, and probably wouldn't try until after my dad's death (he gave up custody when she was a very small child, and has never been involved in her life since then; i didn't learn about her until much later in my life, and it's been made clear to me that i should never bring her up in conversation).

[drownophelia.livejournal.com]

oh, and also, i've always wish i had a twin! i see lots of issues that people have with siblings, but i totally romantacize twinship, and the connection that twins very often do have. and i personally hope to have twins myself, but am not sure how to go about ensuring that other than fertility treatments and selective termination, which as a healthy (and hopefully fertile) young woman, i don't see the point in wasting money on.

[chubbyninja.livejournal.com]

i have 1 1/2 sibs. An older sister, and an older half-brother.
Frankly growing up with the former was a constant strain on mental stability, and the latter was mostly absent after i turned 7. However, i think they were very important to how i turned out, and im glad i had them.

As a weird aside, my best friend from childhood was recently discussing how much it would suck to grow up without siblings. I immediately pointed out that he was an only child, and HAD grown up without siblings. He just sat and looked at me for a second, said "not really" and went back to whatever he had been doing before.

aww that's sweet

[arovd.livejournal.com]

err... unless he's referring to imaginary siblings?

[moongirli.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it's interesting that this should come up today... My sister and I were just talking about this earlier - about how we fought as kids, but she and my mom think we fight worse now, and so on...

[firecat]

I identify as an only child. I have a younger brother, but he has Down syndrome, an especially severe case in terms of his developmental potential, and he didn't ever live with us. :/

The only sucky thing about being an only child, as far as I recall from my childhood, was having other children tell me that because I was an only child I was "spoiled".

Now, the only sucky thing about it is worrying how I'm going to handle it if my parents start needing more care than they currently need. But at least I don't have siblings to resent for not doing their part if that happens.