I cannot imagine my life without my sister. She is both my family and best friend at the same time. It is super convinient:P So in my opinion being an only child is definitely a curse.
What I think is that it's always nice to have a person with who you grow up. Then from the very beginning you spend time with a man close to your age. An only child spends most of the time with her/his parents, which is not the best thing in my opinion. Of curse it is crucial to have a good relationship with the parents but this cannot substitute realtionship we have with coevals.
There is no better time to learn how to socialise than during the childhood. I am convinced that the only child may have some difficulties with communication with other people. He/she is not willing to compromise. And one has to admit that doing that is extremely important, especially while being in a relationship in an older age. What’s more, such person can be easily selfish and sometimes even lonely, because of the lack of the company. People who don’t have a sibling neither have to share anything nor care about others. But don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that such people are heartless creatures. No. This is just my little observation. I have many friends, who neither have brother nor sister but they are lovely sensitive people. So I cannot generalize so much.
On the other there are some advantages of being an only child. There is no one to be jealous of. Parents can devote their undivided attention. There are no problems with inheritance. Moreover there are no fights with siblings. The last good thing about being an only child is that you can get a larger share of the family's income. Very mundane but very important at the same time. I know a few siblings who had had really good relationships before they had to deal with dividing the inheritance and became green with envy.
Besides those advantages, I still think that being an only child is a curse. It's always nice to have someone that you can count on. It is way more fun to have a sibling than to be alone. To be honest I would like to have even more siblings
Have you got a lot of siblings? Are you an only child in the family? What is better?
I am a third child of five. We are three girls and two boys. And because I am in a middle, I have small problem with being recognized. Ok, not small, I HAVE to be recognized, people MUST see me. But, I'm working on it ;)
ReplyDeleteStil, I wojldn't exchange my life for a single child life, not even one second. Even though we were fighting like hell (last time I fought my older brother, 4 years ago, that was a battle for my socks....) and very often we didn't understand each other, thanks to my parents, we were also very close. And we still are. We were watching same shows, we were going to the same primary school (after that we could choose other schools). And now I've got four people, that I can count on anytime. And I would love to give same gift to my future children.
Still, I don't think being an only child is a curse. All sides have their good and bad things..... as you said before in your article....
It all depends on one's abilities to rise a child (or children). Some parents are just better with just one child - spoiling is easy to avoid if you're not dumb enough to know that saying "no" sometimes helps a lot more than letting your baby doing everything he/she wants to. On the contrary, with a lot of children the parent's attention can be highly lessen. Being raised by older brothers or sisters can affect you both ways, too. I have no idea if I want to have more than one baby just for the case of "having more". We will see - it's not necessary to have a fruitful life!
ReplyDeleteI have an older brother, and by "older" I mean a whole decade. Because of that and the general praise my parents put on him, he was some kind of my role model, but our lives rapidly went in different ways as soon as he moved out after highschool. Now we don't have that much contact or influence on each other (as for the second - none at all, actually). Maybe there lies the reason of me not exactly putting much sense in digging in brotherhood or sisterhood. It's not that big deal.
I’m the only child and I can’t agree with you at all. Maybe I’m an exception but I have never had any problems communicating with other people or taking care about others. Actually, since I was a little child I have had a lot of good friends.
ReplyDeleteI think that you can have a sister or a brother even if you aren’t bound by blood. Natalia, my best friend, is for me like a sister. I have known her for 15 years now. We grew up together and have many unforgettable memories. We share clothes, money, good and bad moments. We can always count on each other. We were together in the USA. We lived in a small apartment for a month. It was hard but it proved that I’m always willing to compromise with her, because she is important to me. Our friendship is not always easy. We both have strong characters, so sometimes we argue and even do not talk for a few months. But still, we can forgive each other and we always come back, like a family.
Another point, that I completely disagree with you, is that people without siblings are not able to take of others. Many people tell me that I am a very caring person. I’m also sure that this trait you can learn when you look after animals, sometimes even better than when dealing with humans. For instance, I have always had a pet. It was a very good lesson, because my pets depend on me. Thanks to them, I became more sensitive and responsible. In a way, we take care of each other.
To sum up, being the only child is not that bad, at least not for me. I have never even dreamed about having a sibling, which might sound a bit selfish. On the other hand, in my opinion, it can teach you being more independent and creative, i.e. playing games alone is quite challenge, isn’t it? ☺ I think it is neither a blessing nor a curse. If you want to be a good person, you don’t need siblings for that.
I cannot decide what situation could be better. From point of view of only child I can say - it's not bad. I've heard about well known issue when parents pay to much attention to their only child. I've spend most of my life (since primary school till now) outside home - in school, on sport camps, work etc. I used to think how it would be with brother or sister but now it doesn't matter. Fortunately I have few good friends instead, sometimes they are like second family. About communication, I didn't notice any problem so far but maybe it's merit of spending so much time with coevals instead of staying in home.
ReplyDeleteI’ve recently read an article about positive aspects of having siblings. Take a look! It’s very interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt was very touching to have this link sent to me by my older brother!
http://pomyslodziecku.pl/fajnie-miec-rodzenstwo/
I have a younger brother and I cannot imagine life without him. He is my closest family member :)
ReplyDeleteIn the early, we were always playing and doing everything together. We learned to share everything between us and how to resolve problems only by ourselves. Our parents had a lot of free time, because we don't wanted to play with adults. Spending time with someone near our age, was way better and more fun. It was a relieve for mom, dad and also good life lesson for me and my brother. We learned how to live with others, without beeing selfish.
Of course in the meantime, we had bloody fights. Every siblings argue with their fists, but thats exactly substitute of real life. We know how to communicate with other people and we are aware that others exist. I think, childrens who are growing alone, are much more concern only about themselves. They cannot see needs of other people.
In my opinion, childrens with siblings, are more mature and they are better prepared for a future life. Personally, I want to have at least 2 kids :)
I have only one brother. You said that an only child might have communication issues with others. I grow up with my brother. There is two years difference between us.
ReplyDeleteAt age of 10 my brother was 12. I remember that at this age he was much taller than me and he use to hang up with kids at his age rather than with his younger brother. And we use to fight a lot when we were kids. At this stage i did not feel any stronger connection with my brother, just because as younger and smaller kid I was not able to keep up with his mates. It was like that was when we were younger. At age of 14 everything has change. We started to have same friends.
That time we really started to act as real blood brothers. Our relation change.
I dear to assume that we shape our mentality through environment we live in. Friends can have sa much influence on us as the our brother or sisters. So if you are the only child perhaps you can find a friend who will successfully act as your brother or sister. I myself I have few true friends from my childhood, that I keep contact until now. They are like family to me. So i feel like i have not one but five brothers. As in to inheritance... There are values in your life that you would never put inline with any money. This is not the issue in my opinion. But as I like to say. Everything depends... mostly from persons view and as we know views are different for any one of us.
That is funny, because I am the only child and many people made jokes about me being the only child, so I'm probably spoiled. I think it comes from the way you are raised and the way you want to act and doesn't have that much to do with having siblings or not. Of course, in general people with siblings are more competitive in life, but that isn't always the case, it would be a generalization.
ReplyDeleteHaving siblings comes with a few major positives. For instance, you have close family to rely on later in your life, entertainment when you are a child, and more friends ;-) if you are a boy and you have a sister of similar age when you are a teenager. Only children have it a little tougher with those, but gain in other areas - economic and self-reliability (sometimes) being some of the most important ones.
So both have their positives and negatives, I don't believe one is in general better than the other.