March 13, 2025 • 46 mins
We've all heard the stereotypes about only children - they're selfish, they're dominating, they're arrogant, they are spoiled. Well, it turns out that might not be accurate. In today's episode we break down the intricate psychology of the only child and do a quick review of birth order theory, including:
- Where did our stereotypes about only children come from
- Are only children smarter?
- What makes them such perfectionist?
- Who do only children date?
- What should only children do for work?
- The complex child-parent relationship + the struggles of being an only child
This was such a fascinating episode, I hope you enjoy and happy listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here,
back for another episode as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. Today, we have finally arrived
at the lucky last in our birth Order series. If
(00:23):
you've been tuned in for a while over the last
six months, I would say we've done like a dedicated
episode for every sibling in the family, so eldest, middle, youngest,
and in my last Birth Order episode, I said the
youngest child would be the last episode we would do.
And boy, oh boy, did I hear your outrage. I
(00:46):
heard and got so many dms from you all and
emails demanding that I do an episode on the youngest
child and my friends. I'm so sorry that I forgot
about you, but I have listened and I got my
research inter gear to deliver you the episode you all
wanted so much. So for all of you who messaged
me asking for this, I promise I did not forget.
(01:09):
The only child is just so special that they needed
their own dedicated week in dedicated episode. And here it is.
This is it with the amount of families, I think
choosing to have only one child in this day and age, honestly,
we need to talk about it more right because the
research is getting more and more interesting by the day,
(01:29):
and more subjects are becoming available, and only children are
becoming so much more common. We've also had an entire
country where they basically did an experiment on only children,
as in, like you think about China's one child policy.
They were like this perfect experimental condition where so many
people obviously only had one child, and it's this rare
(01:51):
opportunity to really see how this experience of growing up,
you know, as the only child, as the only child
in the family normally with the full attention of your
true parents does impact your personality. I also want to
discuss some of the stereotypes about only children, the long
(02:12):
standing stereotypes, and how they are actually deeply incorrect and
why they have come to be. We're also going to
discuss only child and parent dynamics, the pressure of needing
to take care of your parents as you get older, parentification,
also the different kinds of situations that may also impact
(02:34):
the only child experience, so being the only child in
a single person household, being the only child, but having
step siblings, having lots of cousins. There's so many ways
this can go. We're going to hopefully tackle every single
one of them. You know, I don't like to ramble
too much at the beginning of these birth order episodes
because I always end up spoiling some of the best
(02:55):
parts in like the first five minutes, So I'm not
going to do that here. I'm going to the psychology
and the research speak for itself. So without further ado,
let's break down the unique and fascinating psychology of only children.
So let's do a quick recap of birth order theory,
(03:18):
the argument for it but also against it. If you
are a loyal listener and you have kept up to
date with the whole series, firstly, thank you so much.
But secondly, this might sound just a wee bit repetitive
because we have spoken about it a little bit. Feel
free to jump ahead, like five to seven minutes to
where we get into the juicy stuff. But for those
(03:38):
of you who don't know what birth order theory is, basically,
it is a major theory on human personality. Now, personality,
we typically think of it as being shaped by two things,
nature and nurture. So we are obviously a product of genetics,
but we are also a product of parenting style and
(04:01):
food and country of birth and so many things. But essentially,
all the things that scientists and researchers believe impact our
personality can either be from our environment or from our nature.
So our genetic blueprint who we were born to be. Now,
the position we are born into in a family, and
whether we have siblings or not, that is part of
(04:24):
our environment, and it falls into the nurture category. It
influences our personality because of how it impacts how we
are raised and experienced the world as children, which leaves
an impression and impact that carries on into adulthood. The
thing that really defines the only child experience is that
they don't obviously have siblings. It's their I guess, solitude, isolation,
(04:52):
their singularity. That is the thing that is the kind
of point of fascination for a lot of researchers. It
is just them. So our examination of what might influence
the personality of an only child comes down to the
absence of siblings rather than the presence of siblings, as
it does for eldest, middle and youngest children. So back
(05:14):
to this theory. The man who developed birth order theory
was a man named Alfred Adler, and he was known
for a lot of things in his time. You may
have heard of him because of the inferiority complex. That's
one of the other famous ones. He was very busy
during the mid nineteen hundreds, but birth order theory is
probably what he's most well known for. And again, it
(05:37):
basically says that being the oldest, youngest, middle or only
child will affect what characteristics and traits you develop over time,
both when you are a child, when you're a teenager,
and as an adult. Let's be very very clear, birth
order theory is not a medical prescription. It is not
(05:57):
going to offer you any kind of psychological diagnosis. It
is a theory and a theory with gaps at that
with exceptions, with flaws, like any other theory. And you know,
large scientific studies on this theory are really difficult to conduct.
One did take place in twenty fifteen, and it did
(06:19):
find that it's very hard to get a diverse enough
amount of people, or to get enough people who want
to participate to really sometimes draw conclusions. And so we
do need to be careful about pigeonholing people purely based
on the position in the family they were born in
and whether or not they have siblings. I think that's
(06:41):
worth noting at the top of the episode, You're going
to hear a lot of ideas today. They are not
strict ideas. They do not determine exactly the person you are.
In my mind, discussing birth order theory really fills the
same role as talking about personality tests. They're really fun,
they use, and they do provide a structure or guide
(07:02):
for better understanding where we sit in relation to others,
and they do help us better understand the traits within
ourselves and the things that we may not have considered
about the way we are. But taking a personality test
and then saying well, that's everything I'm ever going to
be is not the healthiest thing. Neither is listening to
(07:22):
an episode like this and saying, Okay, well, I'm an
only child, so this is my destiny. I always want
to be somewhat cautious when discussing birth order theory because
it does exist in a much larger ecosystem of factors, ideas, events,
situations that impact why we are the way we are.
In my personal experience. Though I am the eldest child,
(07:43):
I'm the eldest daughter, and I have found that a
lot of what people say about me as an oldest
child does really apply, and a lot of what people
say about my middle sister and my younger sister also
really apply. So anecdotally, I do tend to believe some
of the theories propositions. But let's now turn to the
(08:06):
star of the show, the only child. Let's start by
talking about the stereotypes or what pop culture would have
to say about only children and how they're routinely depicted.
The portrayed or expected traits of an only child that
you might commonly hear about are typically based on the
fact that they are the only child in the house.
(08:29):
Because of their family dynamic or structure, only children typically
spend a more time alone and second to that be
more time in the company of adults compared to someone
with siblings. Because they are their parents' only child, we
also expect that they get more attention. You know, someone
(08:50):
with two or three or four siblings will rarely have
the undervoted attention of both parents for very long, but
for an only child that might be quite typical. It
has a lot of upsides. It also has some downsides,
which we'll talk about later. It's not just the time commitment,
it's also money, care, resources, presence. All of those things
(09:16):
kind of lead people to think of only children as
quite spoilt. They're quite spoilt, they're a little bit diva ish.
That's kind of the profile that we typically think of.
I honestly think that's kind of funny, Like, you know,
having more love from your parents is somehow a bad
(09:37):
thing and like makes you spoilt. Like I don't see
how exactly that makes sense, Like, oh, you have more love?
Like fuck you, Like what's your problem? You know what
I mean. But that's sometimes what people tend to think.
And you know, in comparison to someone with siblings, people
might call that overindulged. People have really suggested that this
(09:58):
is particularly evident, this over endulgulg spoilt nature when these
children are around other kids, because they haven't learned how
to share, they haven't learned how to compromise. They're used
to getting what they want. That's the general profile of
the only child. Let's mythbust this assumption for a second,
because it turns out this actually has no scientific basis.
(10:23):
This has no basis. Only children are not more spoilt,
they're not more stuck up. This stereotype in theory or myth,
actually dates back to propaganda used during an era in
the US and in Europe where birth rates were declining
after World War Two. Population growth was stagnant or had fallen,
(10:46):
and these governments needed to convince people to have as
many babies as possible. Now, they did this in a
few ways, and one way that they did do it
was by essentially creating this idea or promoting this research
that if you only have one child, your child is
going to end up jealous, selfish, dominating other people, very jealous,
(11:11):
they're going to end up with someone who doesn't know
how to behave And you know, back then, manners were
literally everything, and so that did kind of scare people
into thinking, well, am I really giving my child a
good life if I'm not giving them a sibling. Where
did they even get this idea from. Well, according to
the American Psychological Association, it came from a paper from
(11:36):
the end of the eighteen hundreds, I think eighteen ninety
eight titled a Study of Peculiar and Exceptional Children. And
this study was based on the observations of a psychiatrist
at the time who saw a bunch of kids and
reported that more and more he only saw only children.
The majority of his clients were only children, and he
(11:58):
concluded that you, given so many of these only children
needed to see him, they must be particularly at risk
of what we would nowadays what was then called neuroticism,
what we would now call poor mental health or mental illness.
So that's what he kind of drew from his shallow
observations of the fifty to seventy clients that he saw. Now,
(12:22):
for my psychology students, you are probably seeing some huge
problems with this study, because this is a great example
of what happens when you don't control for your extraneous
and confounding variables and you don't have a proper randomized sample.
This man was basing all of his conclusions only on
(12:43):
what he saw at his very small practice, And it
turns out there was a much more plausible explanation for
why this trend had emerged. Why he was seeing so
many only children. It wasn't because kids without siblings were
more troubled or malae adjusted. It was simply because their
parents were highly vigilant. All of their focus was on
(13:07):
this kid, and if they saw something they couldn't understand
or had trouble dealing with, they sought help to try
and comprehend it. You now, if you have four or
five seven children, that's so much harder to do. It's
so much harder to just notice small moments of unhappiness
or small quirks that you think need addressing. A lot
(13:29):
of that gets lost in the noise and the busyness. Actually,
this is the truth. Only children tend to have more
advanced lingual and reasoning skills and do better on IQ
tests early in life because of the gift of their
parents full attention. This can also sometimes be actually overwhelming
for them because there's a lot of pressure to succeed
(13:51):
and to do well, which we will obviously get to
a little bit later on. But essentially, there is no
correlation between being an only child and our level of
entitlement or anything like that. In fact, to give you
further evidence of this, a study was conducted at the
University of Alabama a little while ago, and this the
(14:12):
researchers got almost nine thousand college students and administered what
we call a measure of narcissism or a measure sorry,
or a narcissism test. So basically, they had all these
students and they said, we're going to give you a
couple of quizzes I guess, one of which was a
narcissism test, and there was no difference in performance on
(14:33):
that test who was labeled a narcissist between people who
grew up as an only child versus people who grew
up with siblings. Similarly, a nineteen eighty seven qualitative review
of one hundred and forty one studies on sixteen different
personality traits also failed to support the opinion that only
children are more maladjusted, spoil entitled, and need more pampering.
(14:59):
There was no evidence, no evidence of that at all.
So what do we know about the personalities of only
children now that we've gotten over those myths. Well, first off,
we know that only children are typically more emotionally and
socially sensitive and mature. If you spend most of your
(15:19):
time with adults growing up, you mimic their behavior and
learn social cues from them the way that you otherwise
would have mimicked the behavior of siblings or other children.
So only children learn very early on how to get
along with adults. They have more advanced social skills, and
that is a huge advantage as they grow up and
(15:41):
they become teenagers and twenty somethings in adults, because their
social sensitivity for getting along in the adult world is
typically more well developed. Sometimes that can actually make it
harder for them to make friends with people their own age,
or to day eight people their own age, or to
(16:02):
just feel like a kid and really sink deeply into
the age and phase they are at. You know, you
might be eighteen nineteen twenty one and everyone's going out
and getting drunk, and you might not feel like you're
made for that because you've had this advanced sense of
maturity for so long. Only children are also typically perfectionists,
(16:24):
very similar to eldest children. Actually, eldest and only children
share a lot of similar traits and experiences, which is
why I think I get only children so deeply, because
you know, an eldest child has at some stage been
the only child before their siblings came along and made
them the eldest, So our early experiences are probably very similar.
(16:47):
And the only child and eldest child typically do both
find that they face extreme pressure from their parents to
be successful because a lot of their hopes and dreams
right on them. They might face our greater academic pressure,
greater physical pressure, all these kinds of things your parents.
(17:10):
I guess the reason why this happens is because your parents,
and I hate to use this phrase, but it does
come easiest if you're an only child. They don't have
a backup, and so all their ambitions are concentrated in you.
It's only natural, you know, even parents who don't say
it out loud still secretly want their child to succeed,
(17:30):
not just for their child's sake, but also so they
can kind of say, hey, look at that, here's proof
that I was a good parent, that I did a
good job because my child has succeeded. Normally, that is
diffused over a couple of children, and if you don't
have any other siblings, it means that it's all going
to be concentrated on you. And that is a whole
(17:53):
lot of pressure that translates to very high personal expectations,
which I'm sure I don't have to tell you twice.
In fact, the same study from nineteen eighty seven that
disproved the spoilt Brat myth about only children did find
that they do possess higher achievement related motivation and higher
(18:15):
levels of perfectionism. That can be very difficult to manage.
And it's not just that our parents are putting pressure
on us, but that eventually we do begin to put
pressure on ourselves and feel like output and whatever we
produce achievements is all we are worth. Here's some slightly
better news, though, only children are actually more content with
(18:37):
their own company. So that's great in a day and
age when you know a lot of people are saying
we're experiencing a loneliness epidemic. Being able to enjoy your
own company and space is one hundred percent an asset.
There was a really fascinating study I actually discovered in
researching this episode that only children are actually more likely
(18:59):
to have imaginary friends when they're younger to entertain themselves.
And as we grow up, the parts of us that
can imagine things to keep us busy and entertained and happy,
they don't go away, so we can become quite creative. Actually,
if you are an only child, please let me know.
Tell me if you had any imaginary friends growing up,
(19:22):
and like what their names were, so you can help
me confirm some of these findings. You know, I love
hearing about this from people because kids are Seriously, they
have the craziest imaginations. When I was a kid, before
my sisters were born, and I was an only child
for five years, I did have an imaginary friend called
Oslan who was a lion, and he lived in this
(19:46):
land I had created, and he would come from that
land and like sleep in my closet when I was
going to sleep and take care of me. I have
such vivid memories memories of him, like, and I say
memories right, Like, it's not like we made these memories,
such vivid visions of this character. Sometimes it feels like
a movie. So if you can relate and you had
(20:07):
an imaginary friend growing up, drop their name in the
comment below, tell us about this imaginary friend. Let their
like legend live on in our minds as well. Only children,
if you hadn't already guessed it as well, are quite
creative because of this, and quite independent. In fact, most
only children will say they prefer to complete tasks alone.
(20:31):
One downside of this is that sometimes they can struggle
with joint decision making. Not because they are bossy or arrogant, no,
but because they just haven't had to do it so
much growing up, they can find it hard to compromise.
And by finding it hard to compromise, I mean they
can either give way too much or give in too little.
(20:56):
A struggle with shared decision making or joint decision making
could impact some people's long term relationships. Now I'm going
to talk about this next study for a second. Please
take it with a grain of salt. Remember what we
said at the top of the episode. This is not destiny,
but study using data from more than fifty seven thousand
(21:17):
people collected by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research
Center between I think it was like forty years or
like the seventies and the twenty tens. They did find
that only children were slightly more likely to get divorced
than people with siblings, and they attributed it to difficulty
with shared decision making. So what they found in their
(21:40):
study or their research was that each additional sibling is
associated with a three percent drop in the chance of divorce.
Sounds very significant, but people with lots of siblings are
also less likely to get married. I'll also say this
is from seven thousand people. That does sound like a
(22:02):
lot of people, But that is over forty thousand years,
and it's aggregated, and it's not a prescription to you
and you only because within that group there were also
a lot of only children whose marriages were absolutely incredible.
So it is limited and it's just data. It tells
a story, but not necessarily your story. So with all
(22:26):
of this in mind, if we put all these findings
together and then dig even deeper, what does being an
only child predict or maybe tell us about ourselves from
dating to careers to parent child relationships and what do
we struggle with. We're going to go on a tiny
little break here, but when we return, we have so
(22:47):
much more to uncover and discuss, so please stay with us.
So a big part of birth order theories appear well
is that some people claim it can predict aspects of
your life, like what kind of person you should date,
(23:07):
who you'd be happiest with, what job you'd be happiest in.
I'm not one hundred percent convinced, because there are always exceptions,
but some of the predictions made by birth order theory
are actually scarily accurate. So let's talk about what it
says about only children when it comes to dating. As
an only child, and we've mentioned this a few times
(23:29):
in this episode. Eldest children and only children typically are
after similar things, and often what they are after is
what is opposite to them. So there's very much a
strong opposites attract model going on in birth order theory.
So the theory goes that only children gravitate towards last borns. Specifically,
(23:54):
if you're a woman who likes men, youngest sons or
if you're a man who likes women kind of get
the picture youngest children, where eldest and only children can
be quite mature, responsible, we're perfectionists, we're productive, we seek
out balance, and we're very level headed and mature. That
(24:15):
is sometimes complimented by someone who is easygoing, who is lively,
who is less neurotic, who is lighthearted, like a last born.
According to this really fabulous article by doctor Jennifer Hartstein,
she's a specialist in psychotherapy for children, adolescents and families,
(24:36):
only children are very sensible and conscientious, so they typically
like to take charge in the relationship. But the adventurous
nature of the last born and the spontaneity means that
they do balance each other out. Who do only children
clash with in dating, well, are the firstborns or only
(24:56):
children are the eldest children? Because you're kind of putting
these two opinionated, self directed people together, and sometimes they
forget that it's important to work together because they are
so used to being independent and wanting to do things
themselves or take charge. It's difficult to have two people
like that in a relationship. Please keep in mind any
(25:18):
two people can be compatible. And if you are currently
dating someone who is not a youngest child and you
are an only child, do not go and break up
with them. If you found love, you found love. It
doesn't really matter where someone is in the family. If
it works for you, it works for you. Because personality
and relationships and intimacy and love and general are influenced
(25:39):
by so many things. But it is really interesting to
see if this applies to you, who would applies to
and how we are continuously seeing these repeated relationship patterns
between only children and certain other members or birth order types. Okay,
let's shift gears. Let's talk about care. You know, if
(26:01):
we care about love the most, we definitely care about
career almost equally if not second. If you are an
only child, let's talk about the profile we have of
you so far. You are probably very intellectual and intelligent.
You are a high achiever, You're very logical, you take control,
you're motivated. Maybe you're a little bit of a lone wolf.
(26:23):
With that in mind, the potentially well suited careers for
only children, as given by birth order theory, include professions
that require intellectual stimulation, strong analytical skills, or a path
to success. So law, medicine or healthcare, science, engineering, technology,
(26:46):
or business management, finance. All of these involve strategic thinking.
All of them involve a lot of analytical work and focus,
and there is a path to, of course success. Thinking
about the only children I know in my own life, personally,
almost all of them work in finance and law. Of
(27:09):
course that is anecdotal, but in terms of this career stereotype,
this is totally making sense for me in what I'm
seeing in my own life. And all these skills make
them such an asset in a team, you know, they
make them such an asset as friends as well, like
the person who's going to come in with the game plan,
(27:30):
the person who is level headed in emotional situations, the
person who is innovative, who is responsible, who is a
problem solver. You know, as an eldest daughter, sometimes it's
nice to have a little bit of a teammate, and
normally that teammate is one of my only child friends.
One thing that also impacts career choices and impacts in
(27:50):
life paths. The life paths I should say of the
only child is their parents and the fact that they
feel a greater responsive ability to their parents. So only
children may actually find it harder to move away for work.
They may find it harder to travel and be spontaneous
(28:11):
because there's greater guilt associated with leaving your parents alone.
Considering you might sometimes feel like, oh, I'm all they have.
I found this really interesting Reddit story actually discussing the
burden of feeling like the sole caregiver for your parents
as they get older, and you know how hard it
(28:33):
is to I guess, embrace and acknowledge the fact that
they are aging. You know, when you have siblings, it
is something that you can face together, and it's something
whereby there is a sense of camaraderie around. Okay, so
what are we going to do with mom and dad?
Or what if they're not okay? What if they need
our help? You can manage it together. But for only children,
(28:59):
it's just you. It's just you, and that can put
a lot of pressure on your future plans and how
your parents factor in. So with that in mind, what
else do only children struggle with as part of this
unique birth order experience? If we're going all the way
back to childhood, A lot of only children do report
a sense of loneliness as children and really wanting to
(29:23):
have siblings, sometimes feeling quite envious of large families, feeling
envious of people who always had others around. They also
are more likely to have had to entertain themselves. That
factors into the imaginary friends thing. But yeah, they spend
a lot more time alone. There's goods and bads in
(29:45):
that experience. We've spoken about both of them. Depending on
your level of loneliness or isolation, it's really up to
you whether you think that was an asset or a downside.
You as an only child, were also more likely to
have very over involved parents. Now when we get to teenagehood,
(30:05):
when we become adolescents, this can be a challenge. During
this time, during between the ages of like thirteen and eighteen,
we go through a period of development in which we
really want to mark our own territory, create our own identity,
be an individual despite who our parents are, and so
(30:28):
we can kind of push back against the authority or
involvement of our parents. And that can be very, very
tricky when you are the only child, because your parents
are just in everything, They know everything about you, They're
in all your business. There is no distractions, and so
sometimes people do find that the pushback that is natural
(30:49):
for anyone in teenagehood, the pushback against the parents feels
like more of a point of tension and stress within
your family because there's no one else to mitigate that,
There's no one else to ease the tension. Another thing
that only children struggle with is that they are more
likely to be parentified. So parentification in psychology refers to
(31:12):
the experience whereby the role of the child and the
parent almost flips. So, you know, we would expect that
the parent is the one who takes care of the child,
not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. So
the parent is the one who hears the concerns, who
(31:32):
hears the troubles, and they then have their own support
network to support them. Parentification occurs when a parent turns
to their child and says, all right, you can be
my problem solver. You can be the parent in this situation.
Here are my problems, Here's what I'm worried about. Here's
our financial concerns, here's me and your dad, or me
(31:55):
and your mum's relationship problems. Fix them or hear about
them and feel like you need to fix them, even
if maybe that's not explicitly what I'm asking. Hopefully you
kind of get my gist. The child becomes the parent
and takes on the responsibilities of this role for the
person who's meant to be doing it for them. Now,
(32:15):
if you are the only child, you are probably extra
extra extra close to your parents, and so this parentification
is more likely to occur. Those are some of the
consequences of being an only child. Loneliness, pressure, the burden
of your parents, aging, the burden of over involved parents,
and parentification. There are some other factors, though, that influence
(32:39):
the only child experience, such that you can be an
only child but experience experience it very differently to the
next person because of the age of your parents. Maybe
you are the only child in one family but your
parents separated and you have step siblings. Maybe you have
a lot of cousins, And so I'm telling you all
(33:01):
these things and facts about who you were meant to be,
and you're thinking, none of this relates to me, because
actually you didn't have an only child experience. You had
a very unique experience where yes, you were the only
technical child in your family, but you had a lot
of other children around you. So if I were to
compare you to an only child who lived in the
(33:23):
rural countryside and only ever saw adults, compared to an
only child who lives in the city and goes to
like a big school and their cousins live next door,
you are going to turn out differently. And it may
explain why some of the only child traits that we
typically expect aren't very common in large communities where children
(33:46):
are raised by everyone. It gives the impression, it gives
the experience of growing up with a bunch of other
people and having to factor in their personalities and their
desires in a way that a singular only child in
a more isolated environment wouldn't have to do. There's one
final unique experience that it's quite sad, and it's when
(34:08):
you are an only child because your sibling has passed
that can give you some extreme survivors guilt and all
that pressure, all that expectation, the over involved, maybe helicopter
nature of your parents can be exacerbated. The survivor's guilt
(34:28):
in particular could be particularly strong if you know the
passing of your sibling has made you an only child,
because now you really do feel like you have to
make all of your experiences worth it. You have to
live in life for both of you, and you have
to be two children for your parents almost you have
to make sure that you meet all their expectations. It's
(34:52):
a very complex emotional and psychological experience and we truly
need to do a whole episode on it. So if
that's something you would like, please reach out to me
so yeah, I can get a sense of it. Again,
we should avoid overgeneralizing about an only child and who
they will become. But something I do want us to
(35:13):
all come away with is that being an only child.
You know, this was once a unique and somewhat stigmatized experience.
Now it's becoming not only so much more common, but
it's an asset without a doubt. Only children are such
an asset. I say this all the time, but no
one's personality has no value. Each of us fills a
(35:37):
space society needs to be filled. We need different ways
of thinking and seeing the world, We need different ways
of problem solving, a lot of which is brought on
by our different childhood environments and personalities and experiences. There's
a great book actually by an environmental scientist slash activist
(36:01):
called Bill mckibbon, and he basically argues that more people
should be considering only having one child, and that we
should ignore this idea that they are lonely or difficult
or selfish, because the research proves time and time again
that in general they're not any more of these things
(36:24):
compared to the average child. And even if these are
experiences you sometimes have where you are lonely or you
do struggle with working with other people. Actually, in the
large part of this debate, the debate of is it
worth only having one child, most people will say the
benefits totally outweigh any downsides, and being an only child
(36:49):
is actually quite a favorable childhood environment because here you
are with all the love and attention and resources of
two parents, or even one parent who is incredibly devoted
to you and thinks you are incredible. Okay, guys, We've
talked about a lot so far, but we always have
(37:09):
time for more, and we always have time for our
listener questions to touch on the more niche parts of
this topic we can't always get to. So go have
a little tea break, have a little pause, and we
will be right back. When I posted on my Instagram
(37:31):
story that I was doing an episode on only children,
I already said, you guys went nuts for it, and
I got so many questions, so many brilliant questions. Thank
you so much. It was very, very hard to choose.
But we're just gonna do four or five today, and yeah,
really sink our teeth into them. I really loved this
(37:51):
first question because I didn't really hear anyone else ask
about this, but I feel like it's something that might
be a common difficulty. So this is the question, how
do you learn how to deal with fights and drama
between siblings when you're an only child? Because my boyfriend
and his sister fight constantly and it bothers me so much.
(38:14):
I had never thought about this. If you are an
only child, you have never had to deal with having
savage fights with your siblings. Now, I'm guessing you can
tell by the way I said that it's actually totally
normal to a degree. Obviously, if it is toxic and
unsustainable and tearing a relationship apart, and if it's continuing
(38:37):
way into adulthood and unnecessarily lengths and frequency and intensity,
probably not good. But the average sibling fight is pretty
short lived, and it can seem really intense, but it's
not because we have had so much We've had so
much practice, We have had so much practice fighting with
(39:00):
each other and getting on each other's nerves. Sometimes it's
just a way of releasing tension. Sometimes, even like having
a little fight or baker with your sibling is kind
of a sign of love. My biggest advice to you
as an only child looking at the situation being like
this is so abnormal and weird, is to disengage. Don't
get involved, don't give advice, don't try and mediate. Trust me,
(39:26):
it's like getting between two dogs that are fighting, Like
you're just gonna get hurt. It's just going to be
projected on you. This is a sibling thing. Unless your
boyfriend asks for advice, unless he is seriously emotionally or
mentally distressed by arguments he's having with his sister, just
let them sort it out, and I promise you this
(39:48):
is the other factor in this. It gets better with age,
and it gets better with time because they will start
seeing more eye to eye, and as we get older,
we just get less snappy and irritable. Especially I'm thinking
about my relationship with my siblings. Oh gosh, we fought
so much when we were kids, and like it was
violent and it was aggressive and it was intense. But
(40:08):
nowadays we are a lot better because we've matured, so
it will get better with time. You're doing a great job.
I'm sure it's scary. Just disengage and let them sort
their own shit out. The second question I got from
a listener, do only children's brains develop any differently to
people with siblings? No, No, there we go. That's the answer.
(40:30):
Being an only sibling comes down to nurture. It's part
of your environment, not part of your nature. And nature
genetic blueprint cellular blueprint is normally what influences, well, not normally,
it is what influences and determines how your brain will develop.
(40:50):
Only children and eldest children, middle children, youngest children. If
I put their brains in front of a scientist, they
would not be able to distinguish between them. Our third
question are the differences between only children raised by both
parents compared to a single parent. I think I mentioned
(41:12):
slightly mentioned this before, but I'm very glad that we
got a specific question on it because it's an excellent question.
I think being a single parent is tough because sometimes
you feel like you have to do the job of
two parents, not really realizing that the love you're giving
is totally enough. If you are an only child with
(41:34):
a single parent, you may find that you have a
much more extremely close bond compared to some of your
friends or some examples that you see. You know, one
of my sister's best friends is an only child to
a single parent, and wow, that her relationship with her
mum is so beautiful and wonderful. And you know what,
(41:57):
me and my mom are most certainly not that close.
And I'm happy to admit that there is also an
increased chance of that parentification dynamic taking place, because obviously
if it's if you have a single parent, especially if
your mom or your dad is not dating anyone, or
doesn't have that large of a support network or hasn't remarried,
(42:20):
you kind of become their emotional support system. You become
something that they can rely on. I don't think it's
their fault, right, it's just because they're so close to you,
and they love you and they trust you, and they
don't have anyone else to lean on. You can become
the adult sometimes in that situation. So it's something definitely
(42:41):
to watch out for. I think also the financial constraints
of having an only sorry having a single parent as
an only child maybe more intense, potentially leading to more
stress and earlier independence. We already know that only children
are quite independent. Having a single parent may increase that
as well. The parent may be more protective, There may
(43:04):
be more pressure, more pressure to succeed. You may feel
great responsibility to be everything for the parent, and sometimes
you may be more lonely because you know if your
single parent has to work, you may have to hang
out at home more. You may have the house to
yourself more instead of having you know both your parents
(43:25):
there taking it in turns, or being more present for you.
I will say I don't think that there is any
difference in long term outcomes. Single parent two parents doesn't
really matter as long as they really as long as
they love you and care about you, you can have
one parent, and they're going to do the job of
seven parents. They could do the job of ten parents
if they are a great parent. So yeah, I love
(43:48):
this question. Those are the differences I could immediately think of.
This next question is funny. Why is it that every
only child I've met has fit the stereotype of being
a little bit spoiled. This is so funny because obviously
we've broken this down. I think it's confirmation bias. I
think it's confirmation bias. I think that you have been
(44:10):
told that this is what to expect from these types
of individuals, and so now you only pay attention to
their behavior, or to the behavior that meets your expectation,
not the behaviors that don't. So, for example, the times
when your only child friend or your only children friends
are not selfish, or are not jealous, or are not dominating,
(44:32):
which is probably the majority of the time, you know
that you don't really pay attention to that as much
as the times when they are, and those times that
they are, which we all have, feel more significant to you,
so they become the whole reality. It may also just
be that that's just who they are. It doesn't have
anything to do with being an only child. There just
(44:54):
are kind of your friends just happen to be a
bit selfish. Maybe it's the impact of culture or contact. Next,
it may simply be that the only children you're meeting
are just better at advocating for themselves, and sometimes we
confuse that with being spoilt or selfish. So a couple
of options there for answers. So the final question I
(45:16):
got is do only children wish they had siblings? Now
I'm not an only child, so I can't answer this.
I want to hear from you guys. I want to
pose this question to the listeners because I want to
answer it as much as the person who posed it
as an only child? Do you wish you had siblings?
(45:37):
Are you envious of people who have siblings? Do you
feel like you've missed out? Also, remember to drop your
imaginary friend name so that we can get a little
gang going in the comments section. Have a little community
of imaginaries going on. And honestly, I think, with that
question in mind that I'm posing to you all, I
(45:57):
have nothing else to say. I think that's all my
fact figures and research for the day on only children.
But I actually loved, loved, loved putting this episode together.
The research is so fascinating. I loved diving into the
history of our stereotypes. I loved diving into the dating
and the career advice and information that I got from
far and wide. So if you enjoyed this episode, share
(46:20):
it with another only child friend you may have. Share
it to your story. Even better, leave a five star
review the best and make sure you're following along for
when new episodes come out. We've got so much cool
stuff leading up to the book being in your hands,
so I can't wait for you all to tune in,
And until next time, stay safe, be kind, and be
(46:42):
gentle with yourself above all else. We will talk very
very soon.
Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in
the world, it is so great to have you here,
back for another episode as we, of course break down
the psychology of our twenties. Today, we have finally arrived
at the lucky last in our birth Order series. If
(00:23):
you've been tuned in for a while over the last
six months, I would say we've done like a dedicated
episode for every sibling in the family, so eldest, middle, youngest,
and in my last Birth Order episode, I said the
youngest child would be the last episode we would do.
And boy, oh boy, did I hear your outrage. I
(00:46):
heard and got so many dms from you all and
emails demanding that I do an episode on the youngest
child and my friends. I'm so sorry that I forgot
about you, but I have listened and I got my
research inter gear to deliver you the episode you all
wanted so much. So for all of you who messaged
me asking for this, I promise I did not forget.
(01:09):
The only child is just so special that they needed
their own dedicated week in dedicated episode. And here it is.
This is it with the amount of families, I think
choosing to have only one child in this day and age, honestly,
we need to talk about it more right because the
research is getting more and more interesting by the day,
(01:29):
and more subjects are becoming available, and only children are
becoming so much more common. We've also had an entire
country where they basically did an experiment on only children,
as in, like you think about China's one child policy.
They were like this perfect experimental condition where so many
people obviously only had one child, and it's this rare
(01:51):
opportunity to really see how this experience of growing up,
you know, as the only child, as the only child
in the family normally with the full attention of your
true parents does impact your personality. I also want to
discuss some of the stereotypes about only children, the long
(02:12):
standing stereotypes, and how they are actually deeply incorrect and
why they have come to be. We're also going to
discuss only child and parent dynamics, the pressure of needing
to take care of your parents as you get older, parentification,
also the different kinds of situations that may also impact
(02:34):
the only child experience, so being the only child in
a single person household, being the only child, but having
step siblings, having lots of cousins. There's so many ways
this can go. We're going to hopefully tackle every single
one of them. You know, I don't like to ramble
too much at the beginning of these birth order episodes
because I always end up spoiling some of the best
(02:55):
parts in like the first five minutes, So I'm not
going to do that here. I'm going to the psychology
and the research speak for itself. So without further ado,
let's break down the unique and fascinating psychology of only children.
So let's do a quick recap of birth order theory,
(03:18):
the argument for it but also against it. If you
are a loyal listener and you have kept up to
date with the whole series, firstly, thank you so much.
But secondly, this might sound just a wee bit repetitive
because we have spoken about it a little bit. Feel
free to jump ahead, like five to seven minutes to
where we get into the juicy stuff. But for those
(03:38):
of you who don't know what birth order theory is, basically,
it is a major theory on human personality. Now, personality,
we typically think of it as being shaped by two things,
nature and nurture. So we are obviously a product of genetics,
but we are also a product of parenting style and
(04:01):
food and country of birth and so many things. But essentially,
all the things that scientists and researchers believe impact our
personality can either be from our environment or from our nature.
So our genetic blueprint who we were born to be. Now,
the position we are born into in a family, and
whether we have siblings or not, that is part of
(04:24):
our environment, and it falls into the nurture category. It
influences our personality because of how it impacts how we
are raised and experienced the world as children, which leaves
an impression and impact that carries on into adulthood. The
thing that really defines the only child experience is that
they don't obviously have siblings. It's their I guess, solitude, isolation,
(04:52):
their singularity. That is the thing that is the kind
of point of fascination for a lot of researchers. It
is just them. So our examination of what might influence
the personality of an only child comes down to the
absence of siblings rather than the presence of siblings, as
it does for eldest, middle and youngest children. So back
(05:14):
to this theory. The man who developed birth order theory
was a man named Alfred Adler, and he was known
for a lot of things in his time. You may
have heard of him because of the inferiority complex. That's
one of the other famous ones. He was very busy
during the mid nineteen hundreds, but birth order theory is
probably what he's most well known for. And again, it
(05:37):
basically says that being the oldest, youngest, middle or only
child will affect what characteristics and traits you develop over time,
both when you are a child, when you're a teenager,
and as an adult. Let's be very very clear, birth
order theory is not a medical prescription. It is not
(05:57):
going to offer you any kind of psychological diagnosis. It
is a theory and a theory with gaps at that
with exceptions, with flaws, like any other theory. And you know,
large scientific studies on this theory are really difficult to conduct.
One did take place in twenty fifteen, and it did
(06:19):
find that it's very hard to get a diverse enough
amount of people, or to get enough people who want
to participate to really sometimes draw conclusions. And so we
do need to be careful about pigeonholing people purely based
on the position in the family they were born in
and whether or not they have siblings. I think that's
(06:41):
worth noting at the top of the episode, You're going
to hear a lot of ideas today. They are not
strict ideas. They do not determine exactly the person you are.
In my mind, discussing birth order theory really fills the
same role as talking about personality tests. They're really fun,
they use, and they do provide a structure or guide
(07:02):
for better understanding where we sit in relation to others,
and they do help us better understand the traits within
ourselves and the things that we may not have considered
about the way we are. But taking a personality test
and then saying well, that's everything I'm ever going to
be is not the healthiest thing. Neither is listening to
(07:22):
an episode like this and saying, Okay, well, I'm an
only child, so this is my destiny. I always want
to be somewhat cautious when discussing birth order theory because
it does exist in a much larger ecosystem of factors, ideas, events,
situations that impact why we are the way we are.
In my personal experience. Though I am the eldest child,
(07:43):
I'm the eldest daughter, and I have found that a
lot of what people say about me as an oldest
child does really apply, and a lot of what people
say about my middle sister and my younger sister also
really apply. So anecdotally, I do tend to believe some
of the theories propositions. But let's now turn to the
(08:06):
star of the show, the only child. Let's start by
talking about the stereotypes or what pop culture would have
to say about only children and how they're routinely depicted.
The portrayed or expected traits of an only child that
you might commonly hear about are typically based on the
fact that they are the only child in the house.
(08:29):
Because of their family dynamic or structure, only children typically
spend a more time alone and second to that be
more time in the company of adults compared to someone
with siblings. Because they are their parents' only child, we
also expect that they get more attention. You know, someone
(08:50):
with two or three or four siblings will rarely have
the undervoted attention of both parents for very long, but
for an only child that might be quite typical. It
has a lot of upsides. It also has some downsides,
which we'll talk about later. It's not just the time commitment,
it's also money, care, resources, presence. All of those things
(09:16):
kind of lead people to think of only children as
quite spoilt. They're quite spoilt, they're a little bit diva ish.
That's kind of the profile that we typically think of.
I honestly think that's kind of funny, Like, you know,
having more love from your parents is somehow a bad
(09:37):
thing and like makes you spoilt. Like I don't see
how exactly that makes sense, Like, oh, you have more love?
Like fuck you, Like what's your problem? You know what
I mean. But that's sometimes what people tend to think.
And you know, in comparison to someone with siblings, people
might call that overindulged. People have really suggested that this
(09:58):
is particularly evident, this over endulgulg spoilt nature when these
children are around other kids, because they haven't learned how
to share, they haven't learned how to compromise. They're used
to getting what they want. That's the general profile of
the only child. Let's mythbust this assumption for a second,
because it turns out this actually has no scientific basis.
(10:23):
This has no basis. Only children are not more spoilt,
they're not more stuck up. This stereotype in theory or myth,
actually dates back to propaganda used during an era in
the US and in Europe where birth rates were declining
after World War Two. Population growth was stagnant or had fallen,
(10:46):
and these governments needed to convince people to have as
many babies as possible. Now, they did this in a
few ways, and one way that they did do it
was by essentially creating this idea or promoting this research
that if you only have one child, your child is
going to end up jealous, selfish, dominating other people, very jealous,
(11:11):
they're going to end up with someone who doesn't know
how to behave And you know, back then, manners were
literally everything, and so that did kind of scare people
into thinking, well, am I really giving my child a
good life if I'm not giving them a sibling. Where
did they even get this idea from. Well, according to
the American Psychological Association, it came from a paper from
(11:36):
the end of the eighteen hundreds, I think eighteen ninety
eight titled a Study of Peculiar and Exceptional Children. And
this study was based on the observations of a psychiatrist
at the time who saw a bunch of kids and
reported that more and more he only saw only children.
The majority of his clients were only children, and he
(11:58):
concluded that you, given so many of these only children
needed to see him, they must be particularly at risk
of what we would nowadays what was then called neuroticism,
what we would now call poor mental health or mental illness.
So that's what he kind of drew from his shallow
observations of the fifty to seventy clients that he saw. Now,
(12:22):
for my psychology students, you are probably seeing some huge
problems with this study, because this is a great example
of what happens when you don't control for your extraneous
and confounding variables and you don't have a proper randomized sample.
This man was basing all of his conclusions only on
(12:43):
what he saw at his very small practice, And it
turns out there was a much more plausible explanation for
why this trend had emerged. Why he was seeing so
many only children. It wasn't because kids without siblings were
more troubled or malae adjusted. It was simply because their
parents were highly vigilant. All of their focus was on
(13:07):
this kid, and if they saw something they couldn't understand
or had trouble dealing with, they sought help to try
and comprehend it. You now, if you have four or
five seven children, that's so much harder to do. It's
so much harder to just notice small moments of unhappiness
or small quirks that you think need addressing. A lot
(13:29):
of that gets lost in the noise and the busyness. Actually,
this is the truth. Only children tend to have more
advanced lingual and reasoning skills and do better on IQ
tests early in life because of the gift of their
parents full attention. This can also sometimes be actually overwhelming
for them because there's a lot of pressure to succeed
(13:51):
and to do well, which we will obviously get to
a little bit later on. But essentially, there is no
correlation between being an only child and our level of
entitlement or anything like that. In fact, to give you
further evidence of this, a study was conducted at the
University of Alabama a little while ago, and this the
(14:12):
researchers got almost nine thousand college students and administered what
we call a measure of narcissism or a measure sorry,
or a narcissism test. So basically, they had all these
students and they said, we're going to give you a
couple of quizzes I guess, one of which was a
narcissism test, and there was no difference in performance on
(14:33):
that test who was labeled a narcissist between people who
grew up as an only child versus people who grew
up with siblings. Similarly, a nineteen eighty seven qualitative review
of one hundred and forty one studies on sixteen different
personality traits also failed to support the opinion that only
children are more maladjusted, spoil entitled, and need more pampering.
(14:59):
There was no evidence, no evidence of that at all.
So what do we know about the personalities of only
children now that we've gotten over those myths. Well, first off,
we know that only children are typically more emotionally and
socially sensitive and mature. If you spend most of your
(15:19):
time with adults growing up, you mimic their behavior and
learn social cues from them the way that you otherwise
would have mimicked the behavior of siblings or other children.
So only children learn very early on how to get
along with adults. They have more advanced social skills, and
that is a huge advantage as they grow up and
(15:41):
they become teenagers and twenty somethings in adults, because their
social sensitivity for getting along in the adult world is
typically more well developed. Sometimes that can actually make it
harder for them to make friends with people their own age,
or to day eight people their own age, or to
(16:02):
just feel like a kid and really sink deeply into
the age and phase they are at. You know, you
might be eighteen nineteen twenty one and everyone's going out
and getting drunk, and you might not feel like you're
made for that because you've had this advanced sense of
maturity for so long. Only children are also typically perfectionists,
(16:24):
very similar to eldest children. Actually, eldest and only children
share a lot of similar traits and experiences, which is
why I think I get only children so deeply, because
you know, an eldest child has at some stage been
the only child before their siblings came along and made
them the eldest, So our early experiences are probably very similar.
(16:47):
And the only child and eldest child typically do both
find that they face extreme pressure from their parents to
be successful because a lot of their hopes and dreams
right on them. They might face our greater academic pressure,
greater physical pressure, all these kinds of things your parents.
(17:10):
I guess the reason why this happens is because your parents,
and I hate to use this phrase, but it does
come easiest if you're an only child. They don't have
a backup, and so all their ambitions are concentrated in you.
It's only natural, you know, even parents who don't say
it out loud still secretly want their child to succeed,
(17:30):
not just for their child's sake, but also so they
can kind of say, hey, look at that, here's proof
that I was a good parent, that I did a
good job because my child has succeeded. Normally, that is
diffused over a couple of children, and if you don't
have any other siblings, it means that it's all going
to be concentrated on you. And that is a whole
(17:53):
lot of pressure that translates to very high personal expectations,
which I'm sure I don't have to tell you twice.
In fact, the same study from nineteen eighty seven that
disproved the spoilt Brat myth about only children did find
that they do possess higher achievement related motivation and higher
(18:15):
levels of perfectionism. That can be very difficult to manage.
And it's not just that our parents are putting pressure
on us, but that eventually we do begin to put
pressure on ourselves and feel like output and whatever we
produce achievements is all we are worth. Here's some slightly
better news, though, only children are actually more content with
(18:37):
their own company. So that's great in a day and
age when you know a lot of people are saying
we're experiencing a loneliness epidemic. Being able to enjoy your
own company and space is one hundred percent an asset.
There was a really fascinating study I actually discovered in
researching this episode that only children are actually more likely
(18:59):
to have imaginary friends when they're younger to entertain themselves.
And as we grow up, the parts of us that
can imagine things to keep us busy and entertained and happy,
they don't go away, so we can become quite creative. Actually,
if you are an only child, please let me know.
Tell me if you had any imaginary friends growing up,
(19:22):
and like what their names were, so you can help
me confirm some of these findings. You know, I love
hearing about this from people because kids are Seriously, they
have the craziest imaginations. When I was a kid, before
my sisters were born, and I was an only child
for five years, I did have an imaginary friend called
Oslan who was a lion, and he lived in this
(19:46):
land I had created, and he would come from that
land and like sleep in my closet when I was
going to sleep and take care of me. I have
such vivid memories memories of him, like, and I say
memories right, Like, it's not like we made these memories,
such vivid visions of this character. Sometimes it feels like
a movie. So if you can relate and you had
(20:07):
an imaginary friend growing up, drop their name in the
comment below, tell us about this imaginary friend. Let their
like legend live on in our minds as well. Only children,
if you hadn't already guessed it as well, are quite
creative because of this, and quite independent. In fact, most
only children will say they prefer to complete tasks alone.
(20:31):
One downside of this is that sometimes they can struggle
with joint decision making. Not because they are bossy or arrogant, no,
but because they just haven't had to do it so
much growing up, they can find it hard to compromise.
And by finding it hard to compromise, I mean they
can either give way too much or give in too little.
(20:56):
A struggle with shared decision making or joint decision making
could impact some people's long term relationships. Now I'm going
to talk about this next study for a second. Please
take it with a grain of salt. Remember what we
said at the top of the episode. This is not destiny,
but study using data from more than fifty seven thousand
(21:17):
people collected by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research
Center between I think it was like forty years or
like the seventies and the twenty tens. They did find
that only children were slightly more likely to get divorced
than people with siblings, and they attributed it to difficulty
with shared decision making. So what they found in their
(21:40):
study or their research was that each additional sibling is
associated with a three percent drop in the chance of divorce.
Sounds very significant, but people with lots of siblings are
also less likely to get married. I'll also say this
is from seven thousand people. That does sound like a
(22:02):
lot of people, But that is over forty thousand years,
and it's aggregated, and it's not a prescription to you
and you only because within that group there were also
a lot of only children whose marriages were absolutely incredible.
So it is limited and it's just data. It tells
a story, but not necessarily your story. So with all
(22:26):
of this in mind, if we put all these findings
together and then dig even deeper, what does being an
only child predict or maybe tell us about ourselves from
dating to careers to parent child relationships and what do
we struggle with. We're going to go on a tiny
little break here, but when we return, we have so
(22:47):
much more to uncover and discuss, so please stay with us.
So a big part of birth order theories appear well
is that some people claim it can predict aspects of
your life, like what kind of person you should date,
(23:07):
who you'd be happiest with, what job you'd be happiest in.
I'm not one hundred percent convinced, because there are always exceptions,
but some of the predictions made by birth order theory
are actually scarily accurate. So let's talk about what it
says about only children when it comes to dating. As
an only child, and we've mentioned this a few times
(23:29):
in this episode. Eldest children and only children typically are
after similar things, and often what they are after is
what is opposite to them. So there's very much a
strong opposites attract model going on in birth order theory.
So the theory goes that only children gravitate towards last borns. Specifically,
(23:54):
if you're a woman who likes men, youngest sons or
if you're a man who likes women kind of get
the picture youngest children, where eldest and only children can
be quite mature, responsible, we're perfectionists, we're productive, we seek
out balance, and we're very level headed and mature. That
(24:15):
is sometimes complimented by someone who is easygoing, who is lively,
who is less neurotic, who is lighthearted, like a last born.
According to this really fabulous article by doctor Jennifer Hartstein,
she's a specialist in psychotherapy for children, adolescents and families,
(24:36):
only children are very sensible and conscientious, so they typically
like to take charge in the relationship. But the adventurous
nature of the last born and the spontaneity means that
they do balance each other out. Who do only children
clash with in dating, well, are the firstborns or only
(24:56):
children are the eldest children? Because you're kind of putting
these two opinionated, self directed people together, and sometimes they
forget that it's important to work together because they are
so used to being independent and wanting to do things
themselves or take charge. It's difficult to have two people
like that in a relationship. Please keep in mind any
(25:18):
two people can be compatible. And if you are currently
dating someone who is not a youngest child and you
are an only child, do not go and break up
with them. If you found love, you found love. It
doesn't really matter where someone is in the family. If
it works for you, it works for you. Because personality
and relationships and intimacy and love and general are influenced
(25:39):
by so many things. But it is really interesting to
see if this applies to you, who would applies to
and how we are continuously seeing these repeated relationship patterns
between only children and certain other members or birth order types. Okay,
let's shift gears. Let's talk about care. You know, if
(26:01):
we care about love the most, we definitely care about
career almost equally if not second. If you are an
only child, let's talk about the profile we have of
you so far. You are probably very intellectual and intelligent.
You are a high achiever, You're very logical, you take control,
you're motivated. Maybe you're a little bit of a lone wolf.
(26:23):
With that in mind, the potentially well suited careers for
only children, as given by birth order theory, include professions
that require intellectual stimulation, strong analytical skills, or a path
to success. So law, medicine or healthcare, science, engineering, technology,
(26:46):
or business management, finance. All of these involve strategic thinking.
All of them involve a lot of analytical work and focus,
and there is a path to, of course success. Thinking
about the only children I know in my own life, personally,
almost all of them work in finance and law. Of
(27:09):
course that is anecdotal, but in terms of this career stereotype,
this is totally making sense for me in what I'm
seeing in my own life. And all these skills make
them such an asset in a team, you know, they
make them such an asset as friends as well, like
the person who's going to come in with the game plan,
(27:30):
the person who is level headed in emotional situations, the
person who is innovative, who is responsible, who is a
problem solver. You know, as an eldest daughter, sometimes it's
nice to have a little bit of a teammate, and
normally that teammate is one of my only child friends.
One thing that also impacts career choices and impacts in
(27:50):
life paths. The life paths I should say of the
only child is their parents and the fact that they
feel a greater responsive ability to their parents. So only
children may actually find it harder to move away for work.
They may find it harder to travel and be spontaneous
(28:11):
because there's greater guilt associated with leaving your parents alone.
Considering you might sometimes feel like, oh, I'm all they have.
I found this really interesting Reddit story actually discussing the
burden of feeling like the sole caregiver for your parents
as they get older, and you know how hard it
(28:33):
is to I guess, embrace and acknowledge the fact that
they are aging. You know, when you have siblings, it
is something that you can face together, and it's something
whereby there is a sense of camaraderie around. Okay, so
what are we going to do with mom and dad?
Or what if they're not okay? What if they need
our help? You can manage it together. But for only children,
(28:59):
it's just you. It's just you, and that can put
a lot of pressure on your future plans and how
your parents factor in. So with that in mind, what
else do only children struggle with as part of this
unique birth order experience? If we're going all the way
back to childhood, A lot of only children do report
a sense of loneliness as children and really wanting to
(29:23):
have siblings, sometimes feeling quite envious of large families, feeling
envious of people who always had others around. They also
are more likely to have had to entertain themselves. That
factors into the imaginary friends thing. But yeah, they spend
a lot more time alone. There's goods and bads in
(29:45):
that experience. We've spoken about both of them. Depending on
your level of loneliness or isolation, it's really up to
you whether you think that was an asset or a downside.
You as an only child, were also more likely to
have very over involved parents. Now when we get to teenagehood,
(30:05):
when we become adolescents, this can be a challenge. During
this time, during between the ages of like thirteen and eighteen,
we go through a period of development in which we
really want to mark our own territory, create our own identity,
be an individual despite who our parents are, and so
(30:28):
we can kind of push back against the authority or
involvement of our parents. And that can be very, very
tricky when you are the only child, because your parents
are just in everything, They know everything about you, They're
in all your business. There is no distractions, and so
sometimes people do find that the pushback that is natural
(30:49):
for anyone in teenagehood, the pushback against the parents feels
like more of a point of tension and stress within
your family because there's no one else to mitigate that,
There's no one else to ease the tension. Another thing
that only children struggle with is that they are more
likely to be parentified. So parentification in psychology refers to
(31:12):
the experience whereby the role of the child and the
parent almost flips. So, you know, we would expect that
the parent is the one who takes care of the child,
not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. So
the parent is the one who hears the concerns, who
(31:32):
hears the troubles, and they then have their own support
network to support them. Parentification occurs when a parent turns
to their child and says, all right, you can be
my problem solver. You can be the parent in this situation.
Here are my problems, Here's what I'm worried about. Here's
our financial concerns, here's me and your dad, or me
(31:55):
and your mum's relationship problems. Fix them or hear about
them and feel like you need to fix them, even
if maybe that's not explicitly what I'm asking. Hopefully you
kind of get my gist. The child becomes the parent
and takes on the responsibilities of this role for the
person who's meant to be doing it for them. Now,
(32:15):
if you are the only child, you are probably extra
extra extra close to your parents, and so this parentification
is more likely to occur. Those are some of the
consequences of being an only child. Loneliness, pressure, the burden
of your parents, aging, the burden of over involved parents,
and parentification. There are some other factors, though, that influence
(32:39):
the only child experience, such that you can be an
only child but experience experience it very differently to the
next person because of the age of your parents. Maybe
you are the only child in one family but your
parents separated and you have step siblings. Maybe you have
a lot of cousins, And so I'm telling you all
(33:01):
these things and facts about who you were meant to be,
and you're thinking, none of this relates to me, because
actually you didn't have an only child experience. You had
a very unique experience where yes, you were the only
technical child in your family, but you had a lot
of other children around you. So if I were to
compare you to an only child who lived in the
(33:23):
rural countryside and only ever saw adults, compared to an
only child who lives in the city and goes to
like a big school and their cousins live next door,
you are going to turn out differently. And it may
explain why some of the only child traits that we
typically expect aren't very common in large communities where children
(33:46):
are raised by everyone. It gives the impression, it gives
the experience of growing up with a bunch of other
people and having to factor in their personalities and their
desires in a way that a singular only child in
a more isolated environment wouldn't have to do. There's one
final unique experience that it's quite sad, and it's when
(34:08):
you are an only child because your sibling has passed
that can give you some extreme survivors guilt and all
that pressure, all that expectation, the over involved, maybe helicopter
nature of your parents can be exacerbated. The survivor's guilt
(34:28):
in particular could be particularly strong if you know the
passing of your sibling has made you an only child,
because now you really do feel like you have to
make all of your experiences worth it. You have to
live in life for both of you, and you have
to be two children for your parents almost you have
to make sure that you meet all their expectations. It's
(34:52):
a very complex emotional and psychological experience and we truly
need to do a whole episode on it. So if
that's something you would like, please reach out to me
so yeah, I can get a sense of it. Again,
we should avoid overgeneralizing about an only child and who
they will become. But something I do want us to
(35:13):
all come away with is that being an only child.
You know, this was once a unique and somewhat stigmatized experience.
Now it's becoming not only so much more common, but
it's an asset without a doubt. Only children are such
an asset. I say this all the time, but no
one's personality has no value. Each of us fills a
(35:37):
space society needs to be filled. We need different ways
of thinking and seeing the world, We need different ways
of problem solving, a lot of which is brought on
by our different childhood environments and personalities and experiences. There's
a great book actually by an environmental scientist slash activist
(36:01):
called Bill mckibbon, and he basically argues that more people
should be considering only having one child, and that we
should ignore this idea that they are lonely or difficult
or selfish, because the research proves time and time again
that in general they're not any more of these things
(36:24):
compared to the average child. And even if these are
experiences you sometimes have where you are lonely or you
do struggle with working with other people. Actually, in the
large part of this debate, the debate of is it
worth only having one child, most people will say the
benefits totally outweigh any downsides, and being an only child
(36:49):
is actually quite a favorable childhood environment because here you
are with all the love and attention and resources of
two parents, or even one parent who is incredibly devoted
to you and thinks you are incredible. Okay, guys, We've
talked about a lot so far, but we always have
(37:09):
time for more, and we always have time for our
listener questions to touch on the more niche parts of
this topic we can't always get to. So go have
a little tea break, have a little pause, and we
will be right back. When I posted on my Instagram
(37:31):
story that I was doing an episode on only children,
I already said, you guys went nuts for it, and
I got so many questions, so many brilliant questions. Thank
you so much. It was very, very hard to choose.
But we're just gonna do four or five today, and yeah,
really sink our teeth into them. I really loved this
(37:51):
first question because I didn't really hear anyone else ask
about this, but I feel like it's something that might
be a common difficulty. So this is the question, how
do you learn how to deal with fights and drama
between siblings when you're an only child? Because my boyfriend
and his sister fight constantly and it bothers me so much.
(38:14):
I had never thought about this. If you are an
only child, you have never had to deal with having
savage fights with your siblings. Now, I'm guessing you can
tell by the way I said that it's actually totally
normal to a degree. Obviously, if it is toxic and
unsustainable and tearing a relationship apart, and if it's continuing
(38:37):
way into adulthood and unnecessarily lengths and frequency and intensity,
probably not good. But the average sibling fight is pretty
short lived, and it can seem really intense, but it's
not because we have had so much We've had so
much practice, We have had so much practice fighting with
(39:00):
each other and getting on each other's nerves. Sometimes it's
just a way of releasing tension. Sometimes, even like having
a little fight or baker with your sibling is kind
of a sign of love. My biggest advice to you
as an only child looking at the situation being like
this is so abnormal and weird, is to disengage. Don't
get involved, don't give advice, don't try and mediate. Trust me,
(39:26):
it's like getting between two dogs that are fighting, Like
you're just gonna get hurt. It's just going to be
projected on you. This is a sibling thing. Unless your
boyfriend asks for advice, unless he is seriously emotionally or
mentally distressed by arguments he's having with his sister, just
let them sort it out, and I promise you this
(39:48):
is the other factor in this. It gets better with age,
and it gets better with time because they will start
seeing more eye to eye, and as we get older,
we just get less snappy and irritable. Especially I'm thinking
about my relationship with my siblings. Oh gosh, we fought
so much when we were kids, and like it was
violent and it was aggressive and it was intense. But
(40:08):
nowadays we are a lot better because we've matured, so
it will get better with time. You're doing a great job.
I'm sure it's scary. Just disengage and let them sort
their own shit out. The second question I got from
a listener, do only children's brains develop any differently to
people with siblings? No, No, there we go. That's the answer.
(40:30):
Being an only sibling comes down to nurture. It's part
of your environment, not part of your nature. And nature
genetic blueprint cellular blueprint is normally what influences, well, not normally,
it is what influences and determines how your brain will develop.
(40:50):
Only children and eldest children, middle children, youngest children. If
I put their brains in front of a scientist, they
would not be able to distinguish between them. Our third
question are the differences between only children raised by both
parents compared to a single parent. I think I mentioned
(41:12):
slightly mentioned this before, but I'm very glad that we
got a specific question on it because it's an excellent question.
I think being a single parent is tough because sometimes
you feel like you have to do the job of
two parents, not really realizing that the love you're giving
is totally enough. If you are an only child with
(41:34):
a single parent, you may find that you have a
much more extremely close bond compared to some of your
friends or some examples that you see. You know, one
of my sister's best friends is an only child to
a single parent, and wow, that her relationship with her
mum is so beautiful and wonderful. And you know what,
(41:57):
me and my mom are most certainly not that close.
And I'm happy to admit that there is also an
increased chance of that parentification dynamic taking place, because obviously
if it's if you have a single parent, especially if
your mom or your dad is not dating anyone, or
doesn't have that large of a support network or hasn't remarried,
(42:20):
you kind of become their emotional support system. You become
something that they can rely on. I don't think it's
their fault, right, it's just because they're so close to you,
and they love you and they trust you, and they
don't have anyone else to lean on. You can become
the adult sometimes in that situation. So it's something definitely
(42:41):
to watch out for. I think also the financial constraints
of having an only sorry having a single parent as
an only child maybe more intense, potentially leading to more
stress and earlier independence. We already know that only children
are quite independent. Having a single parent may increase that
as well. The parent may be more protective, There may
(43:04):
be more pressure, more pressure to succeed. You may feel
great responsibility to be everything for the parent, and sometimes
you may be more lonely because you know if your
single parent has to work, you may have to hang
out at home more. You may have the house to
yourself more instead of having you know both your parents
(43:25):
there taking it in turns, or being more present for you.
I will say I don't think that there is any
difference in long term outcomes. Single parent two parents doesn't
really matter as long as they really as long as
they love you and care about you, you can have
one parent, and they're going to do the job of
seven parents. They could do the job of ten parents
if they are a great parent. So yeah, I love
(43:48):
this question. Those are the differences I could immediately think of.
This next question is funny. Why is it that every
only child I've met has fit the stereotype of being
a little bit spoiled. This is so funny because obviously
we've broken this down. I think it's confirmation bias. I
think it's confirmation bias. I think that you have been
(44:10):
told that this is what to expect from these types
of individuals, and so now you only pay attention to
their behavior, or to the behavior that meets your expectation,
not the behaviors that don't. So, for example, the times
when your only child friend or your only children friends
are not selfish, or are not jealous, or are not dominating,
(44:32):
which is probably the majority of the time, you know
that you don't really pay attention to that as much
as the times when they are, and those times that
they are, which we all have, feel more significant to you,
so they become the whole reality. It may also just
be that that's just who they are. It doesn't have
anything to do with being an only child. There just
(44:54):
are kind of your friends just happen to be a
bit selfish. Maybe it's the impact of culture or contact. Next,
it may simply be that the only children you're meeting
are just better at advocating for themselves, and sometimes we
confuse that with being spoilt or selfish. So a couple
of options there for answers. So the final question I
(45:16):
got is do only children wish they had siblings? Now
I'm not an only child, so I can't answer this.
I want to hear from you guys. I want to
pose this question to the listeners because I want to
answer it as much as the person who posed it
as an only child? Do you wish you had siblings?
(45:37):
Are you envious of people who have siblings? Do you
feel like you've missed out? Also, remember to drop your
imaginary friend name so that we can get a little
gang going in the comments section. Have a little community
of imaginaries going on. And honestly, I think, with that
question in mind that I'm posing to you all, I
(45:57):
have nothing else to say. I think that's all my
fact figures and research for the day on only children.
But I actually loved, loved, loved putting this episode together.
The research is so fascinating. I loved diving into the
history of our stereotypes. I loved diving into the dating
and the career advice and information that I got from
far and wide. So if you enjoyed this episode, share
(46:20):
it with another only child friend you may have. Share
it to your story. Even better, leave a five star
review the best and make sure you're following along for
when new episodes come out. We've got so much cool
stuff leading up to the book being in your hands,
so I can't wait for you all to tune in,
And until next time, stay safe, be kind, and be
(46:42):
gentle with yourself above all else. We will talk very
very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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