January 2, 2012 • 25 mins
Do people without siblings differ from the rest of the human race? Tune in as Caroline and Cristen look at the fiction -- and facts -- surrounding our stereotypes of only children.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From how Stuff works dot com. Helloly, welcome to the podcast.
I'm Christen and I'm Caroline. And we have talked about
(00:22):
siblings and sibling relationships on the podcast before. We did
a podcast a while ago on whether birth order affects
your personality and also did a podcast on sister relationships.
And every time, all each of those times, um people
wrote in saying, Hey, you know, I'm an only child.
(00:45):
I feel a little bit left out of this research.
Only children feel left out of everything. Yeah, what about
what about us? I know? So today we are going
to talk about you only children. This is for you.
And I'm looking at you right now Caroline, because guess what, folks,
Caroline is an only child. Mostly my brother would argue
(01:06):
with you, but he is my half brother. I was.
I was raised an only child. My brother is thirteen
years older, which I like to remind him of he's old.
But um, yeah, I had a good childhood. I was.
I was a little spoiled. I gotta say that I
fit that I fit that part of the series tip.
But I think I ended up find him a nice person.
(01:28):
I'll let people I like. Strangers talk to me on
Martha in the morning, you know, I'll give people money sometimes.
Marda is Atlanta's real And I try not to make
eye contact because I really don't want strangers to talk
to me. But I'm getting up my attention. Let's let's
talk about some Yeah, let's talk about some stereos because
I'm standing at the opposite end of the spectrum. Um.
(01:50):
Old time listeners might already know that I'm the youngest
of five children, so I mean, Kristen and I really
shouldn't even get along. Yeah, and my oldest sibling is
five teen years older than me, talk about super old.
How old is your middle sister? The next one up
is four years older than me, So we're quite a
quite a spread. Um, but you have so. So my
(02:14):
my stereotypes are what Caroline lastborn children. It's not it's
not pretty. I mean, you're adorable, You're considered the baby
of the family. You know you you are. You tend
to get away with things. Um, you kind of get
away with murder. Mm hmm um. Yeah, you're your your
social and outgoing financially responsible and charming, and let's not
(02:36):
forget manipulative. And if you listen to the psychopath podcast,
it does not mean that our youngest children or psychopath.
And I'm only and and I'm left handed. Oh lord,
this is not some bad things. Uh. Well, you know what.
Uh the as as most you probably know, the stereotype
for only children not so flattering either. This is coming
(03:00):
from psychologist Kevin Lehman, who was the author of the
Birth Order Book, and he was talking to CBS News
about birth order stereotypes, and he writes that only children
are firstborns in triplicated, you're even more responsible. Hey, and
you're even more of a perfectionist, and you usually get
along with people older than yourself. But you also tend
(03:22):
to be critical, self centered, unnecessarily structured. I do like
routine and horribly lonely. That is not true. That's in
my notes lonely, lonely. Um, yeah, well, only children. It's
interesting because when I was growing up, the thing that
(03:43):
people told my parents most was she's so mature for
her age. I was. I was a little adult. And
that's what a lot of people say about only children,
because you're just hanging out with your parents all the time. Yeah,
there was a blogger at the Wall Street Journal, Sarah
Scheffer Munio's, who wrote about how she was worried that
her her six year old only daughter was becoming kind
(04:04):
of too much of a little adult because you would
have these fake phone conversations all the time, but she
would talk about things that charining stuff. Yeah, she had
her overheard her parents talking about, like, you know, the
recession these days not good. Well, you know, but part
of that, part of what that leads to, um is
higher verbal scores. Only children tend to have higher verbal
(04:26):
scores on tests and everything because, um, they've been surrounded
by adults speaking adult language. You do talk pretty good,
n y'all. Um. But it's important to to talk about
only children these days too, because thanks to the recession,
more parents are opting for only child households because guess what, folks,
(04:48):
Raising a kid, Uh here's breaking news is not cheap.
According to the U S Department of Agriculture, raising a
child in the United States cost around two d and
eight six thousand dollars and that's not including college. And
that's probably an average child that's probably not like a
verrucous salt type who wants everything and the golden goose.
(05:09):
But according to the Pew Survey of American motherhood, only
three percent of adults said that one child was ideal,
whereas forty six percent said two was the ideal number
of kids. Okay, but it seems like, I mean, it
seems like, uh, it's it's really shooting up there, the
amount of people having just one child. Right, even though
(05:31):
we might not think that that, there's still some this
this negative association um with having an only child for
some reason in our our collective psyche. But the number
is rising. Um. And since the early nineteen sixties, according
to the National Center for Health Statistics, single child families
have almost doubled to about one in five. So you
(05:54):
are not uncommon, right, I'm not alone despite being so
so alone. Um, But it's interesting that you mentioned, um,
you know that that all a very small number of
people consider it ideal to have only one child, and
that if that's sort of an idea that persists, and
it's all g. Stanley Hall's fault. Yeah, he is known
(06:15):
as the father of modern psychology. But my goodness, doctor
Hall did not really like only children. Now. He said
it was a disease in itself be an only child.
And this comes from an eighteen nineties six study that
he conducted called of Peculiar and Exceptional Children, in which
he studied these these anomalies which were only children at
(06:38):
the time, and uh, he just thought that they were
complete and total misfits. Now, granted, we're talking about a
study conducted in eight might not have the same kind
of methodological rigor that is study today we would hope
would have. But grand Will Stanley Hall is really the
one who perpetuated that negative stereotype. It is only snowballed
(07:00):
since then. And psychologist Tony Falbo from u T. Austin
called Hall a product of his time, and it really was.
I mean, I've done a lot of family research, genealogy research,
and it was not uncommon to find a branch of
the family that had a whole lot of offshoots. I mean,
I had some relatives who had thirteen kids. I'm like,
(07:20):
what do you do with thirteen kids? You don't live
on a farm, you don't have to milk cows. What
are they all doing? How do they fit in the house?
But I mean it wasn't uncommon. Well, it makes sense
because a lot of the that preference for larger families
goes back to um more agrarian times because children were
more seen as resources who could farm the land. And
(07:41):
this is a cross cultural thing that California State University
research your Adrian uh Muncius has noted. She studied why
that only child stereotype exists, and she says that it
exists almost everywhere, and it's because, um, you know, they're
they're more helping hands if you have land and you
(08:02):
have more people to attend to it. Right. Falbo said
that Hall's childhood was about the fraternizing and socializing children enjoyed,
the large number of brothers, sisters, and cousins, the adventures
and explorations in the countryside, and a house filled with kids. So,
I mean, his is a perspective that I can understand
and that I have experienced from someone in my own life.
(08:22):
My freshman roommate in college came from a very large family.
She was very close with all of her brothers and sisters. Um,
which is great, I mean, more power to you. I mean,
it's great to have those really close sibling relationships. But
she honestly, honestly felt sorry for me that I had
grown up as an only child, and I'm sitting here
like I had a lot of toys. I was. Yeah,
I mean I think that's the thing. They're they're obvious
(08:44):
benefits on either side, because it all goes back to
that issue of resources. Because on the one hand, I
even though, um, you know, my next sibling up was
four years so there was always kind of a gap. Um,
but you know, I might have had the resources of
having you know, other kids around to play with if
(09:05):
I wanted to, although at certain ages they were like Chris,
when you're too young, they'll play with your dolls alone. Um,
Whereas you got the undivided resources of your parents, which
is why Tony Falbo um at U t. Austin has
concluded that, you know what, being an only child is
pretty grand. Yes. Salbo points out that when a college
(09:28):
education has to be provided for one child as opposed
to you know, three four, it's more likely that the
one child will not only go to college, but also
maybe sent to a more prestigious, expensive school because maybe
the parents have saved money, or even if they haven't
saved money, there's just more resources to send that kid
to possibly a better school. And along with that, parents
(09:50):
have only children do tend to set higher, um, set
higher expectations for that one child that they have, which
might be one of the reasons why they do. As
you mentioned earlier, Caroline, tend to score higher on achievement tests, right,
And there's a lot of it. There's a lot of
pressure put on only children, like you said, and and
(10:10):
it's the same kind of thing as firstborns experience. So
your your oldest sister might have experienced something like this,
And UM, only children and firstborns tend to have a
lot of that parental pressure. They tend to be perfectionists
and they're like, Okay, mom and dad have a lot
of expectations for me. I'm going to try to to
please them. And so both only children and firstborns tend
(10:31):
to be people pleasers. They want to make their bed
the best they want to. They want to do really
well on their homework and pitching for with household chores
and everything like that. But when everything shakes out. UM.
Tony Falbot, who has been studying only children since the
seventies UM, which includes going back and re studying those
(10:51):
old studies that were that were conducted, she found that, UM,
when you put a bunch of people in a room.
You know, old are only children, people like me from
large families and everything in between. Their personalities are indistinguishable,
you know, they don't stand out as some sore thumbs.
Who are you know, in the corner sneering at everyone.
(11:15):
Maybe those people have anxiety disorders. Um. Yeah, and found
those books the single child families. She actually covered a
hundred years worth of studies about only children and came
up with, Yeah, they're fine, They're really not disadvantaged. There
was a two thousand four study by Douglas Downey of
Ohio State University. He looked at more than twenty thousand
kindergarteners and found that teachers rated only children as having
(11:39):
poorer social skills in their peers who had at least
one sibling, and the teachers said they had less self control,
few were inter personal skills, and more behavioral problems. But
what's interesting is that when Downey performed a follow up study,
follow up analysis of these kindergarteners who were then in
fifth grade, there really was no different in their social
(12:01):
skills between the only children and the kids from big families.
And that's he pretty much talks that up to look,
kids have friends. I mean, you might be an only
you might be yeah, I don't know, have less developed
social skills if you're an only child going to school
for the first time, going to preschool or kindergarten. But
that that pretty rapidly disappears as you joined play groups,
(12:24):
maybe play sports, or you know, take lessons of some kind. Basically,
kids do get that interaction, and the interaction is what
helps them develop social skills, right. And the reason why
one of the reasons why Downey went back and looked
at that original two thousand four study cohort was because
he in two thousand ten got together with another sociologist,
(12:46):
um and they drew on data from the US National
Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to look at thirteen thousand
middle school and high school kids and rather than having
teachers rating them, instead asked these kids to name five
friends in their school in the process that would be
(13:06):
termed pure nomination, and they found that only children were
just as likely to be named as friends as those
kids who had siblings. So they were thinking, oh, well, hey,
you know what looks like looks like they catch up.
Maybe you lag behind a little bit at first when
you're having your imaginary phone calls about the banking crisis. Well,
(13:28):
you know what, I tried to have an imaginary friend
one time, because I just like, as a child, I
was aware that other people had imaginary friends, and I tried,
and I just thought, well, there's no one here. This
is really boring. I'm gonna go back to playing with
my barbies. None of these imaginary friends are interesting enough,
critical critical. But let's talk about China, because Tony Falbo
(13:51):
studied four thousand children in China, because what better place
to study, uh, only child pathologies than in the land
of the one child policy exactly that has been in
place for thirty years. That is a lot of people
growing up without siblings. Um, yeah, she's as Faldo says
that people were worried that these quote unquote little emperors
(14:14):
as they call them, would not reflect China's collective as
values and that they would end up with an entire
generation of self centered brats. But she found that that
wasn't the case. But it seems like that policy, she says,
is being relaxed because it really has tax to the
country's social services system. So it seems like more people
are going to be able to have more than one child.
(14:35):
But it's a question of whether they want to. Yeah.
The Beijing Institute interviewed the city's young adult population who
were only children, and fifty percent said that they did
want one child, and twenty five percent said, you know what,
I don't I don't need kids at all. That's a
huge chunk. That's a really big chunk of the population
that they interviewed. That so they didn't want any children,
(14:55):
which leads to more worries about the social services system
and who is going to care for the aging population. Well,
that's that's the one big impact um with only children,
especially with the aging baby boomer population, because as your
parents age, if you're an only child, I mean that
you're you're the resource as your parents get older. It's scary.
(15:17):
I mean, it's scary to think that. I mean, I'm
kind of an exception because I have a half brother
who would help me, and I mean I we would
help each other. Um. But yeah, I mean I can
see how scary it is to be an only child
and be responsible for your aging parents who are sick,
and you have to make decisions all on your own
about well, you know, can they take care of themselves anymore?
(15:38):
Do they move in with me. Do I put them
in a nursing home, you know, stuff like that. I
had a friend whose father passed away a few years ago,
and she was responsible for a lot of the stuff
that comes along with what you have to deal with
in terms of paperwork, expenses and all that stuff, and
it was a lot for her to handle. Maybe that's
the flip side of, you know, receiving all of those
(16:00):
parental resources up front when you're growing up. It's like, well, hey,
guess what, kid, Now it's your turn. Yeah, yeah, you
owe your parents like that. But China in the United
States are not the only places where only children and
a and a lowering birth rate in general is happening.
Newsweek recently reported that this is going on a lot
(16:22):
in Europe, especially in Italy, which has one of the
lowest birth rates in the world at an average of
one point eight. How you have a point eight child,
I'm not sure. Average of one point eight per woman,
which is fewer births than deaths every year. And by
the way, yeah, I know that since one point it
is an average, it doesn't mean that you can have
a point before people jump on their smartphones or laptops
(16:47):
to send an email right, um, and some of the
according to Newsweek, some of the issues that lead to
having fewer children are, you know, we've touched on it,
economic uncertainty, working parents, and some thing I've read about
before in other situations, parents who wait to have kids
and end up wanting to maintain that lifestyle. People who
are either getting married later or just getting married and
(17:09):
then having children later, they're accustomed to a certain degree of,
you know, a certain lifestyle, they might want to maintain it.
You know, like, oh, well, we have just one kid,
so we're gonna go off to Tanzania because we can
afford it. Let's go on safari. Um. There's also better
contraception in migration to urban areas. So if you really
have the strong desire to live somewhere superurban, you know,
(17:32):
not get a house with the yard, get an apartment instead.
You probably don't want to have seven kids, I guess.
But demographers that were interviewed by Time magazine also noted
that they've noticed in studies that they've done of parenthood
a lot of times if you have people who have
one children will fall in love with that first child
and really want another. And maybe that's for that Um.
(17:54):
That peer research, you know, to two children as the
ideal number kind of comes and they just want to
keep going. Yeah, you have one, You're like, oh my god,
you're the coolest thing in the world. Let's get another one, right, Well,
going back to Falbo, she said that many poles show
that lots of families have a second child for no
other reason than to prevent the first child from growing
(18:15):
up without siblings. So there's a lot of reasons that
people have more than one, and a lot of um,
a lot of negativity that's imposed on those parents who
choose to have only children. You know, they feel a
strange it seems like a strange guilt for just having one. Yeah,
that Time magazine article really talked talked to a lot
of parents who felt guilty. They felt attacked by strangers,
(18:38):
you know, and I just it's none of your business who,
you know. You don't know why people are only having
one child. They could have made the decision for whatever reason,
or maybe they're just unable to. But there were psychologists
back in Freud's day who were encouraging families to adopt
a second child or adopt however, many children, if they
could not conceive a second one just to emotionally balance
(18:59):
the family well, and Freud himself also wrote that only
children were prone to sexual identity problems. So, I mean,
for a century plus, only children have been battling these
negative stereotypes. And maybe the sooner that research from Falbo
and others leaks into the mainstream. You know, parents of
only children don't have to worry that their children will
(19:20):
be selfish, maladjusted, lonely, miss and thropes. Yeah, I mean,
it depends on the parents. It depends on what you want,
how you grew up. You know, a friend of mine
who grew up as an only child wanted seventeen kids,
you know, but then she had her first one. She's like,
that was a tough pregnancy. This is an expensive a
(19:40):
little bundle of joy what I don't know, two hundred
and eighty six thousand dollars. Yeah, could be a nice
thoughts for that, Trann could change uh, And so I
think just to maybe to sign off and to uh
for for a little added proof that you know, in
addition to yourself, Caroline, there are plenty of success will
only children out there. How about some notable only Yeah, well,
(20:05):
Chelsea Clinton, obviously, Robin Williams Tiger Woods, Sarah Michelle Gellar
for Tiger Maybe Tiger Woods isn't a good example of
tiger hey, but successful, Yes, athletic, proud parents were very
involved in his golfing. Um, Sarah Michelle Gellar, because I
know there is a legion of Buffy fans listening right now,
Alicia Keith and Natalie Portman, Carrie Grant, Swoon, Elvis although
(20:29):
he was technically born a twin and his twin died
um and kind of haunted him. John Updyke, Lance Armstrong
and Frank Sinatra. And here's a quote from Natalie Portman
about being an only child. She said, I would have
never been an actress if I weren't an only child
because my parents would have never let me be the
star of the family at the expense of another child.
(20:50):
So there you go again. Resources it's a stage. It
is a stage. Yeah, I know. Um, yeah, my mom didn't.
My mom had me was like done, well they did.
My parents didn't want kids, you know. My dad had
my brother from a previous marriage and he was like,
I'm good. And then one day my mother was just like, Chad,
I want a little girl. And he was like, well,
(21:10):
I guess if it's a little girl, it would be fine.
And so then my aunt tells a story. She's like,
I just prayed to Jesus that your mom and dad
would have a little girl, and he answered my prayers.
Here you are today. That is precious. So yeah, I
guess I got lucky. Yeah, so so our is one
(21:30):
of the loneliest number. Absolutely not, No, five was five
was a lonely number. Sometimes, even though there were other
children in my house, I did play by myself a lot. Yeah,
my family. I just family dynamics are very interesting and
it varies from family to family. Yeah. Sure, my mom
was the oldest of five and she was and is
(21:52):
a little dictator. So only children, I hope that I
hope that you um will send us your experiences being
of being an only child and dealing with that only
child stereotype and parents out there too who have chosen
to have one child. Have you received any kind of UM,
(22:12):
any kind of pressure from parents or friends or just
random strangers. Yeah, I also want to know if only
children out there have felt the need to hide it,
because I always get the same reaction from oh my god,
I would not have thought you were an only child.
I'm like, you know, because you're so well adjusted. Thank you,
so send us your thoughts. Mom Stuff at how stuff
works dot com is our email address, and we've got
(22:35):
a couple of emails here in response to our episode
on sex education. In my episode, I should have said
two episodes on sex ed um and I thought that
these were great because they're directly from kids right now
who are in the school system. So this is coming
(22:55):
from Alison. She's sixteen years old, and she writes, I
really enjoyed your podcast on sex ed and would like
to share my experience in the public schools. When I
was in middle school, my science class was given the
scare Tactics sex talk one day, where he learned about
STDs and all the bad things sex can do to you.
I was a very innocent seventh grader who didn't know
anything about sex at the time, so after the talk
(23:17):
I had to ask my friends about some of the
things she mentioned but didn't explain. Uh. Then in tenth grade,
I took biology and simply fell in love with the
subject because I had such a wonderful teacher. When we
got to the human reproduction unit, she put a jar
in the front of the room and let us write
down any questions about sex we would like to ask anonymously.
She answered all the questions at the beginning of class
(23:39):
each day in a very straightforward and uncensored manner. I
feel like that was the perfect sex education, uncensored and straightforward. Anyhow,
now I'm getting very familiar with the scientific aspect of
sex and reproduction, and I'm also looking forward to going
to college to study neurobiology. Yeah. Thanks Alison. This is
from Tatum. She's the I'm sixteen and I recently went
(24:01):
through sex ed in my school. It was taught in
my health class and it was a part of a
unit about the body and stuff. Sure, we talked about abstinence,
but my teacher went through other methods to prevent pregnancy
and s t I s as well. The thing is,
we are not eligible to take this class until at
least sophomore year, and some people don't take it until
senior year. And I know for a fact that at
least one of my classmates had been sexually active for years.
(24:22):
It just seemed to me to be a little late
in tackling this. Of course, it is better late than never,
but all of the sex ed previously was more about
dangers and not about preventing them. I think that maybe
this should be more constantly addressed over the years, and
not just in set time classes, because by the time
the set class comes along, it may be too late.
Perfect example, a girl in my grade just had a kid.
(24:44):
She got pregnant by the second semester of her sophomore year.
But what I can say is that the awkward factor
went from my eighth grade science teacher blushing at having
to write down the names for genitalia too. More open
discussions in the health classroom. I just hope that those
open discussions can come a bit sooner. So thanks to
Tamon Allison and everyone else who has written in moms
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is email address
(25:07):
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(25:28):
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Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From how Stuff works dot com. Helloly, welcome to the podcast.
I'm Christen and I'm Caroline. And we have talked about
(00:22):
siblings and sibling relationships on the podcast before. We did
a podcast a while ago on whether birth order affects
your personality and also did a podcast on sister relationships.
And every time, all each of those times, um people
wrote in saying, Hey, you know, I'm an only child.
(00:45):
I feel a little bit left out of this research.
Only children feel left out of everything. Yeah, what about
what about us? I know? So today we are going
to talk about you only children. This is for you.
And I'm looking at you right now Caroline, because guess what, folks,
Caroline is an only child. Mostly my brother would argue
(01:06):
with you, but he is my half brother. I was.
I was raised an only child. My brother is thirteen
years older, which I like to remind him of he's old.
But um, yeah, I had a good childhood. I was.
I was a little spoiled. I gotta say that I
fit that I fit that part of the series tip.
But I think I ended up find him a nice person.
(01:28):
I'll let people I like. Strangers talk to me on
Martha in the morning, you know, I'll give people money sometimes.
Marda is Atlanta's real And I try not to make
eye contact because I really don't want strangers to talk
to me. But I'm getting up my attention. Let's let's
talk about some Yeah, let's talk about some stereos because
I'm standing at the opposite end of the spectrum. Um.
(01:50):
Old time listeners might already know that I'm the youngest
of five children, so I mean, Kristen and I really
shouldn't even get along. Yeah, and my oldest sibling is
five teen years older than me, talk about super old.
How old is your middle sister? The next one up
is four years older than me, So we're quite a
quite a spread. Um, but you have so. So my
(02:14):
my stereotypes are what Caroline lastborn children. It's not it's
not pretty. I mean, you're adorable, You're considered the baby
of the family. You know you you are. You tend
to get away with things. Um, you kind of get
away with murder. Mm hmm um. Yeah, you're your your
social and outgoing financially responsible and charming, and let's not
(02:36):
forget manipulative. And if you listen to the psychopath podcast,
it does not mean that our youngest children or psychopath.
And I'm only and and I'm left handed. Oh lord,
this is not some bad things. Uh. Well, you know what.
Uh the as as most you probably know, the stereotype
for only children not so flattering either. This is coming
(03:00):
from psychologist Kevin Lehman, who was the author of the
Birth Order Book, and he was talking to CBS News
about birth order stereotypes, and he writes that only children
are firstborns in triplicated, you're even more responsible. Hey, and
you're even more of a perfectionist, and you usually get
along with people older than yourself. But you also tend
(03:22):
to be critical, self centered, unnecessarily structured. I do like
routine and horribly lonely. That is not true. That's in
my notes lonely, lonely. Um, yeah, well, only children. It's
interesting because when I was growing up, the thing that
(03:43):
people told my parents most was she's so mature for
her age. I was. I was a little adult. And
that's what a lot of people say about only children,
because you're just hanging out with your parents all the time. Yeah,
there was a blogger at the Wall Street Journal, Sarah
Scheffer Munio's, who wrote about how she was worried that
her her six year old only daughter was becoming kind
(04:04):
of too much of a little adult because you would
have these fake phone conversations all the time, but she
would talk about things that charining stuff. Yeah, she had
her overheard her parents talking about, like, you know, the
recession these days not good. Well, you know, but part
of that, part of what that leads to, um is
higher verbal scores. Only children tend to have higher verbal
(04:26):
scores on tests and everything because, um, they've been surrounded
by adults speaking adult language. You do talk pretty good,
n y'all. Um. But it's important to to talk about
only children these days too, because thanks to the recession,
more parents are opting for only child households because guess what, folks,
(04:48):
Raising a kid, Uh here's breaking news is not cheap.
According to the U S Department of Agriculture, raising a
child in the United States cost around two d and
eight six thousand dollars and that's not including college. And
that's probably an average child that's probably not like a
verrucous salt type who wants everything and the golden goose.
(05:09):
But according to the Pew Survey of American motherhood, only
three percent of adults said that one child was ideal,
whereas forty six percent said two was the ideal number
of kids. Okay, but it seems like, I mean, it
seems like, uh, it's it's really shooting up there, the
amount of people having just one child. Right, even though
(05:31):
we might not think that that, there's still some this
this negative association um with having an only child for
some reason in our our collective psyche. But the number
is rising. Um. And since the early nineteen sixties, according
to the National Center for Health Statistics, single child families
have almost doubled to about one in five. So you
(05:54):
are not uncommon, right, I'm not alone despite being so
so alone. Um, But it's interesting that you mentioned, um,
you know that that all a very small number of
people consider it ideal to have only one child, and
that if that's sort of an idea that persists, and
it's all g. Stanley Hall's fault. Yeah, he is known
(06:15):
as the father of modern psychology. But my goodness, doctor
Hall did not really like only children. Now. He said
it was a disease in itself be an only child.
And this comes from an eighteen nineties six study that
he conducted called of Peculiar and Exceptional Children, in which
he studied these these anomalies which were only children at
(06:38):
the time, and uh, he just thought that they were
complete and total misfits. Now, granted, we're talking about a
study conducted in eight might not have the same kind
of methodological rigor that is study today we would hope
would have. But grand Will Stanley Hall is really the
one who perpetuated that negative stereotype. It is only snowballed
(07:00):
since then. And psychologist Tony Falbo from u T. Austin
called Hall a product of his time, and it really was.
I mean, I've done a lot of family research, genealogy research,
and it was not uncommon to find a branch of
the family that had a whole lot of offshoots. I mean,
I had some relatives who had thirteen kids. I'm like,
(07:20):
what do you do with thirteen kids? You don't live
on a farm, you don't have to milk cows. What
are they all doing? How do they fit in the house?
But I mean it wasn't uncommon. Well, it makes sense
because a lot of the that preference for larger families
goes back to um more agrarian times because children were
more seen as resources who could farm the land. And
(07:41):
this is a cross cultural thing that California State University
research your Adrian uh Muncius has noted. She studied why
that only child stereotype exists, and she says that it
exists almost everywhere, and it's because, um, you know, they're
they're more helping hands if you have land and you
(08:02):
have more people to attend to it. Right. Falbo said
that Hall's childhood was about the fraternizing and socializing children enjoyed,
the large number of brothers, sisters, and cousins, the adventures
and explorations in the countryside, and a house filled with kids. So,
I mean, his is a perspective that I can understand
and that I have experienced from someone in my own life.
(08:22):
My freshman roommate in college came from a very large family.
She was very close with all of her brothers and sisters. Um,
which is great, I mean, more power to you. I mean,
it's great to have those really close sibling relationships. But
she honestly, honestly felt sorry for me that I had
grown up as an only child, and I'm sitting here
like I had a lot of toys. I was. Yeah,
I mean I think that's the thing. They're they're obvious
(08:44):
benefits on either side, because it all goes back to
that issue of resources. Because on the one hand, I
even though, um, you know, my next sibling up was
four years so there was always kind of a gap. Um,
but you know, I might have had the resources of
having you know, other kids around to play with if
(09:05):
I wanted to, although at certain ages they were like Chris,
when you're too young, they'll play with your dolls alone. Um,
Whereas you got the undivided resources of your parents, which
is why Tony Falbo um at U t. Austin has
concluded that, you know what, being an only child is
pretty grand. Yes. Salbo points out that when a college
(09:28):
education has to be provided for one child as opposed
to you know, three four, it's more likely that the
one child will not only go to college, but also
maybe sent to a more prestigious, expensive school because maybe
the parents have saved money, or even if they haven't
saved money, there's just more resources to send that kid
to possibly a better school. And along with that, parents
(09:50):
have only children do tend to set higher, um, set
higher expectations for that one child that they have, which
might be one of the reasons why they do. As
you mentioned earlier, Caroline, tend to score higher on achievement tests, right,
And there's a lot of it. There's a lot of
pressure put on only children, like you said, and and
(10:10):
it's the same kind of thing as firstborns experience. So
your your oldest sister might have experienced something like this,
And UM, only children and firstborns tend to have a
lot of that parental pressure. They tend to be perfectionists
and they're like, Okay, mom and dad have a lot
of expectations for me. I'm going to try to to
please them. And so both only children and firstborns tend
(10:31):
to be people pleasers. They want to make their bed
the best they want to. They want to do really
well on their homework and pitching for with household chores
and everything like that. But when everything shakes out. UM.
Tony Falbot, who has been studying only children since the
seventies UM, which includes going back and re studying those
(10:51):
old studies that were that were conducted, she found that, UM,
when you put a bunch of people in a room.
You know, old are only children, people like me from
large families and everything in between. Their personalities are indistinguishable,
you know, they don't stand out as some sore thumbs.
Who are you know, in the corner sneering at everyone.
(11:15):
Maybe those people have anxiety disorders. Um. Yeah, and found
those books the single child families. She actually covered a
hundred years worth of studies about only children and came
up with, Yeah, they're fine, They're really not disadvantaged. There
was a two thousand four study by Douglas Downey of
Ohio State University. He looked at more than twenty thousand
kindergarteners and found that teachers rated only children as having
(11:39):
poorer social skills in their peers who had at least
one sibling, and the teachers said they had less self control,
few were inter personal skills, and more behavioral problems. But
what's interesting is that when Downey performed a follow up study,
follow up analysis of these kindergarteners who were then in
fifth grade, there really was no different in their social
(12:01):
skills between the only children and the kids from big families.
And that's he pretty much talks that up to look,
kids have friends. I mean, you might be an only
you might be yeah, I don't know, have less developed
social skills if you're an only child going to school
for the first time, going to preschool or kindergarten. But
that that pretty rapidly disappears as you joined play groups,
(12:24):
maybe play sports, or you know, take lessons of some kind. Basically,
kids do get that interaction, and the interaction is what
helps them develop social skills, right. And the reason why
one of the reasons why Downey went back and looked
at that original two thousand four study cohort was because
he in two thousand ten got together with another sociologist,
(12:46):
um and they drew on data from the US National
Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to look at thirteen thousand
middle school and high school kids and rather than having
teachers rating them, instead asked these kids to name five
friends in their school in the process that would be
(13:06):
termed pure nomination, and they found that only children were
just as likely to be named as friends as those
kids who had siblings. So they were thinking, oh, well, hey,
you know what looks like looks like they catch up.
Maybe you lag behind a little bit at first when
you're having your imaginary phone calls about the banking crisis. Well,
(13:28):
you know what, I tried to have an imaginary friend
one time, because I just like, as a child, I
was aware that other people had imaginary friends, and I tried,
and I just thought, well, there's no one here. This
is really boring. I'm gonna go back to playing with
my barbies. None of these imaginary friends are interesting enough,
critical critical. But let's talk about China, because Tony Falbo
(13:51):
studied four thousand children in China, because what better place
to study, uh, only child pathologies than in the land
of the one child policy exactly that has been in
place for thirty years. That is a lot of people
growing up without siblings. Um, yeah, she's as Faldo says
that people were worried that these quote unquote little emperors
(14:14):
as they call them, would not reflect China's collective as
values and that they would end up with an entire
generation of self centered brats. But she found that that
wasn't the case. But it seems like that policy, she says,
is being relaxed because it really has tax to the
country's social services system. So it seems like more people
are going to be able to have more than one child.
(14:35):
But it's a question of whether they want to. Yeah.
The Beijing Institute interviewed the city's young adult population who
were only children, and fifty percent said that they did
want one child, and twenty five percent said, you know what,
I don't I don't need kids at all. That's a
huge chunk. That's a really big chunk of the population
that they interviewed. That so they didn't want any children,
(14:55):
which leads to more worries about the social services system
and who is going to care for the aging population. Well,
that's that's the one big impact um with only children,
especially with the aging baby boomer population, because as your
parents age, if you're an only child, I mean that
you're you're the resource as your parents get older. It's scary.
(15:17):
I mean, it's scary to think that. I mean, I'm
kind of an exception because I have a half brother
who would help me, and I mean I we would
help each other. Um. But yeah, I mean I can
see how scary it is to be an only child
and be responsible for your aging parents who are sick,
and you have to make decisions all on your own
about well, you know, can they take care of themselves anymore?
(15:38):
Do they move in with me. Do I put them
in a nursing home, you know, stuff like that. I
had a friend whose father passed away a few years ago,
and she was responsible for a lot of the stuff
that comes along with what you have to deal with
in terms of paperwork, expenses and all that stuff, and
it was a lot for her to handle. Maybe that's
the flip side of, you know, receiving all of those
(16:00):
parental resources up front when you're growing up. It's like, well, hey,
guess what, kid, Now it's your turn. Yeah, yeah, you
owe your parents like that. But China in the United
States are not the only places where only children and
a and a lowering birth rate in general is happening.
Newsweek recently reported that this is going on a lot
(16:22):
in Europe, especially in Italy, which has one of the
lowest birth rates in the world at an average of
one point eight. How you have a point eight child,
I'm not sure. Average of one point eight per woman,
which is fewer births than deaths every year. And by
the way, yeah, I know that since one point it
is an average, it doesn't mean that you can have
a point before people jump on their smartphones or laptops
(16:47):
to send an email right, um, and some of the
according to Newsweek, some of the issues that lead to
having fewer children are, you know, we've touched on it,
economic uncertainty, working parents, and some thing I've read about
before in other situations, parents who wait to have kids
and end up wanting to maintain that lifestyle. People who
are either getting married later or just getting married and
(17:09):
then having children later, they're accustomed to a certain degree of,
you know, a certain lifestyle, they might want to maintain it.
You know, like, oh, well, we have just one kid,
so we're gonna go off to Tanzania because we can
afford it. Let's go on safari. Um. There's also better
contraception in migration to urban areas. So if you really
have the strong desire to live somewhere superurban, you know,
(17:32):
not get a house with the yard, get an apartment instead.
You probably don't want to have seven kids, I guess.
But demographers that were interviewed by Time magazine also noted
that they've noticed in studies that they've done of parenthood
a lot of times if you have people who have
one children will fall in love with that first child
and really want another. And maybe that's for that Um.
(17:54):
That peer research, you know, to two children as the
ideal number kind of comes and they just want to
keep going. Yeah, you have one, You're like, oh my god,
you're the coolest thing in the world. Let's get another one, right, Well,
going back to Falbo, she said that many poles show
that lots of families have a second child for no
other reason than to prevent the first child from growing
(18:15):
up without siblings. So there's a lot of reasons that
people have more than one, and a lot of um,
a lot of negativity that's imposed on those parents who
choose to have only children. You know, they feel a
strange it seems like a strange guilt for just having one. Yeah,
that Time magazine article really talked talked to a lot
of parents who felt guilty. They felt attacked by strangers,
(18:38):
you know, and I just it's none of your business who,
you know. You don't know why people are only having
one child. They could have made the decision for whatever reason,
or maybe they're just unable to. But there were psychologists
back in Freud's day who were encouraging families to adopt
a second child or adopt however, many children, if they
could not conceive a second one just to emotionally balance
(18:59):
the family well, and Freud himself also wrote that only
children were prone to sexual identity problems. So, I mean,
for a century plus, only children have been battling these
negative stereotypes. And maybe the sooner that research from Falbo
and others leaks into the mainstream. You know, parents of
only children don't have to worry that their children will
(19:20):
be selfish, maladjusted, lonely, miss and thropes. Yeah, I mean,
it depends on the parents. It depends on what you want,
how you grew up. You know, a friend of mine
who grew up as an only child wanted seventeen kids,
you know, but then she had her first one. She's like,
that was a tough pregnancy. This is an expensive a
(19:40):
little bundle of joy what I don't know, two hundred
and eighty six thousand dollars. Yeah, could be a nice
thoughts for that, Trann could change uh, And so I
think just to maybe to sign off and to uh
for for a little added proof that you know, in
addition to yourself, Caroline, there are plenty of success will
only children out there. How about some notable only Yeah, well,
(20:05):
Chelsea Clinton, obviously, Robin Williams Tiger Woods, Sarah Michelle Gellar
for Tiger Maybe Tiger Woods isn't a good example of
tiger hey, but successful, Yes, athletic, proud parents were very
involved in his golfing. Um, Sarah Michelle Gellar, because I
know there is a legion of Buffy fans listening right now,
Alicia Keith and Natalie Portman, Carrie Grant, Swoon, Elvis although
(20:29):
he was technically born a twin and his twin died
um and kind of haunted him. John Updyke, Lance Armstrong
and Frank Sinatra. And here's a quote from Natalie Portman
about being an only child. She said, I would have
never been an actress if I weren't an only child
because my parents would have never let me be the
star of the family at the expense of another child.
(20:50):
So there you go again. Resources it's a stage. It
is a stage. Yeah, I know. Um, yeah, my mom didn't.
My mom had me was like done, well they did.
My parents didn't want kids, you know. My dad had
my brother from a previous marriage and he was like,
I'm good. And then one day my mother was just like, Chad,
I want a little girl. And he was like, well,
(21:10):
I guess if it's a little girl, it would be fine.
And so then my aunt tells a story. She's like,
I just prayed to Jesus that your mom and dad
would have a little girl, and he answered my prayers.
Here you are today. That is precious. So yeah, I
guess I got lucky. Yeah, so so our is one
(21:30):
of the loneliest number. Absolutely not, No, five was five
was a lonely number. Sometimes, even though there were other
children in my house, I did play by myself a lot. Yeah,
my family. I just family dynamics are very interesting and
it varies from family to family. Yeah. Sure, my mom
was the oldest of five and she was and is
(21:52):
a little dictator. So only children, I hope that I
hope that you um will send us your experiences being
of being an only child and dealing with that only
child stereotype and parents out there too who have chosen
to have one child. Have you received any kind of UM,
(22:12):
any kind of pressure from parents or friends or just
random strangers. Yeah, I also want to know if only
children out there have felt the need to hide it,
because I always get the same reaction from oh my god,
I would not have thought you were an only child.
I'm like, you know, because you're so well adjusted. Thank you,
so send us your thoughts. Mom Stuff at how stuff
works dot com is our email address, and we've got
(22:35):
a couple of emails here in response to our episode
on sex education. In my episode, I should have said
two episodes on sex ed um and I thought that
these were great because they're directly from kids right now
who are in the school system. So this is coming
(22:55):
from Alison. She's sixteen years old, and she writes, I
really enjoyed your podcast on sex ed and would like
to share my experience in the public schools. When I
was in middle school, my science class was given the
scare Tactics sex talk one day, where he learned about
STDs and all the bad things sex can do to you.
I was a very innocent seventh grader who didn't know
anything about sex at the time, so after the talk
(23:17):
I had to ask my friends about some of the
things she mentioned but didn't explain. Uh. Then in tenth grade,
I took biology and simply fell in love with the
subject because I had such a wonderful teacher. When we
got to the human reproduction unit, she put a jar
in the front of the room and let us write
down any questions about sex we would like to ask anonymously.
She answered all the questions at the beginning of class
(23:39):
each day in a very straightforward and uncensored manner. I
feel like that was the perfect sex education, uncensored and straightforward. Anyhow,
now I'm getting very familiar with the scientific aspect of
sex and reproduction, and I'm also looking forward to going
to college to study neurobiology. Yeah. Thanks Alison. This is
from Tatum. She's the I'm sixteen and I recently went
(24:01):
through sex ed in my school. It was taught in
my health class and it was a part of a
unit about the body and stuff. Sure, we talked about abstinence,
but my teacher went through other methods to prevent pregnancy
and s t I s as well. The thing is,
we are not eligible to take this class until at
least sophomore year, and some people don't take it until
senior year. And I know for a fact that at
least one of my classmates had been sexually active for years.
(24:22):
It just seemed to me to be a little late
in tackling this. Of course, it is better late than never,
but all of the sex ed previously was more about
dangers and not about preventing them. I think that maybe
this should be more constantly addressed over the years, and
not just in set time classes, because by the time
the set class comes along, it may be too late.
Perfect example, a girl in my grade just had a kid.
(24:44):
She got pregnant by the second semester of her sophomore year.
But what I can say is that the awkward factor
went from my eighth grade science teacher blushing at having
to write down the names for genitalia too. More open
discussions in the health classroom. I just hope that those
open discussions can come a bit sooner. So thanks to
Tamon Allison and everyone else who has written in moms
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is email address
(25:07):
and we'd love to see you over on Facebook as
well and on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and of
course you can head over to the blog during the week.
It's at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to
check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
(25:28):
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