The power of one
Journalist Elise Elliott questions why a stigma still exists despite the benefits of having just one child.
Iwas tortured by my brother in the 70s. He painted my eyelids with nail polish. He buried me in the backyard. He broke my arm on the slide. He cut off Barbie’s hands. He forced me to listen to Bohemian Rhapsody on high rotation. Most injurious of all, I had to wear his hand-me-down brown corduroy flares and mustard-coloured skivvies.
Oh to be an only child, free from sibling – and sartorial – shackles! I longed to be Veruca Salt of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame; a single, spoilt brat with pink macaroons and a million balloons and performing baboons. I want it – now!
It’s curious something I craved is now mired in stigma. Mention you’re a parent to an only child and the personal probing begins: “When are you having another?” “It’s selfish!” “Your child will be lonely/ indulged/a weirdo!”
Such parental prejudice is misguided.
Why do parents have only one child? The reasons range from empowering to painful. I attribute it to the five Ds: difficulties falling pregnant, delaying pregnancy, daddy drought, divorce, and desire to avoid debt.
For TV journalist Anjali Rao, fertility issues dashed her dreams of being a mum-oftwo. It took years and many rounds of intrauterine insemination before she conceived her boy. “We tried and tried to then give our son a sibling, riding the same emotionally, financially and physically draining merry-go-round. But it wasn’t to be.”
For other women, postponement of childbearing, plus dilly-dallying-daddies-to-be, reduces their chance of having a big family.
“I was a career woman, focused on achieving my goals and it didn’t occur to me that I had left it late to become a parent until the dreaded internal clocked ticked loud and clear around my 37th birthday,” says media presenter Tiffany Cherry.
At 42, Cherry left a relationship in which her partner did not want a baby. “I decided I had no more time to wait.” Tiffany discovered a clinic that provided sperm donations and is now a doting single mum to an 18-month-old daughter.
Post-baby divorce is not uncommon. There’s nothing like a pooing, spewing, screaming snot machine to herald the honeymoon is over. The time it takes to readjust after a marriage breakdown can devour crucial baby-making years. But once you’re back on the horse, it may be too late.
As to the debt issue, munchkins ain’t cheap. The cost of raising two children to the age of 21 is about $800,000. Is it any wonder there’s now a trend towards smaller families, with the one-child varieties forming the majority within the decade?
“The financial advantages are obvious,” agrees child and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. “But parents are also able to give plenty of attention to one child, which grows up feeling safe, valued and listened to.”
Without being smothering, that focus and attention can lead to successful, happy little beans.
In her memoir, By Myself and Then Some, silver screen star and only child Lauren Bacall wrote of her mother: “Through her belief in me and her abounding love for me, she convinced me I could conquer the world – any part of it.”
Having one child is more manageable. The lying-down scream on the supermarket floor is less apocalyptic when you don’t have a shopping trolley full of kids.
Perhaps criticism levelled at parents of one is actually veiled envy. Maybe having one child is the closest you can get to the impossible ideal of having it all. No-one can take away your triumphant title of Mum or Dad, but you can still pursue that career, travel, indulge hobbies, spend time with friends and still muster energy for book club/yoga/date night, and yes, even sex. Is it selfish of parents to desire their own identity? Or smart? Single-child parents may have quiet moments of panic over denying their own child a sibling.
“Sibling relationships play a major role in helping young people learn how to navigate relationship struggles, anger management and conflict resolution,” admits Carr-Gregg.
But he adds: “It is really about ensuring that the single child learns how to share, has good social skills, has a rich repertoire of friends and cousins, doesn’t get everything they want when they want it, and is told ‘no’ when appropriate!” What is the “family ideal”, anyway? I have friends with two sons who long for a daughter; brothers and sisters who wish their parents were still together; mums-of-four who dream of having a career; successful working couples who ache for just one bub.
Perhaps it’s time we embraced, in all its guises, that broad and beautiful term “family”.
As to my brother, I have forgiven his teasing transgressions. We’ve grown into great friends. But an even deeper joy comes from seeing our own five-year-old daughters play. As cousins they tickle and tumble, giggle and rumble together. And there’s not a pair of brown cord flares between them.