How many of us are only children?

I read the title as How Many Of Us Are (Only) Children ie. Under 18

Snap!

Youngest of 2

I think it's hard when there's no one to say 'remember when..' with, especially as people age and die, I remember a friend having to clear her parents house out after they died and I know she found it so hard having no one to share it with, she said the hardest things were the little ones, like xmas decorations.

I rarely saw my cousins most were much older than me anyway, we rarely had people over to the house and nobody ever stayed the night. I lerned to cook at a young age too, but it was because I wanted to, my Mum says she remembers bits of pastry that were all grey and hairy from being overhandled and dropped when I was little. My daughter showed an interest in cooking from a young age too.

Im a only child. My mum had a difficult birth and was advised not to have any more kids. 

I think there are pluses and minuses. As an only child there is no one else to get the blame for things and I spent a lot of time with older relatives and parents friends so in some ways I did adult things at an earlier age. If I got spoiled it tended to be the other adults I saw.

My Mum taught me to cook at a young age too so I could always cook if I wanted to. However my NT Mum had wished she had had siblings, so invited families with children to visit and stay a lot. One time I remember that was fun was when it snowed and my cousins had to stay longer so I had others to play with in the snow.

Now I find there is no one left who remembers things about my childhood. That is something I would have liked.

Older of two.

However, the gap between my brother and I was ten years. Too much, ultimately, for us to bond. But we're amicable now.

I think all the rules go to pot when other children come along. My eldest of three wife is still jokingly bitter with her youngest sibling about all the things that she could do a lot earlier than my wife could.

I guess you only children have all the unrelaxed rules and they never get relaxed.

When I first started school I was told off for being selfish, I don't think I was being selfish, more that I didn't know how to share. I remember doing colouring and there was this big box of horrible garmsy looking crayons and I didn't really want to touch them as they looked so dirty. I picked out the crayons of the colours I wanted to use and laid them out at the top of my picture and everyone else started using them, I ended up with a load of little bits of crayon, so small I could hardly hold them and people still kept using them. I was so confused, it was so beyond my experience and I didn't understand why I was being selfish, I think that led to me being overgenerous as I never wanted to be called selfish again. I think it led to a lot of problems with boundaries later in life, it took me a long time to learn that it wasn't selfish to have boundaries and that other people didn't have an automatic right to anything I had.

I thiink that often those with siblings have a rose tinted view of only children, thinking how great it must be not to have to compete for parental attention and that you get "all the presents" and you must be spoiled. I feel that for myself and many others nothing could be further from the truth, so many parents of only's are very concious not to spoil their child, that they end up being  bit stingy. Having all the parental attention isn't always a good thing either, the weight of expectation is on your shoulders alone, you are the one that has to fulfill all that parental ambition and its often ambitions that are quite contrary. There's no one on your side and it's another layer of stress and I think many grow up feeling squashed

I have sometimes thought that had my elder sister lived beyond infancy, she died before I was born, I might have become a somewhat different person.

Indeed.  Also a Brother or Sister might check up on you and make sure you are going out enough. Both in Childhood and Adulthood.

I thiink every only child wonders what it would be like to have a sibling, people who have siblings often think those of us who are only's see siblings through rose tinted spectacles, I don't think thats true. I think for many of us we wish we'd had the hassle of having to sit and eat dinner with someone you've just had a big falling out with, it's a life lesson thats very hard to learn later in life.

I am an only child. Having experience of parents, spouse and children with siblings, I would say that being an only child and not having had any of that sibling rivalry has made me more generous than otherwise, as is often said. I never needed to measure the depth of pop in my glass with a ruler so that I got exactly the same amount as a sibling, so I am free and easy with my native generosity. I have never been accused of being a 'pinch-fart', but have sometimes been told that I have been naively overgenerous.

How true is that..It made me giggle as it is exactly my lived experience. Nothing worse than a board game with no one to play with.

I think one often has strong interests as an only child, because there's no one else to play with, theres no one else to compete with, theres no one else to break or nick your stuff and parents are usually quite happy to see a child quietly occupied.

Why do parents of only children always buy you a load of board games for xmas, birthdays etc, so as you have something to play with when friends come over, but then complain when you say you've nothing to play with by yourself?

Am I the only one who’s a middle child?

I am an only child.  I often  wonder what it would have been like to have a Brother or Sister.

Only child of parents who had a lot of mental health issues arising indirectly from disapproval of grandparents marriage from grandmothers families (both sides) and parents Marraige also disapproved of - gay man, strict Irish Catholic religious background, strong disapproval from within the gay community, lifetime of bullying in school and at many workplaces, sent to psychiatric facility in childhood as punishment for being bullied in school, diagnosed with autism later in life 

It's still a good question.

This is how science works. Hypothesis (your post), data (other people's posts), conclusion. 

In the reverse case, my niece is an only child and she is one of the most well balanced people I know. Totally knows her own emotions. She does have strong interests though - which is where we overlap.

I thought I'd ask as because so many of the problems reported by only children, like difficulties with socialising and needing more time alone are also shared by autists. I wondered if only children were more likely to be autistic or come further along the autistic spectrum without being autistic because of things like prefering your own company?

But from the replies so far it would seem not.