It is a JOMO! Raised without siblings.

As an educator, I meet parents with children of various ages and stages of their lives. Many times, while discussing matters of behavior and attitude, parents have brought forth their concerns like:

• whether they should have another child;
• or for that matter now that they are bringing up a single child, after thoughts of should they have had another;
• whether they should adopt another child or perhaps even a pet to give company to their only child to grow up with;
• now that they have one child – what should they do/not do as a parent;
• what should they look out for and what should their concerns be for the future of their decision of choosing to have one child.

Interesting conversations I have had and heard over the years. First as a child, then as a parent and now as an educator. Here’s my perspective of a single child and mother of a single child. Reflections on the eve of my single child’s 27^th birthday J

We chose to have one – and done!

That’s right. For us and also my parents, it was a conscious choice we made.  Since I am presenting my personal view point, here are some disclosures to give you an idea where I am coming from. I was raised a single child and my husband(who has one sibling) and I chose to raise a single child as well. I understand from my conversations on this matter over the years that many of us have had one child for varied reasons (not as a choice) like that of late age marriage, fertility matters and assisted pregnancies making it a difficult process to conceiving a second time round, health issues that pre-existed like Type-1 diabetes making the decision of having one child pragmatic, a difficult first pregnancy, full time career choices or separation from the spouse. That was not the case for my mother or for me for that matter despite both of us being career women. We had a support system of extended family to help us manage both career and children. We had normal pregnancies and kept averagely good health.

Since I am an only child, the big cliché about being one did not worry me when it came to my choice of having one.

A single child is often lonely

• A single child gets used to spending time alone and flexing imagination, with contemplation and reflection, with music, with reading, with journaling.
• One learns to develop relationships outside of immediate family, with friends and people of all ages which is a skill that is becoming very significant for the millennials. Especially with younger generation as people of my generation find a gap between the world and themselves if they are not in touch with the youth and children as our worlds vastly differ. Entry for us into this new connected world is through and with the younger generation.

Not having a sibling to continuously being compared or compete with – unwittingly done by parents, family and friends and most definitely in school – gives a sense of internal confidence. A single child grows with a security. I felt less compelled to compete or to put other people down all through the many cross roads of my life.

Neither my son or I turned out to be entitled! Being privileged is not be confused with being entitled. A brat is a brat because how he/she is brought up. My parents could provide for me and us for our son – with much more opportunities than might have been possible with their/our salaried means. Teaching our children gratitude and grace cannot be relegated to having multiple siblings to ensure it. It is a key area of responsibility for the parents (and grand parents in our case as our son was lucky to grow up with both sides of grandparents in our home).

I worry about my son being alone when my husband and I are gone. A situation I am in as both my parents are no more. I also worry about my son having to take care of one or both of us all by himself as we grow older. We live and work in a country different from that of our grown son. My personal existential distress that waxes and wanes over matters that do not get solved by logical and deductive thought processes. For situations that just have to be lived through for the many random factors that occur and affect the outcomes. It is quite the same as that of having one child or more. A decision you just have to live through.

The decision of having one and being done gives rise to several imponderables as:

• It would be nice to have had a sibling whose home one can go to just hangout or decompress or hibernate.
• It would be great to be able to talk about your growing years, about your parents living or long gone.
• It would be so much comforting to be able to share your pain of loss of loved ones.
• It is nice to imagine that if my son had a sibling with whom he would be close to and can grow old with and share his joys and frustrations, help him when we are old and ailing, when he needs to share the care for either of us, when we are gone.

However, these are assumptions. These are imaginary assumptions of the second child/sibling that my son would have had.

These would be correct if:

• The imaginary second child is healthy
• The siblings get along
• They would be in geographies that they can be for each other and us
• That we could afford the same opportunities for both/more children

I would call these the fantasies to come true for the assumptions I made before. My fiercely logical mind knows that those could not have been the basis for us to take on the irreversible decision of having more children than the one I had. So I (and I know that my parents felt the same) chose JOMO (joy of missing out) over FOMO (fear of missing out). My parents discussed often during my years of growing that if they had a second child, it would surely threaten their overall economical and emotional dynamics. Both of them came from large loving and stable families with several siblings (my dad was the eldest of 6, my mother was one of 9 including her twin brother). They would know 🙂

I have many young parents sharing their FOMO with me. It is a choice we make. Parenting is often described to be as more Joy than Fun. I must say that I know for sure, for my parents and then us as parents, we had both Joy and Fun.

Happy Birthday dear son!