Only Child Poll

[woodwardiocom]

[Poll #1825628]

Comments

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Um....I'm the only child of my mother and father. My mother had five children from her previous marriage and my father had two from his. All of my half-siblings are much older than I am, though, and on the few occasions I shared a dwelling with them they were more like older cousins. So from my point of view I was an only child, but from my mother's point of view, I was her sixth.

As of age 9

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

My siblings are much older but they were there for the first 9 years of my life, sort of. My brother moved out when I was 3, my eldest sister when I was 5, and the middle sister when I was 9. The girls have been a part of my life, even from a distance. I'd go and spend my winter breaks with her as of the age of 13 and I still call her and we talk once a month. But as of 9 I had the house and my parents to myself.

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

No, but I have an only child.

[be-well-lowell.livejournal.com]

and our parents have only the one grandchild...

[archangelbeth]

I'm the only surviving child out of 4. I never knew my older brother (heart defect), but my two younger brothers died in two separate swimming pool accidents. One was in a coma for... over a year. Over 2 years? Not sure.

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

My parents had my brother to give me a sibling. I do not feel that was a good reason. I would have been happier as an only child.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I have two older sisters. We're all nine years apart, so the eldest and myself got to be the only child at home for about half of our childhoods, while the middle sister always had a sibling around. I was very close to my eldest sister until my middle sister left home and then we got closer.

Alice is an only child. We figure we got it right the first time, why push our luck :)

[inkedandkinked.livejournal.com]

I was adopted so I do not know if I have genetic siblings. However I was the only child of the wonderful people who rescued me from the orphanage.

[heinleinfan.livejournal.com]

My mother believes truly I was meant to be her only child, she had 2 miscarriages before me and one medically necessary abortion after me.

I have a step sister who is older and a step brother who is slightly younger. They did not live with us, except for a short time when my teenage step sister was fighting with her mom and lived with us for a summer. They would visit almost weekly, but even then we were never close. My step father was definitely of the mindset they were his children, and I was my mom's child.

[ebk30303.livejournal.com]

I may not have been an only child, but there were many times (then & now) I wished I was. When it came to having my own, I discovered after several years of trying, I was only ment to be the parent of one. So now my only daughter has her only daughter. Life is very good and that child is going to be spoiled by Nana. Love you, N&P PS: Pappa is going to be a great grandpa in October. Told you life was good.

[mizarchivist]

No caveats. My parents cite negative population growth and efficiency.

[dani-namaste.livejournal.com]

One of two, and by most accounts I am NOTHING like my sister. Don't know that I have any thoughts pro or con; my childhood was what it was, and it's nice to have my nieces and nephews around, and I generally enjoy my sister's company when I get to see her.

I also tend to refer to my best friend as my sister, although we didn't grow up together; she's been an essential part of my life for the last decade, and she knows me better than most people do.

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

Well, I had two older sisters who never wanted to play with me because I was one of the "kids." And two younger brothers who never wanted to play with me because I was one of the girls.

However... I can't possibly imagine life without a bunch of siblings. And all of my siblings who have had kids so far have had more than 1 child.

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

I have a half brother but we weren't raised together and only saw each other for a week or two every few years so while we're fairly close now that we're adults, as a kid I was for all intents and purposes, an only child.

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I wasn't going to speak, but there's a preponderance of "only"s who responded.

I'm the last of four. The closest is six years away, so I had my adolescence to myself, but I must say I LOVED having a full house as a little kid and tagging around after my siblings. (If they loved it is another question!) For better or worse, I'm glad to have them. Assuming this one comes out all right, A and I plan to have at least one more.

[ceo]

I'm the youngest of 4, by several years. My parents had 3 kids and weren't planning on any more, moved to MA and had a house built with a bedroom for each kid, neglected to unpack certain important things the first night and nine months later found themselves short a bedroom. (Well, it was a couple years before that was an issue.)

The younger of my two sisters resented me for a very long time for making her share a room with the other. My brother is 9 years my senior and severely autistic, so having me share with him was not going to work. It actually never occurred to me until recently to wonder why they didn't figure out a way to add a bedroom.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Just me. I've always been happy about it, up until we're entering the later part of Mom's life...

[muffyjo]

Where is the "it's complicated" button?

I am my mother's only child and was raised by her and her parents.
For a brief 2 years, I had 3 siblings via marriage. Then they went away to return when I was old enough to adopt them on my own (20s).
At 35 I discovered I have a half sister via my father (who I mostly met again then)

So I checked "only child" because, well, it's mostly true.

[bluepapercup]

I have a full biological sister three year my junior with whom I lived until I went to college. I have two step-siblings (sister and brother) who I see only very, very occasionally and they are one and four years younger than I. During my mother's second marriage I had three step-siblings, a sister, a brother, and a sister, who were three and two years older and five years younger, respectively. I lost contact with them after my mother's divorce but oddly enough, the older sister just friended me on facebook yesterday. How odd!

I plan to have two children myself.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

I'm the younger of two. Two always seemed like a good number to me--someone to play checkers with on boring rainy days, with no worries about being outnumbered in the inevitable sibling fights.