Wednesday, April 17, 2013

O is for Only Child

People are always surprised to learn I'm an only child.  "Didn't you wish you had siblings growing up?" they ask. 

I never did.  I went through a phase, around age five, when I constantly wished my best friend, Sarah, could be adopted as my sister, but that was less a wish for an actual sibling and more a desire to have a sleepover every night.

Maybe some people would have been lonely or bored growing up without siblings, but I was far too busy playing with my vast collection of toys, sleeping in my enormous bedroom, bathing in my private bathroom, and domineering my parents' undivided attention to really notice.  I was not just my parents' only child, but my maternal grandparents' only grandchild as well.  I was received like a messiah of innocence and joy.


I've only encountered one aspect of adulthood for which being an only child left me wholly unprepared.

Board games.

When you're an only child, you mostly play board games with your courteous, respectful parents.  When you have siblings, board games are a cutthroat competition for dominance and your parents' love, a desperate attempt to defend your fragile sense of self-worth, fraught with gloating and betrayal.



The first time I played a board game with Hubs, who grew up with an older brother, I was nearly reduced to tears.

You could say that I lack the healthy sense of competition and ability to cope with failure that are fostered by childhood sibling rivalries.  You could say that the survival skills taught by sibling relationships prove an invaluable tool throughout adulthood.

Yet somehow, through brazen self-assurance and sheer stubbornness, I have an uncanny ability to negotiate a solution in even the toughest situations.

This is how we play board games in our house now.

13 comments:

  1. I have three siblings.
    Man, I wished I was an only child!!

    I used to like playing board games with my brother, because he was so easy to annoy. He probably wished he was an only child too.

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    Replies
    1. I used to love annoying my parents. Sometimes I wonder if they wished they'd had another kid just so something would distract me from annoying them. It was really like a sport for me.

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  2. Someone wrote a book about 100 years ago titled "My Brother Was an Only Child"!!

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  3. I'm the youngest of 6. We had one bathroom for 8 people. Guess who was the last to get to use the bathroom? I had 2 children. They had a beautiful big bathroom with 2 sinks. They still fought over the bathroom. I can't even imagine the joy of being an only child. Every one of my older sisters said that our parents should have stopped after she was born. But then they would have been deprived of the joy of hating me.

    Love,
    Janie

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    Replies
    1. All they needed was a second toilet and second shower... And then a wall separating the extra toilet, shower, and sink from the other toilet, shower, and sink... Oh wait, that's a second bathroom. My bad! :)

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    2. When we had one child still in school, who only visited us during breaks, we moved into a house with four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. It didn't make sense. Now I live alone and I have two bedrooms and two bathrooms.

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  4. lol...having a sibling makes you realize that you cannot have everything

    - Dishit from Only the Crazy Survive!!!

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  5. Replies
    1. Thanks! They are crazy with pure, unadulterated adoration.

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  6. I'm an only child. Still pretty cutthroat, though.

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  7. I was an only child until I was 7. Then my one sibling, a younger brother, came along. I did have the advantage of being the only female cousin though, until I reached adulthood. Now I have one female cousin who is young enough to be my daughter. I have an odd family. :)

    #atozchallenge, Kristen's blog: kristenhead.blogspot.com

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  8. I'm an only child too, and you're so right about board games (although I was the dog, not the top hat). I think I learnt a lot, though, from watching friends fight with their siblings!

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  9. i have siblings, i am the middle child at that, i only dared to dream of what you had once a while...

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