I’m an Only Child—Am I Really That Bad?

One day in college, I opened my apartment door to a  lovely surprise visit from my mom and grandmother. In their arms, white boxes tied with string and flowers. They’d come to celebrate my birthday. I remember being surprised, delighted and taking the visit in stride, as happy to get back to my studies and reading the next day as I was to spend time with them and accept their gifts. Later, my roommate, a dear friend with five siblings and step-siblings, sniffed, “God, it’s like they were bringing gifts to the baby Christ child.” I had no idea what she was talking about—didn’t every family do this sort of thing for their kids?

As it turns out, no. When you’re the only child, like me, you get a lot of attention, which according to the cliché I grew up hearing, makes you spoiled, selfish and sort of annoying. I’ve always just accepted that label, the way I accepted how my short legs don’t make me the fastest runner. But now that birth order theory is everywhere, prompting dialogue around how people parent, spend money and show affection (birth order love language, anyone?), I wonder—what if everything I thought I knew about being an only child was wrong? Also, since the birth rate in many countries including the U.S. is declining (though the number of single births has stayed steady), I wonder: Are all these only children like me a cause for alarm? I found a highly credentialed family psychologist, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, to give me the latest learnings on the matter.

Birth order theory, as postulated by psychologist Alfred Adler way back in the 1890s, says that where you are born in your family line—brothers and sisters—determines your personality. One scientific abstract sums it up like this: First-borns are responsible, second-borns are strivers and last-born children, the babies of the group, are, well, babied by their older siblings and thus expect such treatment throughout their life. Only children, defined as a child with no siblings, have their parents’ full attention during their childhood and grow up feeling entitled, competitive towards their fathers for their mothers’ attention (since they don’t battle it out with other siblings) and selfish.

Child psychology trailblazer G. Stanley Hall, who wrote the first large-scale study of only children, declared that “being an only child is a disease in itself.” 

In those days, America was a land of agriculture where multiple children meant more wage-free hands to work the family farm, so the economy of the time supported large family boosterism. In 1907, G. Stanley Hall, the first president of the American Psychological Association and child psychology trailblazer who wrote the first large-scale study of only children, declared that “being an only child is a disease in itself.” Hall popularized the child-study movement in the 1880s; national study groups formed to spread his theories. He is remembered for supervising the 1896 study Of Peculiar and Exceptional Children, which described only children as permanent misfits. (Hall was also a eugenicist, which I like to remember when I’m resenting this shade-throwing only child-hater.)

Flash-forward to today. I asked Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and author of over 250 papers and 17 books about family psychology, to give it to me straight: What does the latest science says about us flawed only children? Are we spoiled, selfish, maladjusted, lacking social skills, needing overmuch alone time?

“The latest stuff says that the birth order theories are myths pretty much,” she told me. (Welp! My fault for using TikTok’s birth order dating theory as a science digest?) “Here is the deal—when you’re exposed to other kids, like on teams and say swimming class, you’ll learn socialization. On the other hand, if you are always only with your parents, you are not going to know how to strategically adapt when you go to school or be around other kids.” Hirsh-Pasek says that a normal full childhood, rich with playdates and group activities with other children, will teach kids what they need to know, including conflict negotiation, impulse control and executive functioning.

[The] style of parenting that only children receive is as important as their single child status

She says the style of parenting that only children receive is as important as their single child status. “If your parents do everything with and for you, then you are right, the kids are going to learn social skills later rather than sooner. But usually, only children aren’t always around their parents—they go to some sort of care situation so parents can work, or a swimming and gym class so they learn skills” like cooperation.

Okay, so I’m not a total wash socially, since as a child I was sent to dance and swim classes…but, what about my superpower/Kryptonite: independence and alone time? Can I chalk up my ability to entertain myself for hours on end (even before the advent of social media) to being an only child?

“I don’t know that that’s true,” the professor says, reiterating that any only child-personality quirk “is not steadfast. For example, my nephew is going to turn 4 soon, and he has a new sibling. Now he has to learn how to be more independent, because while his mom is breastfeeding, he can’t count on her to entertain him.”

Reflecting back on my childhood, it’s perhaps the conflicts with other children that taught me, an only child, the most. For example, when my roommate chided me for getting so much attention from my mom and grandmother, I learned that this family attention was not universal, and was something to be thankful for. Likewise, while I still remember being mocked for my big vocabulary at summer camp (how was I to know that fourth graders didn’t use the word “elaborate”?), I also remember how it inspired me to try harder to join in group activities at camp. By the end of a month, kids were cheering for me during a swimming race that resulted in my winning of a camp award.

“Another kid is never going to be as nice as an adult,” says the doctor, who sees kid-on-kid socialization, inside or outside the family, as “helping round out an otherwise adult-centric world.”

Just to get this straight, Prof— you’re saying I’m not destined to die lonely, clutching mere possessions in lieu of some dearly beloved I never earned due to my only child status? “I want you to know that I am married to a wonderful, well-adjusted and fun only child for years now,” Hirsh-Pasek told me.