Being "One and Done" Is A-Okay.
Traditionally, South Asian culture involves rearing large families. Now, single-child households are on the rise. In Middle Class Dreams: India’s One-Child Families, Alaka M. Basu and Sonalde Desai write, “Among the urban middle classes, it is no longer unusual to find families stopping at one child.” More recent generations are adopting Western models. Individualist values, such as independence and self-reliance, are taking prevalence over collectivist values such as group obligations. Of course, not everything is black and white; people can have both individualist and collectivist traits. Deciding to be "one and done" does not speak to anyone’s values as much as it does to a family’s choice based on unique factors and circumstances.
Whatever the reason — finances, health, personal preferences, age — it would be nice if we all trusted a parent’s choice and instinct. But as most parents know by now, this is rarely the case. When a parent says they are happy with raising an only child, they can meet with a lot of criticism: "But they’ll be so lonely!" "They won’t learn how to socialize properly!" Or, my personal favourite, as my current partner is not my daughter’s father, “But don’t you want to have his child?”
“People say that only children are spoiled, bossy and lonely. But there are have been hundreds of research studies that show only children are no different than their peers,” social psychologist Susan Newman tells Bounty. Friendships can be made through school, daycare and play dates with friends. Plus, there is nothing wrong with spending time alone and nurturing an independence in your little one.
Statistically, people are starting families later in life. There may not be the time and energy required in having more than one child or the financial resources. It isn’t just working-class families opting for one-child households due to money. Middle-class families are trending this way too. A mother surveyed by The Guardian and NetMums reports, “We want to offer our son the best possible start in life by giving him access to lots of trips, living in a nice house, in a nice neighbourhood, with outstanding schools. If we had more children, we would have to move house, move area, I would have to move jobs, my partner would have to pay even more to commute into London so he would have to leave earlier and get back later, which would impact on him seeing our son.”
We all grew up seeing nuclear families on TV. White, married, heterosexual, middle-class couples with a son, a daughter and a golden retriever. It may be easy to get this perpetuated ideal mixed up with reality. When it comes to love, the glue of the family, there is no checklist of rules to follow.
Feature image courtesy of Getty Images
Hillary Di Menna
Author
Hillary Di Menna is a freelance journalist who manages to publish her scribblings while raising a six-year-old skateboarding ballerina and sharing her home with two snuggly black cats. Her parenting blog, Misfit Matriarch, follow her adventures in parenting. You can find all her work at
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