by pratt1 14 Replies latest jw friends
After reading the thread of "toxic relationships" I began to wonder, are there advantages to being an only child and / or would you rather have siblings even though the relationhips can be painful.
I am an only child and I am beginning to think that I am not missing much by not having brothers and sisters.
Did you family size have anything to do with your decision to have one child/ or more than one child?
I have an older sister, and I was not raised with her, wish we had been raised together. I have one child that is a young toddler and I would like to have another child someday. But because I want to, not to give my son a playmate.
Dragonlady76
I'm sort of in a weird group. I was adopted by people who had 3 older children 20 y older, 28 y older and 11 yr older. So I was youngest/only child.... sort of....When I was 1-1/2 my first neice was born - by the time I was 8 they were all outta the house.
I was sort of raised an only child, but with nephews and neices close to my age, and I ended up caring for them as younger siblings!
I watched these young families have children right away and really struggle. One neice had severe cerebral palsey.
I made my decision that if I marry young like they did (18) I'd wait at least 5 years before thinking of children. Well, at 5 years my marriage was soooo bad that there was no way I was gonna bring a kid into that!
The rest of my journey has not been conducive to having children, so at 30 I had my tubes tied. I have mourned not having children, but I have not regretted it!
Kev and I would have been good parents but neither of us wanted children at that time in our lives, and as it was we broke up for 10 years before reconnecting and developing our relationship.
As a Post Script, I have met my aunt, grandparents, and half-siblings of my birthmother. She was killed in a car accident in 1974 before I could meet her.
I always wanted to be an only-child. Instead, I'm the oldest of a whole bunch of children. Guess my parents didn't have any other form of entertainment, and turned out to be quite the 'fertil Myrtle' ones.
DY
I have one older Sister (BITCH)28
I have one older brother (FUN)26
ME(Crazy) 24
Brother(Moody Baby) 22
Brother(Woe is me) 19
Brother(next Jim Carrey) 18
Brooke
I have many siblings. All of them stupid, useless, annoying, cult fanatics. I would rather have been an only child. Or rather, I would rather have been born to different parents.
At this moment in time in my life I would LOVE to be an only child. I've got a brother & sister who don't speak to me so I guess that really does make me, in reality, an only child. BUT...to add to this dilemma...my mom also shuns me so I guess that would make me an orphaned only child.
Cathy L.
Interesting post. I am the oldest of four girls. I can tell you it was not good being the first born in our home. My mom was only fifteen when she had me. Not old enough to be a good responsible parent. My dad was too busy always getting drunk. The only positive thing I can say as the oldest child, that my other siblings have no recall of the troubled years in my parents marriage. I was exposed to much violence. The one influential person in my tender years was grandma, my moms mom. She practically raised me. My sisters didn't share inthis wonderful relationship I had with grandma, because by that time my parents became JWS. Yuck yuck and yucky. Need I say more. I resented my parents for becoming witnesses as I was ready for conformation in the Anglican Church of England. I was so happy to finally have a strong religious inflluence in life with my grandma. But alas my parents destroyed that chance for me. My grandma found it difficult to forgive my mother for what she and dad were going to do by being JWS. She depised them with a passion. My grandma is more of a Christian than any JW I have ever known. She was a saint. I pray God is using her in the heavens. She deserved it.
I based my lifes experience on my choice of having children. I was dam sure not to bring a baby into a unsettled marriage. I waited several years. We lost our first. The second one came along after five years of marriage. I felt at age 26 I had the maturity to be an excellent mom. I wasn't a perfect mom, but I sure as heck made a good mommy. My son and I have a beautiful relationship. We are very very close. This could also be contributed to the fact that I almost lost him to strep B mennigitis at birth. I was very lucky a new serum had just been developed and my son was the first infant ever to recieve this treatment and thank God he survived. With little residual damage. He had epilepsy until age 17 and he just seemed to outgrow it. He never had grande mal seisures but withdrawl seizures.
I am only blessed mom, I adore my son with all my heart and he feels the same way as I too. We are like to peas in a pod and he even favours my genes.
I can tell you with all truthfulness, that I only wanted on child. I wanted to devote a life with just one child. I knew deep down I couldn't have handled more than one child. I knew my inner and physical strength was limited even in those years.
I was determined not to treat my child the way I was treated. My son is not close with his father, however this is the fault of the father. He chose his ministry over his family. He loves his dad but doesn't respect his father. He feels his father failed him and as a result any relationship with his father is sticky . But Richard is living now with his father for a while I hope they don't get into a situation where Richard calls and cries because of the way his father is. I hope it works out for them both. Only time will tell
So this is my feelings on the situation.
Orangefatcat
I have 1 brother who's got ADHD. He was a lot of trouble in puberty. Now he has calmed down and has a job. I don't see him as often as I'd like but I do really him. I wouldn't want to be an only child. I do think I'd like to have children, at least two and not more than that but as I'm single I don't see any chance of that happening soon. Besides I don't want to rush into it, first I have to find a settled and stable relationship. I feel I'm ready to fall in again and I hope it all works out when I do
Bas
I have one older brother. He was born in 1940 and then the war came and my father was gone for 4 years. I was born late in 1945, so there is nearly 6 years between us. Mom was not able to have more children after I was born, and I always wished there were more. I felt like an only child most of my life.
So................yes, that had an effect on my decision to have a larger family than my parents did.
We had four. It was GREAT!!
