Miserable misfit … or only child?

So where did the myth start that happy families are big families?

That if you don’t have brothers and sisters you ‘re doomed to a future as a lonely only?

This is the question raised in a book by American wife and mum Laura Sandler who had no siblings herself and has one child, daughter Dahlia, who is well adjusted and content.

Laura reckons you don’t need to be a miserable misfit just because your parents don’t produce more than one child.

She believes the “more is best” attitude was fine back in the day when the survival of the species depended on large families. But the reverse is true today.

Laura claims, however, that society puts emotional pressure on couples to have several children if they want their kids to be happy and fulfilled.

It’s a subject that has always fascinated me.

I spent most of my childhood hoping for a brother or sister. It didn’t happen. I read books about big families who had so much fun together. I wanted to be one of the four March sisters in Little Women sharing adventures together. Not this geeky girl who felt she was on the outside looking in at family life.

Strangely, my pals thought I was the lucky one.

They resented sisters who wore their clothes/read their comics/stole their favourite hair clasps and brothers who called them names and “grassed” on them to their parents.

My friends would come round to my house and say how cool it was to have peace and quiet without there being annoying little kids around.

But as an only child all the focus and attention is on you and that’s a lot of pressure.

You feel you need to shine to keep the parents happy. If not you who?

Christmas and summer holidays are hard for only children you get more prezzies and are taken more places but there’s no-one young to share it with.

I still have a diary I wrote as a schoolgirl and it read “When I grow up I want to write books, live in a cottage with roses round the door and have five children.”

Nearly made it.

The four children were the icing on the cake.

Of course there were times they squabbled with each other and were miffed if one brother got the BMX racing bike the other wanted. They were competitive at school and at sports.

I’m sure there were times they’d have loved some undivided attention.

But you always want what you don’t have.

Being an only child works for some people. It encourages you to be self reliant, to make friends more easily and to cherish them but I’d still give anything to have a sibling.

Why?

Who else can swap memories of your childhood so vividly? Who can share how you feel when a parent dies? Who knows the best and the worst of you and still accepts you?

Only the one who has been there from the start. Who shares your genes and “borrows” your jeans.

Your brother or sister.