essay about being the only child

Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction.

Not many people know what the term pros and cons mean and how it affects a child and the parents. The word pros mean that the child is being raised alone in the family hence has no one to share resources with or fight for things in the home. Cons mean loneliness or boredom.

Children born alone in the family have advantages and disadvantages. The grandparents in such families seem to love these children so much although even in a family with many siblings the grandparents also seem to love them with a single child, the love is not divided. The attitude of grandparents may be affected by traditional believes since they have different beliefs according to their background.

A lone child enjoys all the benefits of the family alone since he/she has no one else to share with. There are no economic constraints in such a family although even if the family has many children they usually have a way to care for their family since they planned for them again nowadays there are many methods of family planning so it is the role of the couple to choose the number of children they want although there is the aspect of God being in control of children to the believers.

Just as Rhoda M. in her article in www. Helium says; she grew alone so she had more cons than pros. she says that she had no one to play with & her life was spoilt I tend to believe her and this from experience with my own cousin.

A child raised alone can be spoilt and is hard for such a child to be independent although in school most of them do very well because the parents have a lot of attention in his/her homework or school work to be more specific. Let me once more revisit the story of my cousin. She was born and grew alone with her parents in an environment where they were no children even nearby the village with whom she could play. The only person she could play with was the parents. She was over pampered by the parents and the grandparents. She had all kinds of toys to play with but she was never contented because not all the time the parents were available for her to play with and again not all kinds of games she could play hence making her life in the home more miserable despite the fact that she had all that she needed. She lacked nothing that she needed. When she went to school after work the parents made sure that they had looked at her books and knew her progress in school and also her studies at home. I admired the way she was living and wished I could also be alone little did I knew that she did not enjoy much being alone. She was so solitary and bored at times for she had no one to play with. I evidenced this during the holidays because she was coming to our home and when the schools re-opened she could cry her heart out refusing to back to their home until she could be beaten up at times. I was wondering why she was behaving like that since she lacked nothing and ate the best foods. It’s later I came to realize that the cons were outweighing her and came to accept the saying of the late Pope John Paul II who said that “the only gift parents can give their children are sisters and brothers”.

Being the only child of the parent is enjoyable only at the tender age but when a time reaches when you have to be independent live starts being tough or when you have to live with other people especially in boarding schools where you seem to share everything and that is a life that you have never been introduced to.

Just as my cousin was living with her parents being provided with everything now things have taken another trend she is spoilt and might remain the same way for the rest of her life as Rhoda was saying in her article that she was spoilt. Now my cousin is married and keeps on bothering her husband every now and then. When they have a grudge and disagrees about an issue she runs home to her parents who have nothing else to do apart from regretting why they did not limit their love to her. The parents have no choice but to talk to her and sometimes she even doesn’t heed to whatever they say and they have no other option apart from giving her whatever she needs.

In China, there is a policy that governs the number of children one has to have and this policy was started in 1980. According to Chinese by James Reynolds BBC News, the national policy is for couples to have a single child and law has to be taken for anyone who violates that rule. In China, if a woman gets pregnant the second time she is allowed to take an abortion. Some of the reasons that make this country be so strict on the number of children are scarcity of land and poverty so raising many siblings becomes a problem. I read in a daily nation in 2006 that there was a couple in China who got many siblings and had to give out some of them to the relatives because they were unable to raise them. This policy can work well in the US because as the Chinese sterilize women and accept abortion the US government also accepts the same and their basic aim is to control the population. An American writer McFann, Carolyn says that there are pros and cons about a single child in the family although he advises couples to have one child. The American’s prefer just a single child either being adopted or born for the sake of heirs. The few numbers of siblings in the US enable them to control the population and this is one of the reasons that it remains a developed country. The fact that the country has few people there is no limited space and resources and the rate of pollution is low despite the fact that there are many industries. The benefit of and liabilities are the activities which children engage in. these benefits are realized by a child who is alone since there is no competition. Doreen Nagle says that all these benefits such as gifts, picnics, and the like are a result of the parents having no other child hence can afford to provide each and every other thing that the child needs.

Although having one child is important it is good for the parent to take caution on how they bring up the child to avoid spoiling her and her life just as my cousin was spoilt. Parents should love these lone children but should have limitations because even the bible(to the believers) in proverbs states it clearly that ‘spare the rod spoil he child’ parents should be very cautious on how they handle their kids for them to grow up with good manners although there are few who are too hard to handle.

In cultural perspectives, there are different views of lone siblings depending on the locality and the tribe and their beliefs. In history, there are those who had superstations and in the traditional setting, the number of children determined the amount of wealth one had.

In my culture, they believe that having one child there are more cons than pros just as Rhoda M was believing. This child has most of the time to be with adults although this might create good closeness with the parents hence the parents can be in a good position to guide and counsel their child and also help him/her out of peer pressure. Even if the children fight when they are at a tender age and lack toys, gifts, and the like at times it is better to have at least two or three siblings because when they grow up they become cooperative and live in harmony helping each other, sharing and a less weight to cater for the parents in their old age although not all children can live this way.

According to Aronson, J.Z book, parents should have a single child so that they can be able to recruit him/her in academics because education is the only key to success and it’s the responsibility of a parent to do so.

In my opinion, one child is better than having multiple of them although two are better than one for socialization, playing, and deep connection. A one-child family is attractive and the couple does not need to worry much after they retire about how their child will survive since they take care of him/her with the few resources that they have. The only thing I find a nuisance is an overindulgence in the love for the child because this might spoil the child. I would prefer parents to have one child due to the current economical constraints and the fact that modern technology is so high hence people are more involved in other issues rather than large families.

Aronson, J.Z (1996). How schools can recruit hard-to-reach parents. Educational leadership.

Berger, K.S (2001). The developing person through the lifespan. New yolk: Worth. James Reynolds BBC news, Henan province, central China.

McFann, Carolyn. (2007). When planning your family, consider the pros and cons of being an only child. Ezinearticles.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, August 27). Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-growing-up-as-an-only-child/

"Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child." IvyPanda , 27 Aug. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-growing-up-as-an-only-child/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child'. 27 August.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child." August 27, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-growing-up-as-an-only-child/.

1. IvyPanda . "Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child." August 27, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-growing-up-as-an-only-child/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Pros and Cons of Growing Up as an Only Child." August 27, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/pros-and-cons-of-growing-up-as-an-only-child/.

• The Secret by Rhoda Byrne
• The Prescott Valley Events Center
• Lone Parents: Social Work and Exclusion
• Saudi Arabian Lone Wolf Terrorism in 2011-2016
• “The Odd Women” and “Women in Love”: Evolving Views of Gender Roles
• Child Behavior Today and Ten Years Ago
• Grandparents-Grandchildren Relations Then and Now
• Finding Financing for Business Startup
• Lone Workers in the Waste Industry
• Grandparents Raising Grandchildren With Disabilities
• Parental Roles and Changes in the Last 50 Years
• Spanking Is Harmful to Children
• Parental Hopes and Standards for Sons and Daughters
• Growing Up with Hearing Loss
• Parenting Education Programs: Pros and Cons

I enjoyed being an only child until my mother died when I was 23, and I had to deal with it all by myself

• I grew up as an only child with a single mother in Manhattan.
• I enjoyed having her time and attention, as well as the opportunities being an "only" afforded me.
• It wasn't until I had to navigate my mother's death alone that I really longed for siblings.

I grew up as an only child in 1980s Manhattan with a single mother .

Though my family looked different from most of my friends' families — the majority had fathers and at least one other sibling — I never felt I lacked anything. It was the opposite, in fact.

I was afforded opportunities as an only child that I never would have gotten if I had siblings.

When my mother died in my early 20s, and I had to navigate the grief alone, I longed for a sibling to share the burden with me. The experience shaped my adulthood so profoundly that I ended up having four kids .

As an only child, my mother tried to give me everything

My mother lavished me with attention, affection, and opportunities.

She'd emigrated from Ukraine and wanted to make sure I had access to everything she'd dreamt of private education, French lessons, ballet classes, trips to exciting cities around the world.

I was spoiled, sure, but she felt huge pride in being able to provide her only child with the beautifully wrapped trappings of a lifestyle she'd always coveted.

It wasn't only about stuff, though. I can't remember a time when my mother wasn't there for me. Reading bedtime stories, providing emotional support, and wrapping me in her perfumed hugs.

I was also her favorite dinner date and shopping companion.

Related stories

Our only-child, single-parent dynamic gave our relationship an intensity I'm not sure would have existed if I'd been one of many or had a dad.

Navigating my mother's illness and death showed me a different, less appealing side of being an 'only'

As I became an adult and started to cultivate my own friends and relationships, being an "only" with only one parent became more complicated.

I didn't have the luxury of simply doing what I wanted — spending holidays with my boyfriend's family, for example — because I had to weigh up whether it was OK to leave my mother alone or not.

I worried about her all the time.

It was hard not to feel guilty. Harder still to accept how heavy the weight of being another person's whole world was starting to feel on my shoulders.

My life imploded during my year abroad in Paris. My mother had a breakdown, began experiencing paranoid delusions and hallucinations, and became terrified of living in New York.

With no other family members to help, my mother came to live with me in my studio apartment in Paris.

Pretending to be just another college kid abroad, studying and partying in Paris while caring for my mentally ill mother, devastated me emotionally and physically.

When my mother died by suicide in a Parisian hospital several months later and the entire family that I'd grown up with vanished overnight, I felt more alone than I ever thought possible.

My experiences shaped my choices as an adult

My experiences may be unusual, but those months of not understanding my mother's mental health crisis, not having anyone to talk about it with, and dealing with death-admin while grieving the person I loved most in the world changed my perspective on being an "only."

Suddenly, the downsides outweighed the perks.

Nearly two decades have passed, but I continue to struggle with what happened in my early 20s. Though my friends were wonderful, loving, and helpful beyond measure, I felt like an imposition. I yearned for someone else to share my experiences and support me through them.

I have four kids now, and they don't have "only child perks" like getting lavished with gifts or holding my undivided attention.

But I hope they have something different. The thing I needed most: another person who could be there in the hardest of times.

And also, in the happiest.

If you or someone you know is experiencing depression or has had thoughts of harming themself or taking their own life, get help. In the US, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline , which provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations. Help is also available through the Crisis Text Line — just text "HOME" to 741741. The International Association for Suicide Prevention offers resources for those outside the US.

Watch: Exclusive interview with Elon Musk on Twitter fame, loneliness, and the future of AI

• Main content

Why Are People Weird About Only Children?

“Onlies” don’t seem to be any worse off than kids with siblings. So why do stereotypes about them persist?

This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here .

When I was a child, my lack of siblings was often a source of bewildered concern. Don’t you get lonely? people would ask. Bet you wish you had someone to play with . Often, my mom was asked when she’d give me a brother or sister. But as I grew up, sympathy was overtaken by suspicion. You’re such an only child became a recurring mantra, whether I’d asserted a strong opinion or played sick to avoid dodgeball. In the cultural consciousness, only children are frequently pegged as weirdos: maladjusted, selfish, spoiled, uncompromising, or just unusually precocious. We are at once pitied for our sibling-less childhood and judged for the supposed eccentricities it left us with.

Research doesn’t support the idea that only children are any worse off than those with siblings, but kids as young as 8 (including “onlies” themselves) have still been found to hold prejudices against only kids. You can hardly blame them: That bias is woven right into our lexicon. The moniker “only child”—rather than, say, “solo” or “individual” child—suggests a sense of deprivation. It’s one consonant away from “lonely child.” People ask one another, “When do you think you’ll have kids?”—plural. Where does this weirdness about only children come from?

The mythic persona of the only child can be traced back as far as 1896, when a Clark University fellow named E. W. Bohannon conducted a study of “Peculiar and Exceptional Children.” After observing more than 1,000 children, he declared of the 46 onlies, “They have imaginary companions, do not go to school regularly, if at all, do not get along with other children well, as a rule, are generally spoiled by indulgence, and have bad health in most cases.” Notably, many of his subjects lived in isolated farmhouses , where they worked long hours; it made sense, then, that kids with siblings would be better-adjusted than those who hardly interacted with other children at all. Still, G. Stanley Hall—the first president of the American Psychological Association, who oversaw the study—said that “to be an only child is a disease in itself.”

Read: Are siblings more important than parents?

Only-child stereotypes proliferated in the following decades. In 1922, the psychologist A. A. Brill wrote , “It would naturally be best for the individual and the [human] race if there were no only children.” In 1968, The New York Times ran an article titled “The Only-Child Syndrome,” advising parents to adopt a second child if they couldn’t give birth to another. In 1979, the writer George Crane urged people not to marry only children: Their irrationality and inflexibility, he claimed, would make divorce more likely. Talk about bad PR.

Depictions of onlies in movies, TV, and literature haven’t helped our case. Eloise, the children’s-book character who lives at the Plaza Hotel, and Veruca Salt, who’s tossed into the garbage chute at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, are both spoiled brats. Hermione Granger is the annoying know-it-all of the Harry Potter series. Indeed, being an only child is regularly used to convey otherness, whether exceptionally bad or good: Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls is such a bookworm that fans have counted more than 400 books referenced on the show. Meanwhile, films such as Cheaper by the Dozen and Yours, Mine and Ours valorize the supersize American family. Both of those movies were remade within the past 25 years, yet they glorify a family model that hasn’t been typical since the 1850s .

Today, only children are much more common than they’ve been in the past. Our World in Data reports that the average number of births per American woman shrank from 3.6 in 1957 to 1.7 in 2021. But the multichild ideal has nevertheless persisted. In 2015, the Pew Research Center reported that 86 percent of people think families should have at least two children; in 2018, Pew reported that 41 percent of adults think three or more is best. According to Toni Falbo, who researches only children at the University of Texas at Austin, financial considerations and career ambitions may take precedence over having multiple children—especially now, with record-high student-loan debt and child-care costs . Women are also having a child later in life than ever before , leaving less time to do it again. Still, Falbo believes that onlies agitate people’s understanding of what a family should look like.

Read: Six books that show no one can hurt you like a sibling

Of course, sibling relationships can be rich and formative; maybe some people can’t imagine growing up without a built-in playmate and confidant. But other relationships can fulfill these functions—and perhaps without the typical sibling conflicts and competitiveness. Research shows that only children tend to be closer to their parents and to regard them with more warmth and respect than people with siblings do. They may feel more at ease interacting with teachers , probably because they speak mostly with adults at home. And unlike Bohannon’s junior farmers, kids today spend most of their waking hours with peers, at school and during playdates and extracurriculars. Growing up as an only, I always had friends who felt like sisters.

Indeed, most contemporary studies don’t find any notable disadvantages for only children. Onlies actually tend to have higher intelligence-test scores and more ambitious educational goals—perhaps in part because they face less competition for their parents’ emotional and financial resources. But these advantages seem to even out in adulthood. According to a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study , only children and children with siblings ultimately have the same employment rates, marriage outcomes, levels of mobility, and average number of kids.

The one trait that might separate them is sociability. A longitudinal study called Project Talent —for which more than 400,000 teenagers were interviewed in 1960, and again one, five, and 11 years after they graduated from high school or were supposed to—concluded that onlies are more interested in solitude and less likely to join group activities. (As a kid, I spent long hours every summer tearing through Scholastic-book-fair hauls, thinking I was in the best possible company among fictional characters, unaware that I was tanking my sociability score.) And in 2016, researchers in China took MRI brain scans and found that, compared with kids with siblings, onlies showed greater flexibility—a measurement of creativity—but lower agreeableness.

Then again, it’s possible that onlies tend to be less sociable because the culture doesn’t embrace them. That’s generally the issue with studying only children: It’s tough to distinguish inherent only-child qualities from those that develop in a sibling-centric world. Bohannon’s stereotype has stuck to the culture like gum to a shoe, and as an only, I’ve spent years trying to pick it off. I wrote this entire essay arguing that only children aren’t self-obsessed or lacking in social skills. But now that I’ve reached the end, I’m not sure whether I’ve proved that idea or undermined it. Detailing how normal only children are is, perhaps, exactly what an only child would do.

• Family Dynamics

The Biggest Benefit, and the Top Risk, of Being an Only Child

"sometimes i wonder, ‘who am i separate from her’".

Posted September 20, 2023 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• Find a Family Therapy Therapist
• Studies find only children tend to be closer to their parents than kids with siblings.
• Even in two-child families, the bond between parents and children wasn’t as strong.
• Despite all the benefits of the parent-only child tight connection, enmeshment can become a problem.

More one-on-one time with Mom and Dad, resources that don’t have to be shared, the absence of sibling competition —whatever the reasons, the result is the same: Research finds only children tend to develop a closer bond with parents than do their peers with siblings.

“I wouldn’t swap being my parents’ best friend for anything in the world,” Nina*, a 30-year-old only child, told me.

So is this closer bond that most only children have with parents a good thing? Can kids and parents get too close? For the most part, it seems like a positive, but there are some potential pitfalls to be aware of, too.

A well-documented close connection

The existence of a tight connection between only children and their parents was observed in a research review dating back to the 1980s when social psychologist Toni Falbo and researcher Denise Polit pored over 115 studies and concluded that only children “…surpassed all non-only borns, especially those from large families, in the positivity of the parent-child relationship.”

Since then, similar results have been seen in studies done in the West and East. When researchers in China, for example, explored the parent-child relationship of junior high school students, they found that singletons were more likely to say they had a close relationship with their parents than were children who had sisters or brothers. That finding held even in two-child families.

The closeness is well-established and makes sense, given increased interactions and time spent together. Cassie*, 47, is the middle of three sisters and parent of one. “I’m much closer with my daughter than the relationship I had with either one of my parents.” She attributes that in part to a different philosophy of parenting . Her parents expected her and her siblings to simply do what they said and didn’t have the capacity to go over their requests with each child as a parent of one generally has. “I have time to be very loving and respectful with my 7-year-old only.”

Singleton Sofia, 29, was raised in a large Hispanic family, as were most of her friends and relatives, yet she feels her relationship with her parents is much healthier than many of her friends have with their parents. “They couldn’t confide in their parents when they were younger and don’t today.”

The junior high school study also concluded that the connection remained tight even after the typically turbulent teen years. That was exactly the experience of only children Henry and Beth, who said they pulled away from their parents as adolescents. But they both reported that their bond with their parents grew stronger again after their rocky teenage years.

Today, Linda and her adult daughter Beth check in daily. They talk for about 10 to 15 minutes during Beth’s drive to work. “We are very close now, but high school and college were really rough,” Beth admits.

As an adult, Henry, 38, is closer to his dad than many of his friends with siblings are to their parents. “Dad and I became close buddies when I was a young boy, and we still are. My dad has a new hobby or interest with great regularity. I became his partner in all of that; we continue to do many things together… I loved his company as a kid and again as I got older. It was only the teen years when I pulled back.”

Henry’s experience is different with his two sons. “As a kid, my dad was joined to me. My boys, ages 6 and 8, are joined at the hip. When I was a kid playing cars or He-man, it was with my dad.” Sometimes, his boys don’t want him to play with them. “They tell me I’m playing wrong, and they don’t come to me with questions like I did with my dad,” Henry says.

There may be slight variations in closeness and findings based on the number of children, birth order , and gender . For instance, in the China study, “parents were emotionally closer to their same-sex children,” and daughters appeared to benefit more from being only children than sons. Looking at the broad picture of the studies to date, however, the consensus holds that only children have closer bonds with their parents.

Shannon, 38, would second that. “I’ve noticed my relationship with my mother is unique in that my mother is my best friend, my everything. We have a strong bond… we work out our troubles. We went through a lot when my mother remarried twice after my dad, but that further cemented our attachment . Sure, there are glitches. Sometimes, though, I ask myself, ‘Who am I separate from her?’”

Possible problems in being too close

One of the biggest potential problems only children and parents face is becoming enmeshed to the point there is no separation between the two. As youngsters, the closeness can be stifling for the child, and as a child gets older, boundaries can be hard to decipher or difficult to maintain.

For all the benefits of the close parent-child bond, like camaraderie, emotional support, and a sense of security, when your connection is too close with no breathing room, it becomes difficult to separate.

Only child Connie, 64, has an only child and an only grandchild and had difficulty separating from her parents. “Being too close,” she says, “is a detriment not only to the child but also to the parent, who sometimes fails to develop outside interests and relationships and relies on the child as their raison d’etre. I see my daughter-in-law doing that now with our grandson, and I’m worried about it for him… and for her. Someday, he’s going to fly away, and she really has no other interests in life except him.”

Enmeshment can be a problem in families of all sizes. In the one-child family, close ties are common and beneficial as long as the connection is not too close, too dependent, or too smothering… and parents don’t apply too much academic pressure.

As the body of research on only children continues to grow—and the negative only-child stereotypes disappear—the strong only child/parent bond stands out as one of the few remaining distinctions between only children and their peers with siblings.

*Names of study participants in the Only Child Research Project mentioned here have been changed to protect identities.

Copyright @ 2023 by Susan Newman .

Facebook image: DisobeyArt/Shutterstock

Why So Many Only Children Excel in School

How Close is Too Close in Mother-Daughter Relationships?

Falbo, T., & Polit, D. F. (1986). Quantitative review of the only child literature: Research evidence and theory development. Psychological Bulletin, 100 (2), 176–189. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.100.2.176

Yixiao Liu Quanbao Jiang (2021). “Who Benefits from Being an Only Child? A Study of Parent–Child Relationship Among Chinese Junior High School Students.” Frontiers in Psychology ., 08 January8. Volume 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.608995

Susan Newman, Ph.D. , is a social psychologist and author. Her latest book is The Book of No: 365 Ways to Say it and Mean it—and Stop People-Pleasing Forever.

• Find Counselling
• Find Online Therapy
• Bukit Merah
• Choa Chu Kang
• Downtown Core
• Jurong West
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Therapy Center NEW
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

• Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

The highs and lows of being (or having) an only child

Readers respond to Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s article about the criticism some parents face for having one child

This was an interesting article by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett ( ‘One and done’ parents are some of the most thoughtful and compassionate I have met, 31 March ). I remember a fascinating radio programme some years ago, in which researchers asked only children about their experiences. About half reported that being an “only” made it hard to make friends because they had no practice with siblings – they became loners with a lack of good relationships. The other half reported that having no siblings obliged them to become socially skilled, and that they were great at forming relationships.

The researchers concluded that only children are just like the rest of us, displaying the same range of personality traits and resulting life journeys. Alison Carter Lindfield, West Sussex

I was staggered that anyone with only one child would merit criticism for any reason. In my book, that would be a high accolade. I was an only child of an only child, and in youth had always hankered for a sibling. When I decided to follow a different path and had two, they fought and are still, in middle age, not best buddies. When number one had two children, they fought. Number two had one child. She and I have formed an “only child club” and are both highly able to entertain and occupy ourselves when left to our own devices.

Only children can be great, can usually stand on their own two feet, have no one else to live up to or feel threatened by, and are able to cope with singledom when necessary. Name and address supplied

Interesting that Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s discussion about the impact of being an only child focuses on their experience as children. Apart from the solidarity that a brother or sister can give you, one important advantage of having siblings is sharing your parents as you, and they, get older.

Siblings can share the burden of parental expectation (whether about careers or grandchildren), but also share support and care for elderly parents as they become frail.

I have been very aware of these issues when I compare my own experience – I have four siblings – with that of my friends who are only children. Whether it is practical support or just someone to discuss options with, that shared responsibility is invaluable. Cath Attlee London

What people fail to mention when questioning someone for choosing to have only one child is that it might not be a choice. I was pregnant three or four times, some pregnancies with traumatic outcomes, before my final successful pregnancy that resulted in our beautiful child. Even with this pregnancy, I spent three months in hospital on bed rest with high blood pressure. So having achieved a healthy child, I could think of no reason to put our little family through such potential trauma again.

Our child has grown up to be kind, caring and all we could wish for. Having been a model, then actress, she is now in her second year’s training to be a midwife – something that she said she always wanted to do despite my horror stories, having been a midwife myself.

So, no, only children are no more likely to be spoiled than any one else. Also, there is no guarantee that you will get on with your siblings. Gabrielle Page Brentwood, Essex

• Parents and parenting

Most viewed

Lit. Summaries

• Biographies

The Only Child: A Comprehensive Literary Analysis by Billy Collins

• Billy Collins

In “The Only Child: A Comprehensive Literary Analysis,” renowned poet Billy Collins delves into the theme of being an only child in literature. Through an exploration of various texts, Collins examines the different perspectives and experiences of only children in fiction and poetry. This analysis offers a unique insight into the portrayal of only children in literature and the impact it has on our understanding of this often-misunderstood demographic.

The Significance of Being an Only Child

Being an only child can have a significant impact on one’s life. It can shape their personality, relationships, and overall outlook on the world. As Billy Collins explores in his comprehensive literary analysis, the experience of being an only child is complex and multifaceted. On one hand, only children may enjoy undivided attention and resources from their parents, leading to a sense of independence and self-sufficiency. On the other hand, they may also feel isolated and lonely without siblings to share their experiences with. Additionally, only children may struggle with social skills and have difficulty forming close relationships with others. Overall, the significance of being an only child cannot be understated, and Collins’ analysis sheds light on the many nuances of this unique experience.

The Stereotypes and Misconceptions

One of the most common stereotypes about only children is that they are spoiled and selfish. However, this is far from the truth. In fact, many only children are independent and self-sufficient due to growing up without siblings to rely on. Additionally, only children often have close relationships with their parents and are able to develop strong social skills through interactions with peers and adults outside of their immediate family. It is important to recognize and challenge these misconceptions in order to fully understand and appreciate the unique experiences of only children.

The Psychological Impact of Being an Only Child

Being an only child can have a significant psychological impact on an individual. Studies have shown that only children tend to have higher levels of self-esteem and confidence, as they receive more attention and resources from their parents. However, they may also struggle with social skills and have difficulty sharing and compromising with others. Additionally, only children may feel a sense of pressure to succeed and live up to their parents’ expectations, as they are the sole focus of their parents’ attention and resources. It is important for parents of only children to provide opportunities for socialization and encourage independence, while also being mindful of the potential psychological effects of being an only child.

The Relationship with Parents

The relationship between an only child and their parents is often a unique one. As the sole focus of their parents’ attention, only children may feel a sense of pressure to live up to their parents’ expectations and may struggle with feelings of loneliness or isolation. However, they may also enjoy a close and supportive relationship with their parents, who may be more involved in their child’s life than parents with multiple children. In his poetry collection, “The Only Child,” Billy Collins explores the complex dynamics of the only child-parent relationship, delving into themes of love, loss, and the search for identity. Through his poignant and insightful poems, Collins offers a nuanced portrayal of the joys and challenges of growing up as an only child.

The Relationship with Siblings

The relationship with siblings is a complex and multifaceted one. For only children, this relationship may be nonexistent or limited to cousins or close friends. However, for those with siblings, the bond can be both a source of comfort and conflict. In his poem “Only Child,” Billy Collins explores the idea of being the only child and the absence of siblings. He describes the loneliness and isolation that can come with being the sole focus of one’s parents’ attention. However, he also acknowledges the benefits of not having to compete for attention or resources with siblings. The relationship with siblings is a unique one, and for only children, it is one that is often imagined rather than experienced.

The Struggle for Independence

In “The Only Child,” Billy Collins explores the theme of independence through the lens of a child’s perspective. The speaker in the poem is an only child who is struggling to assert their independence from their parents. The poem begins with the child asking their mother for permission to go outside and play. The mother responds by telling the child to put on a sweater and to be back by dinner. This exchange sets the tone for the rest of the poem, as the child continues to seek permission from their parents for various activities throughout the day.

As the poem progresses, the child becomes increasingly frustrated with their lack of independence. They long to be able to make their own decisions and to explore the world around them without the constant supervision of their parents. However, the child also recognizes the importance of their parents’ guidance and protection. They understand that their parents are only trying to keep them safe and that they love them very much.

Overall, “The Only Child” is a poignant exploration of the struggle for independence that many children experience as they grow up. It highlights the tension between a child’s desire for freedom and their need for the guidance and protection of their parents. Through his use of vivid imagery and relatable themes, Collins captures the essence of childhood and the universal experience of growing up.

The Benefits of Being an Only Child

Being an only child has its fair share of advantages. For starters, only children tend to receive more attention from their parents, which can lead to higher levels of self-esteem and confidence. Additionally, only children often have more opportunities to pursue their interests and hobbies, as they don’t have to compete with siblings for resources or attention. They also tend to have closer relationships with their parents, as they are the sole focus of their parents’ attention and affection. Overall, being an only child can lead to a more independent, self-assured, and fulfilling life.

The Drawbacks of Being an Only Child

While being an only child may have its perks, such as undivided attention from parents and the ability to have more material possessions, there are also several drawbacks to this upbringing. One major disadvantage is the lack of socialization and interaction with siblings. Only children may struggle with sharing, compromising, and resolving conflicts with others, as they have not had the opportunity to practice these skills with siblings. Additionally, only children may feel a greater pressure to succeed and meet their parents’ expectations, as they are the sole focus of their parents’ attention and aspirations. This can lead to feelings of loneliness, isolation, and anxiety. Overall, while being an only child may have its advantages, it is important to consider the potential drawbacks and ensure that the child receives ample opportunities for socialization and development of important life skills.

The Role of Culture and Society

The role of culture and society in shaping the experiences of only children is a crucial aspect to consider when analyzing the literary works that explore this topic. In many cultures, the concept of having only one child is still relatively new and often viewed with skepticism. This can lead to a sense of isolation and pressure for the child, as they may feel like they are constantly under scrutiny from their family and community. Additionally, societal expectations and norms can impact the way only children are perceived and treated, which can have a significant impact on their development and sense of self. By examining the cultural and societal factors that influence the experiences of only children, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of this unique family dynamic.

The Portrayal of Only Children in Literature

Only children have been a subject of fascination in literature for centuries. From Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” to J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” only children have been portrayed in a variety of ways. Some authors have depicted them as spoiled and selfish, while others have shown them as lonely and isolated. In his comprehensive literary analysis, Billy Collins explores the various ways in which only children have been portrayed in literature and how these portrayals have evolved over time. He delves into the psychological and social implications of being an only child and how these factors have influenced the way authors have depicted them in their works. Through his analysis, Collins sheds light on the complex and often misunderstood world of only children in literature.

The Representation of Only Children in Popular Media

Only children have been portrayed in various ways in popular media, often perpetuating stereotypes and misconceptions about their personalities and upbringing. In movies and television shows, only children are often depicted as spoiled, selfish, and lonely individuals who lack social skills and struggle to form meaningful relationships. However, these portrayals are not always accurate and fail to capture the complexity and diversity of only children’s experiences. In literature, authors have explored the unique challenges and advantages of being an only child, shedding light on the misconceptions and prejudices that surround this demographic. Billy Collins’ “The Only Child: A Comprehensive Literary Analysis” delves into the representation of only children in literature, examining the different perspectives and themes that emerge from these narratives. Through his analysis, Collins challenges readers to rethink their assumptions about only children and to appreciate the richness and diversity of their experiences.

The Evolution of the Only Child Stereotype

The stereotype of the only child has evolved over time, from being seen as spoiled and selfish to being viewed as independent and self-sufficient. In the past, only children were often portrayed as being overly indulged by their parents and lacking social skills due to their lack of siblings. However, as society has changed and more families are choosing to have only one child, the stereotype has shifted. Only children are now seen as having a unique set of strengths, such as being able to entertain themselves and being comfortable with solitude. This evolution of the only child stereotype is explored in Billy Collins’ comprehensive literary analysis of the topic.

The Importance of Breaking the Stereotype

Breaking the stereotype is crucial in today’s society. Stereotypes are often based on limited information and can lead to unfair judgments and discrimination. In the case of only children, the stereotype is that they are spoiled, selfish, and socially awkward. However, this stereotype is far from the truth. Only children can be just as well-adjusted and successful as those with siblings. It is important to break this stereotype and recognize the unique qualities and strengths of only children. By doing so, we can create a more inclusive and accepting society.

The Future of Only Children

As society continues to evolve, so does the perception of only children. In the past, only children were often seen as spoiled and selfish, but now, with more families choosing to have only one child, the stigma is slowly fading away. However, there are still concerns about the social and emotional development of only children. Will they struggle to form relationships and navigate social situations without siblings? Will they feel lonely and isolated? These are valid questions, but research suggests that only children are just as capable of forming strong relationships and thriving socially as those with siblings. In fact, some studies have even found that only children may have certain advantages, such as higher levels of achievement and independence. As the number of only children continues to rise, it will be interesting to see how society adapts and how the experiences of only children continue to shape our understanding of family dynamics.

The Impact of Technology on Only Children

The impact of technology on only children is a topic that has been widely discussed in recent years. With the rise of smartphones, tablets, and other digital devices, children are spending more time than ever before in front of screens. For only children, who may not have siblings to play with, technology can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it provides a way for them to connect with others and access a wealth of information. On the other hand, it can lead to social isolation and a lack of physical activity. As Billy Collins explores in his comprehensive literary analysis of the only child, technology is just one of the many factors that shape the experiences of these unique individuals.

The Role of Education in Shaping Only Children

Education plays a crucial role in shaping the personality and behavior of only children. As they grow up without siblings, they may lack the social skills and emotional intelligence that come with having siblings. Therefore, it is important for parents and educators to provide them with opportunities to interact with their peers and learn how to navigate social situations. Additionally, education can help only children develop a sense of independence and self-reliance, which can be beneficial in both their personal and professional lives. However, it is important to note that education alone cannot fully shape an only child’s personality and behavior. Parental guidance and support are also crucial in helping them develop into well-rounded individuals.

The Influence of Family Dynamics on Only Children

Only children are often subject to unique family dynamics that can have a significant impact on their development and personality. Without siblings to share the attention and resources of their parents, only children may experience a heightened sense of pressure to succeed and excel in all areas of their lives. This pressure can come from both parents and the child themselves, as they strive to meet the high expectations set for them. Additionally, only children may struggle with feelings of loneliness and isolation, as they do not have siblings to share their experiences with. However, these challenges can also lead to positive outcomes, such as increased independence and self-reliance. Overall, the influence of family dynamics on only children is complex and multifaceted, and requires careful consideration and understanding.

The Unique Challenges Faced by Only Children

Only children face unique challenges that are often overlooked by society. Without siblings, they may struggle with loneliness and socialization. They may also feel pressure to excel academically and professionally, as they are the sole focus of their parents’ attention and expectations. Additionally, only children may struggle with identity formation, as they do not have the same shared experiences and relationships as those with siblings. These challenges can have a significant impact on an only child’s development and well-being, and it is important for parents and society to recognize and address them.

The Benefits of Growing up with Siblings

Growing up with siblings can have numerous benefits for a child’s development. One of the most significant advantages is the opportunity to learn important social skills such as sharing, cooperation, and conflict resolution. Siblings also provide a built-in support system and can offer emotional support during difficult times. Additionally, having siblings can lead to a greater sense of responsibility and independence as children learn to navigate relationships and responsibilities within the family dynamic. Overall, growing up with siblings can provide a unique and valuable experience that can positively impact a child’s life.

On Being an Only Child

Spring 2011.

My mother often quoted with approval the maxim “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Unfortunately she thought this was intended as exhortation rather than warning. The mother’s instinct to indulge her only child was thereby reinforced by a higher authority. I was so spoiled that on the day my parents unexpectedly came to pick me up at primary school in the middle of the morning—I was about eight at the time—I told the teacher that it was probably because they wanted to buy me a toy. In fact it was to go to Shropshire where my grandmother was dying. I was also spoiled because I was such a sickly thing. I spent so much time away from infant school that the truant officer visited our house to see what was going on. What was going on was that I was always ill. When I went into hospital to have my tonsils and adenoids out—a panacea in those bountiful days of the NHS—my parents brought me a Beatrix Potter book each day. I missed having brothers and sisters but I liked the way that I didn’t have to share my toys with anyone else. It also meant I got more presents at Christmas and on my birthday.

This kind of pampering was balanced by the way that my parents had grown up in the depression of the 1930s. They have spent their lives saving. My mother worked as a dinner lady—serving school dinners (i.e., lunches) in the canteen of the school I went to until I was eleven. Later, after I had left home, she became a cleaner at a hospital. My father worked as a sheet-metal worker. They have always been able to make more money by saving than by earning. It has never been worth their while to employ anyone to do anything for them. On the one hand, then, I was spoiled constantly—because I was an only child, because I was a skinny, sickly little boy; on the other, life consisted entirely of small economies, of endless scrimping and saving that became second nature. If I grew up having everything I wanted, that is partly because my desires soon became shaped by the assumption that we could not afford things, that  everything  was too expensive, that we could do without almost anything. Many times, when I asked my dad if I could have something that had taken my eye in a shop, he responded by saying, “You don’t want that.” To which I wanted to reply, “But I  do .” And then, after a while I stopped wanting things. (I now wonder if my father was unconsciously using “want” in an earlier, archaic sense of “lack,” a distinction capitalism has since pledged all its energies to rendering obsolete.)

If I wanted replica shorts worn by my favorite football team, Chelsea, my mother bought cheap blue ones and then stitched the authenticating white stripes down each side. Clothes for my Action Man? My mum would make them. A Subbuteo soccer pitch? She bought a piece of green baize and painted on the lines. We never used a trolley in the supermarket, only a basket. We always bought the cheapest versions of everything. When I was a bit older—about fourteen, I think—and wanted a Ben Sherman shirt, my mother explained that it was just “paying for the name.” We hardly ever went on holiday, mainly because it involved the activity that my dad hated more than any other: spending money. When we did go to Bournemouth or Weston-super-Mare for a few days—never abroad; I did not fly on a plane until I was twenty-two—it was no fun. On the cloudy beach one day I buried my mum’s feet in the sand. Half an hour later, having forgotten all about this, I plunged my spade into the sand and into her feet. Often it rained and so we went to the cinema—something we never did at home—to see big-screen versions of the TV shows we watched at home:  Morecombe and Wise, Steptoe and Son . My dad was happier using his time off work to work on the house (concreting the drive, building a garage).

Whatever form it takes, your childhood always seems perfectly normal. It took years for me to understand that I had grown up in relative poverty. If we had enough money for everything we needed, that was only because of the extent to which economizing—a voluntary extension of the rationing introduced during the Second World War —had been thoroughly internalized. As with most things connected with parental influence, this later manifested itself in my behavior in two contradictory ways. As soon as I left home, I became a splurger: if I bought a bar of chocolate, then instead of rationing myself to one or two squares, I would gobble down the whole thing. I became a gulper, not a sipper. But I have also been able to live on very little money without any sense of sacrifice (a valuable skill, almost a privilege, for anyone wishing to become a writer). Going without things that most of my contemporaries took for granted never felt like hardship. I spent years living on the dole, more than happy with the trade-off: little money, lots of time. Even now, aged fifty-two, it is agony for me to have to take a taxi in London.

We lived in a terraced house in a neighborhood full of families. There were always plenty of kids to play with in the lane that ran behind our row of houses. Next to my school—less than ten minutes’ walk away—there was the Rec, where you could play football or just run around. There was no shortage of companions, but always at some point I would have to go back home, back to being on my own, back to my parents. And some days there was just no one to play with. Bear in mind how huge afternoons were back then. For a child the hours stretch out interminably. After my father was made redundant from his job at Gloster Aircraft, he worked nights for a while, at a factory where nylon was made. On afternoons when I had no one to play with, I had to be quiet because my dad was sleeping. When I think back to my childhood now, these are the afternoons that I remember. It almost seems like a single afternoon of loneliness and boredom. I’ve never shaken off this propensity for being bored; in fact, I’ve gotten so used to it that I don’t even mind it that much. As a kid I was so bored I assumed it was the basic condition of existence.

When we drove to my grandparents’ damp house—another example of the working holiday: there was always something to be mended or built once we got there—we never went on the newly constructed motorways, which, back then, had a glamor that seems almost inconceivable now that they are synonymous with the  opposite  of speed, with delays and mile-long tailbacks. It was as if there were a tacit toll on using the motorway; somehow it was cheaper to take the regular roads—cheaper because slower. (One of my dad’s most pointless economies was never to fill up our car with petrol; he always put in just half a tank at a time, so that we seemed always to be stopping for gas.) Doing things slowly was a way, somehow, of saving money. We were always overtaken by everyone. “He’s in a hurry,” my mum would say as someone whizzed past our sky-blue Vauxhall Victor. I remember wishing that  we  could be in a hurry, just once. Being in a hurry looked like  fun . It wasn’t just driving; everything we did was done slowly. I was always waiting. My parents kept telling me that patience was a virtue. I have, as a consequence, turned into a raging inferno of impatience. If I have matured at all it has been in the style of D. H. Lawrence, who said that when he was young he had very little patience; now that he was older he had  none at all . I love hurrying. It still seems like fun. I remember how relaxing it felt when I first went to New York, to be in a place where everyone was in a hurry all the time. And yet, at the same time, the life I have ended up leading has effectively recreated those afternoons when I had no one to play with and nothing to do and so had to come up with something to amuse myself. As a kid this meant drawing or making something; as an adult it means writing things like this. I’m not only used to having, I  need  to have hours and hours of uninterrupted free time if I’m ever to get anything done. And yet, at the same time, I never love the life of the writer more than when I have someone to play with, when I’m down at the park, playing tennis on a Monday—or Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday—afternoon. If you fancy a game, I’m always free.

Our life was completely devoid of culture, both in the selective sense of music, art, and literature, and in the larger sense. There was no community life, none of the remembered richness of working-class life that served as ballast for Raymond Williams and Tony Harrison when they left home and went to university. There was just my mum and dad and me and the television. We bought a record player, but after about a month my dad gave up on buying records (“The Green, Green Grass of Home” by Tom Jones was the last). Sometimes we visited relatives, like my Uncle Harry and Auntie Lean in Shurdington. Harry kept whippets. Their house smelled of dogs and I always ended sneezing because as well as being ill the whole time I was allergic to cats and the fine hair of the whippets. My Auntie Joan lived a few doors down, in the gloomy council house, full of stuffed birds, where she and my dad and my other aunts had grown up. Joan kept poodles and her house smelled even worse than Uncle Harry’s. I think these visits were the first things I ever  endured . I only had one cousin—herself an only child—who was close to my age. The rest, most of whom lived in another part of the country, were all a lot older. My parents were never very social: my mum had been brought up as a Methodist and so did not drink. Occasionally, in the summer, we would drive out to a pub with a garden for chicken-in-the-basket, but my dad never went out on his own to meet friends in a pub. We never went to restaurants. Basically, except for visits, we stayed home and saved money. I loved it in the winter when it got dark early and we locked the doors and drew the curtains and  stayed in .

So: no brothers, no sisters, just one cousin—and no pets except for the occasional goldfish which expired soon after it was brought home from the fairground in a polythene bag full of water. My dad was dead against pets. He hated dogs because they yapped. He hated cats because they were cats. The lack of pets and siblings had a bad effect on me. Love was coming at me in vast quantities from my parents, but because I was never allowed to have pets, I had no experience—apart from the instinctive love of child for parent—of learning to love or to take care of someone or something more vulnerable and needy than me. (Several girlfriends have said that I am a terrible hugger. Basically I just stand there, draped like a coat around the person I am supposed to be hugging. At some level I assume that I am the one who needs to be hugged, comforted.)

It was natural, since I didn’t have to share my toys with any siblings, that I became a collector. I collected all sorts of cards, Airfix soldiers, and comics. I loved  arranging  my things—whatever they were—and putting them into some kind of order. I still love doing this. I spent much of my time making model airplanes and doing jigsaws: things that you can do on your own. (My mother had a particular way of doing jigsaws: we sorted out the side pieces and made a hollow, unstable frame, then filled in the middle. Our approach to jigsaws was, in other words, methodical, rigorous. Work had entered into every facet of my parents’ lives; even leisure activities had about them some of the qualities of labor.) I would like to say that I displayed the single child’s customary ability to develop a rich imaginative life, but I don’t think I did—unless finding ways to play games intended for two or more players on your own counts as imaginative. In my late thirties I bought a flat in Brighton, on the south coast of England. It was a big place, big enough to accommodate something I’d long wanted: a ping-pong table. The problem was that I knew almost no one in Brighton, and except on weekends when friends from London visited, I had no one to play with. It took me right back to my childhood, that table. In its immense, folded uselessness it symbolized all the afternoons I spent playing games on my own. I played Subbuteo on my own—almost impossible, since you have to flick both the attacking players and control the opposing goalkeeper simultaneously. I played Monopoly on my own. I played Cluedo on my own. When I eventually got round to it, masturbation seemed the natural outcome of my childhood.

A few years after hitting upon this solitary activity, I discovered another: reading. I had passed the Eleven-plus and gone to Cheltenham Grammar School, where for the first four years I was an indifferent student. Then, at the age of about fifteen, under the influence of my English teacher, I started to do well at school and began to spend more and more time reading. I passed all my O-levels and stayed on for A-levels. During my first year at grammar school we had moved from a terraced house to a semi-detached with three bedrooms. I wonder if I would have had the peace and space to study if I had had brothers and sisters. It’s impossible to say, but reading and study filled the vacuum of boredom that had been there for as long as I could remember. But reading created a gap as well as filling one.

When I was trying to decide which A-levels to do, my father said not to bother with history because it was all in the past. He also gave me another piece of advice that I have come particularly to cherish: “Never put anything in writing.” From the age of about sixteen on, I found that most of the advice my parents gave me was best ignored. Still, I ended up doing economics instead of history.

It became obvious, early in the lower sixth form, that I would go to university. I would be the first person in my family to do so—I was already the first to be doing A-levels or their equivalent. And then, as the time for the exams approached and it became evident that, unless I messed up, I would get very high grades, my English teacher advised me to try for Oxford. My parents only knew of Oxford through  University Challenge . Of course they liked the idea of my going to Oxford, but they made a big fuss about how other parents wouldn’t have let their children stay on at school; other children would have had to start bringing money into the house. I hated this because it was stupid and because it was so obviously untrue. Even if they didn’t know what Oxford was, they were as excited by the prospect of my going there as I was. We had many arguments, in the course of which I often became furious. During one such argument—I forget what it was about—my father and I became involved in a scuffle. My mum tried to intercede and, in the process, my father accidentally elbowed her in the nose. “That’s me nose gone!” she said, a remark so idiotic that I became incandescent with rage. It is strange and unfair but even now, that rage has never entirely gone away. I am angry at the way my parents were oppressed, but at some level I am angry with them for having internalized their oppression.

In Raymond Williams’s  Border Country , the autobiographical protagonist tells a friend that every value he has comes only from his father. “Comes only from him.” Many of my values come from my parents: honesty, reliability, resilience: the bedrock values. But there are other qualities I have been attracted to—vivacity, charm, lightheartedness, grace, urbanity, doing things quickly—which had no place in my parents’ world: they were privileges. Also, because my parents had always worked hard—for practically nothing—I never set any store by hard work. My father was very proud of never having been on the dole in his life. During the summer between A-levels and the start of the Oxbridge term, I had a part-time job in a shop, which meant that the pay I received counted against my entitlement to benefit. Effectively I was working for nothing. My father thought it better for me to give up my time to work at this crap job than it was for me to get the same money from the state. It is no exaggeration to say that I hated him for this. My parents’ view of the world was just too simple: it was suited to the Depression but not to the 1970s. I, on the other hand, had the contemporary idea that the world owed me a living.

This became more acute after I passed the Oxbridge exam and got a so-called Exhibition (a form of scholarship) to Corpus Christi College. From then on the gap between my parents and me widened as I realized that, as well as an intangible intellectual world different to the one I had grown up in, there was an actual social world too. This, the classic quandary of the scholarship boy, has been thoroughly documented in many novels. Here I will mention just two representative episodes.

In my second year at university, I came back home for my twenty-first birthday. My mother had made a cake and my father had paid to have it decoratively iced in the shape of an open book with a bookmark down the middle. Printed across the cake, like print on the open pages, was the name of my college: Corpus Christi. It had the look of a shrine or totem, which in some sense it was, an expression of the mysterious and vast symbolic power of books. This mystery, needless to say, was enhanced by the fact that my father never actually read one. My uncle Peter took a photograph of that cake and it seems the proudest thing in the world—and the saddest.

In my final year at university, I came home unexpectedly and turned up at my old primary school, where my mother still worked in the canteen. She opened the door in her dinner lady’s blue uniform. We both started crying and embraced each other. We held each other because we both had an inkling that part of my education was to understand that it was more than just education. I was my parents’ only child, but the life I would go on to lead would be so different from theirs, and the most important part of this difference was the way that it could never be explained and articulated to them by me.

What does this have to do with being an only child? Everything. Let’s suppose I’d had a younger sister. Perhaps she would have been influenced by my example and gone on to university and would have begun to have a different life from the one we had grown up to expect. Then, as a family, we could all have moved along together. Alternatively, if my brother had left school early and led the life that someone from my background might have been predicted to lead, it would have bound me more closely to the world I had come from. There would have been more ballast. Either way, there would have been an intermediary. I wouldn’t have been the oddity, a weird exception that no sense can be made of or conclusions drawn from. I had a friend who went to Cambridge while his brother left school after A-levels. For a while they drifted apart but then, in their different scenes, they independently discovered a common interest: drugs. I like to think that if I’d had a relationship like this with a brother who had, say, left school early and then worked as a bricklayer or an electrician, we would have been more of a family. It wouldn’t have just been my parents and their son who had gone to Oxford and led this strange life of doing nothing. As it was, my parents remained cocooned in a late-twentieth-century version of the 1930s. For a time, while I was at university and in the years immediately afterwards, I tried to get my mum to read proper books ( Jude the Obscure, Sons and Lovers:  novels that initiated and articulated the process we were living through) and to get my dad to read the  Guardian . I played them some of the music I was listening to (Keith Jarrett), tried to get them to try different teas and real coffee, to eat nicer food. They didn’t like any of it. (From time to time we still have conversations about diet. “You know, you really shouldn’t be eating eggs and chips the whole time,” I say. “Well, we’ve been eating them for our whole lives and it’s never done us any harm,” says my dad. “You don’t think that the fact you had cancer of the rectum and have had a colostomy counts as harm?” “Get away with you,” says my dad. “That was nothing to do with that.”)

If there is a special loneliness that is intrinsic to the single child, there is a particular isolation that attaches to the scholarship boy or girl. Most people come from families with brothers and sisters. And most people in the world I have been part of for the last twenty years are from middle-class families: they speak the same way as their parents, they go to the same things, have similar interests. The terrible truth is that, ostensibly, I have more in common with my wife’s parents—her dad is an academic, her mum a piano teacher—than I do with my own. Almost everything that counts for anything in the world I have been part of has been learned, acquired. Most of the things I grew up knowing about are irrelevant.

Except—and the importance of this can hardly be overstated—my parents have a sense of humor! They’re funny. What greater gift can parents pass on to their children? In my impatient maturity, anyone without a sense of humor bores the crap out of me. This is not the only way in which something I picked up from my parents manifests itself. My parents, as I have said, laid great stress on being reliable, punctual, dependable. We are encouraged to think of reliable people as boring, dull, and perhaps for a brief while, after leaving university, I briefly flirted with this, in that I was drawn to carefree, careless people. Then I realized that unreliable, dishonest people are the most boring people in the world. One of the advantages of the way that new social opportunities open up to you—and for me this began happening after university—is that you can have it both ways: there are plenty of people out there who are fun, pleasure-loving, clever, and reliable. It’s got to the stage now, in my early fifties, where I try to minimize contact with unreliable, unpunctual people. For different reasons—for my parents it was a moral judgment, for me it’s just impatience—we have ended up sharing an aversion to particular forms of behavior. Especially lying. I am told that if you have brothers and sisters you learn to lie—about each other, or in collusion with each other to your parents. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know that I have grown up with almost no capacity for lying. (I like scams and dodges but that is different; that is part of a battle of wits.) My parents made me believe that as long as I was honest everything would be okay. I am still almost incapable of lying in real life. And it took me a long time to learn how to do so on the page.

It wasn’t until 1987 that I really understood how liberating the task of writing fiction could be. I was twenty-nine and writing a book based very closely on the life my friends and I were leading in Brixton, South London. At that time I was going through a phase of wishing very badly that I had a sister. I’d had these longings before, but never as intensely. It came to me in a flash—and it should be obvious by now that this is not the first time that I have belatedly realized something that everyone else has either known for ages or taken for granted—that if I wanted a sister I could just invent one! It was as easy as that. And not only could I invent a sister, I could invent the perfect sister—one you were sexually attracted to. Friends who have sisters say that only someone who didn’t have one would think in these terms but I think that hint of incest added a useful quality of unease to the novel. Anyway, it worked. I never again had a craving for a sister.

Geoff Dyer is the author of  Out of Sheer Rage ,  The Ongoing Moment , and many other books. This essay is part of his new collection from Graywolf Press,  Otherwise Known as the Human Condition .

5 customer-loved finds for spring, including a fashion hack — starting at $7

• TODAY Plaza
• Share this —

• Watch Full Episodes
• Read With Jenna
• Inspirational
• Relationships
• TODAY Table
• Newsletters
• Start TODAY
• Shop TODAY Awards
• Citi Concert Series
• Listen All Day

Follow today

More Brands

• On The Show

'One and Only': The singular joys of the only child

In "One and Only: The Freedom of Having and Only Child, and the Joy of Being One," Lauren Sandler dispels the myths about the only child syndrome and celebrates the benefits. Here's an excerpt.

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK

This is not a memoir, but to conform to what’s expected of an only child, let me start with myself.

My mother was deeply devoted to raising me. To have a happy kid, she figured she needed to be a happy mother, and to be a happy mother, she needed to be a happy person. To do that, she had to preserve her authentic self, which she could not imagine doing with a second child.

“It was all about me,” she freely admits to me one night, in a way that simultaneously makes my chest swell with pride (feminism!) and my shoulders contract with a cringe (selfishness!).

“When you were three,” she goes on, “I thought I was pregnant. I stayed up all night making a pros and cons list. By morning, it was clear to me I couldn’t have another kid.” She easily recites the “con” litany: she could continue her career uninterrupted, stay in the apartment she loved instead of trading urbanity for a sub- urban existence, maintain a certain level of independence, and worry less about money.

I interrupt her to ask about the “pro” list. I have no idea what she’s going to say. She’s never so much as suggested that there would be a competing list. Instead of replying, she continues, “I just would have had to be a totally different person with another kid. My life would have utterly changed. Luckily, it turned out I wasn’t pregnant.”

My father studies the label on his beer bottle. “Dad, what did you want?” I ask. My father looks up at me. “I so loved parenting; I always wanted the experience to be varied, to go on,” he says quietly. A vocal strain belies his next words: “But you know me. I’m not a regretful person.” He looks back down at his bottle. “What can I say,” he says. “The years passed. It became the choice. Here we are.” He grins at me. “Where we are isn’t half bad, I might add. It just took me some time to get used to the idea.”

It takes us all some time to get used to the idea. As only children, we have to get used to lacking something that the majority of people have for better or for worse. As parents who choose to stop at one, we have to get used to the nagging feeling that we are choosing for our own children something they can never undo. We’re deciding not to know two kids splashing in the bubble bath, playing in the pile of raked leaves, whispering under the cover of darkness, teasing each other at the dinner table, holding hands at our funerals.

Everyone seems to think they know who we are, both single- tons and parents of singletons. We are the selfish ones. I must be doubly so, as an only child myself, and the mother of one. Who else but an only child would have the sense of self-importance to write about being one, much less suggest that other people con- sider it for themselves? But after investigating the whole matter, let me offer this spoiler: I don’t buy it.

Lonely. Selfish. Maladjusted. These are the words that Toni Falbo, the leading researcher in the small field of only child studies, uses to explain our image of only children. Falbo lists these characteristics so often, they tend to run together as a single word: lonelyselfishmaladjusted.

Why did this idea take hold? The academic basis of the miser- able singleton specimen was the work of one man, who famously lectured, “Being an only child is a disease in itself.” Granville Stanley Hall was a leader of the late-nineteenth-century child-study movement and had a national network of study groups called Hall Clubs that spread his teachings. Not a bad way to disseminate his 1896 study, “Of Peculiar and Exceptional Children,” which described only children as permanent misfits. Never mind that Hall also openly fetishized his own agrarian, big-brood upbringing and disdained the smaller-family urbanity that was creeping into a rapidly industrializing country. Just consider that Hall— and every other fledgling psychologist—knew close to nothing about credible research practices.

Yet for decades, academics and advice columnists alike spread his conclusion that an only child could not develop the same capacity for adjustment as children with siblings.

Name a genre, and there’s a list of characters to give the stereotype narrative heft and form: Tom Ripley, Veruca Salt, Eric Cartman. Even superheroes fit the stereotype, misfit loners inca- pable of truly connecting with citizens of the real world, suspicious in their overintelligence, often fighting against their privilege. But this troubled image projected onto the popular consciousness can be complicated by the real-life heroism of some singletons whose ability to connect with others was central to their own su- perpowers: you might not know it, but Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Walter Cronkite were only children too.

The majority of parents say they have second children for the sake of their first child, or at least that’s what they’ve told Gallup pollsters for decades. But it’s hard to imagine anything that can be reduced to a simple survey question, much less an issue that layers notions of family, happiness, responsibility, legacy—life and death itself, when you think about it. Still, we all know that there’s truth in this response: first children tend to be a choice parents make to fulfill their own lives and a second child tends to be a choice parents make to fulfill the life of their existing child.

Some people believe that a family with one child isn’t really a family, although I defy anyone to strictly define familial normalcy today. Kids are increasingly—and happily—raised by same-sex parents (in fact, recent studies suggest that lesbian mothers are the best parents of all). Divorce is as common as not. In vitro fertilization has pushed the possible age of conception into the midforties. Siblings are almost as likely stepbrothers and step- sisters as they are the children of their own biological parents.

Such developments in the way we define a family produce questions about how to define an only child. Statisticians tend to use the rule that if you spent your first seven years raised as the sole child in a household, you count as one. But I’ve met plenty of people who consider themselves onlies because they felt estranged f rom stepsiblings, and others who would never think of themselves as singletons, despite an age gap of a doz- en-odd years, because of how close they are to a brother or sister.

Here are some things I want: I want to do meaningful work. I want to travel. I want to eat in restaurants and drink in bars. I want to go to movies and concerts. I want to read novels. I want to marinate in solitude. I want to have friendships that regularly sustain and exhilarate me. I want a romantic relationship that involves daily communication beyond interrogatives and imperatives—I want to be known . And I want to snuggle with my daughter for as long as she’ll let me, being as present in her life as I can while giving her all the space she needs to discover life on her own terms. I want full participation: in the world, in my family, in my friendships, and in my own actualization.

In other words, to have a happy kid, I figure I need to be a happy mother, and to be a happy mother, I need to be a happy person. Like my mother, I feel that I need to make choices within the limits of reality—which means considering work, finances, pleasure—and at the moment I can’t imagine how I could possibly do that with another kid.

There are plenty of parents who deeply want more than one child and are willing to make profound compromises to have the family they want. The last thing we need is another person telling women what they should or should not do with their fallopian tubes, their finances, and their futures. I’m not here to preach the Gospel of the Only Child.

And if it’s not because I want to—I mean, really want to— have another child, there’s a body of supposed knowledge I need to start questioning. For myself. For my daughter. And for the world I brought her into. Instead of making a choice to enlarge our families based on stereotypes or cultural pressure, we can instead make that most profound choice our most purely independent one. It might even feel like something people rarely associate with parenting: it might feel like freedom.

From ONE AND ONLY by Lauren Sandler. Copyright © 2013 by Lauren Sandler. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc, NY.

Being an Only Child: Advantages and Disadvantages

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Why I'm Glad I Grew Up an Only Child

Updated on 7/23/2018 at 10:03 AM

The most common question I was asked as an only child growing up was, not surprisingly, "Don't you wish you had a brother or sister?" And for as long as I can remember, I've always answered "no" without any hesitation. "You'll always have someone to play with, you'll have a lifetime support system ," they said. Although enticing, I never longed for a sibling and I'm sure my parents were thrilled I never asked. (Mom and Dad, you're welcome.)

In my current early adult years, it's not unusual for people to be surprised at my sibling-less life. I'm told that I don't seem like a single child, which is most often defined when I ask as spoiled, attention-hungry, self-centered, and dependent. I guess it's better than getting the reaction, "Oh, that makes sense," but the fact is, I believe that growing up alone contributed to the absence of those traits.

It was never about the attention nor not having to share — those weren't the reasons I never cared for a brother or sister. I kept busy with neighbors and friends and I didn't mind the moments I was alone. I always had quite the imagination so it wasn't hard to get creative and I think I've always been able to appreciate time to myself — even as a child. My tripod of a family was fulfilling enough and I would cringe inside when others criticized or questioned my mother's decision to stick with one . Yes, an older sibling would have been able to watch over me and my future children would have aunts and/or uncles like the loving ones I grew up around. But I believe that my strong independence today can easily be attributed to me growing up as an only child.

I like that I was able to forge my own path rather than live in the shadows of someone else, and that I had to learn things on my own as I went. Plus due to some fantastic parenting, I learned to be self-sufficient at a very young age, which has made me totally fine as a now-22-year-old, still pretty-fresh-out-of-college woman who lives alone in a new city.

I was always fascinated by the fact that those with siblings had a unique bond with somebody else in their family other than a parent, cousin, or relative; a blood relationship with a peer almost — something that I will never be able to experience myself. I've never really been envious of my friends for that, but I do understand the many joys and perks that come with having a brother or sister . I probably wouldn't have gotten as bored at times and would've always had a readily available confidant. However, I'm thankful for my solo upbringing.

So next time someone pressures you to have more children or gives you crap about being an only child yourself, tell them that I turned out just fine — and your child will too!

• Family Relationships
• Personal Essay

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Gender pay gap in U.S. hasn’t changed much in two decades

The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when women earned 80% as much as men.

As has long been the case, the wage gap is smaller for workers ages 25 to 34 than for all workers 16 and older. In 2022, women ages 25 to 34 earned an average of 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same age group – an 8-cent gap. By comparison, the gender pay gap among workers of all ages that year was 18 cents.

While the gender pay gap has not changed much in the last two decades, it has narrowed considerably when looking at the longer term, both among all workers ages 16 and older and among those ages 25 to 34. The estimated 18-cent gender pay gap among all workers in 2022 was down from 35 cents in 1982. And the 8-cent gap among workers ages 25 to 34 in 2022 was down from a 26-cent gap four decades earlier.

The gender pay gap measures the difference in median hourly earnings between men and women who work full or part time in the United States. Pew Research Center’s estimate of the pay gap is based on an analysis of Current Population Survey (CPS) monthly outgoing rotation group files ( IPUMS ) from January 1982 to December 2022, combined to create annual files. To understand how we calculate the gender pay gap, read our 2013 post, “How Pew Research Center measured the gender pay gap.”

The COVID-19 outbreak affected data collection efforts by the U.S. government in its surveys, especially in 2020 and 2021, limiting in-person data collection and affecting response rates. It is possible that some measures of economic outcomes and how they vary across demographic groups are affected by these changes in data collection.

In addition to findings about the gender wage gap, this analysis includes information from a Pew Research Center survey about the perceived reasons for the pay gap, as well as the pressures and career goals of U.S. men and women. The survey was conducted among 5,098 adults and includes a subset of questions asked only for 2,048 adults who are employed part time or full time, from Oct. 10-16, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

The  U.S. Census Bureau has also analyzed the gender pay gap, though its analysis looks only at full-time workers (as opposed to full- and part-time workers). In 2021, full-time, year-round working women earned 84% of what their male counterparts earned, on average, according to the Census Bureau’s most recent analysis.

Much of the gender pay gap has been explained by measurable factors such as educational attainment, occupational segregation and work experience. The narrowing of the gap over the long term is attributable in large part to gains women have made in each of these dimensions.

Related: The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap

Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce. This may contribute to gender differences in pay.

Other factors that are difficult to measure, including gender discrimination, may also contribute to the ongoing wage discrepancy.

Perceived reasons for the gender wage gap

When asked about the factors that may play a role in the gender wage gap, half of U.S. adults point to women being treated differently by employers as a major reason, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2022. Smaller shares point to women making different choices about how to balance work and family (42%) and working in jobs that pay less (34%).

There are some notable differences between men and women in views of what’s behind the gender wage gap. Women are much more likely than men (61% vs. 37%) to say a major reason for the gap is that employers treat women differently. And while 45% of women say a major factor is that women make different choices about how to balance work and family, men are slightly less likely to hold that view (40% say this).

Parents with children younger than 18 in the household are more likely than those who don’t have young kids at home (48% vs. 40%) to say a major reason for the pay gap is the choices that women make about how to balance family and work. On this question, differences by parental status are evident among both men and women.

Views about reasons for the gender wage gap also differ by party. About two-thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%) say a major factor behind wage differences is that employers treat women differently, but far fewer Republicans and Republican leaners (30%) say the same. Conversely, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say women’s choices about how to balance family and work (50% vs. 36%) and their tendency to work in jobs that pay less (39% vs. 30%) are major reasons why women earn less than men.

Democratic and Republican women are more likely than their male counterparts in the same party to say a major reason for the gender wage gap is that employers treat women differently. About three-quarters of Democratic women (76%) say this, compared with 59% of Democratic men. And while 43% of Republican women say unequal treatment by employers is a major reason for the gender wage gap, just 18% of GOP men share that view.

Pressures facing working women and men

Family caregiving responsibilities bring different pressures for working women and men, and research has shown that being a mother can reduce women’s earnings , while fatherhood can increase men’s earnings .

Employed women and men are about equally likely to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially and to be successful in their jobs and careers, according to the Center’s October survey. But women, and particularly working mothers, are more likely than men to say they feel a great deal of pressure to focus on responsibilities at home.

About half of employed women (48%) report feeling a great deal of pressure to focus on their responsibilities at home, compared with 35% of employed men. Among working mothers with children younger than 18 in the household, two-thirds (67%) say the same, compared with 45% of working dads.

When it comes to supporting their family financially, similar shares of working moms and dads (57% vs. 62%) report they feel a great deal of pressure, but this is driven mainly by the large share of unmarried working mothers who say they feel a great deal of pressure in this regard (77%). Among those who are married, working dads are far more likely than working moms (60% vs. 43%) to say they feel a great deal of pressure to support their family financially. (There were not enough unmarried working fathers in the sample to analyze separately.)

About four-in-ten working parents say they feel a great deal of pressure to be successful at their job or career. These findings don’t differ by gender.

Gender differences in job roles, aspirations

Overall, a quarter of employed U.S. adults say they are currently the boss or one of the top managers where they work, according to the Center’s survey. Another 33% say they are not currently the boss but would like to be in the future, while 41% are not and do not aspire to be the boss or one of the top managers.

Men are more likely than women to be a boss or a top manager where they work (28% vs. 21%). This is especially the case among employed fathers, 35% of whom say they are the boss or one of the top managers where they work. (The varying attitudes between fathers and men without children at least partly reflect differences in marital status and educational attainment between the two groups.)

In addition to being less likely than men to say they are currently the boss or a top manager at work, women are also more likely to say they wouldn’t want to be in this type of position in the future. More than four-in-ten employed women (46%) say this, compared with 37% of men. Similar shares of men (35%) and women (31%) say they are not currently the boss but would like to be one day. These patterns are similar among parents.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on March 22, 2019. Anna Brown and former Pew Research Center writer/editor Amanda Barroso contributed to an earlier version of this analysis. Here are the questions used in this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology .

What is the gender wage gap in your metropolitan area? Find out with our pay gap calculator

• Gender & Work
• Gender Equality & Discrimination
• Gender Pay Gap
• Gender Roles

Carolina Aragão is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends at Pew Research Center

Women have gained ground in the nation’s highest-paying occupations, but still lag behind men

Diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, the enduring grip of the gender pay gap, more than twice as many americans support than oppose the #metoo movement, women now outnumber men in the u.s. college-educated labor force, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Age & Generations
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• Methodological Research
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Settings

Reprints, Permissions & Use Policy

Toddler killed, mauled by 3 dogs at babysitter's Duncanville home, police say

Criminal charges could be filed as a result of the child's death, authorities say, by de'anthony taylor , alicia barrera , keenan willard and alanna quillen • published april 15, 2024 • updated on april 20, 2024 at 12:31 pm, what to know.

• A 1-year-old boy died Monday after being mauled by three large dogs at his babysitter's home.
• The dogs were in a confined area and somehow made it into the home where the attack happened.
• The dogs were said to be mixed-breed German shepherds and have been euthanized.

A 1-year-old boy was viciously mauled to death Monday morning by three large dogs in a Duncanville home where he was being babysat with other children.

According to the Duncanville Police Department, officers were called to a home in the 1500 block of Lime Leaf Lane at about 10:40 a.m. after a small child was attacked by a dog.

When they arrived at the home with paramedics, police said they found the toddler unresponsive with severe injuries and immediately began performing life-saving measures on the young victim until medics arrived.

Get DFW local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC DFW newsletters .

The child was rushed to the Children's Medical Center in Dallas but was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.

"This is certainly a tragedy. Our fire personnel and police personnel worked very hard to try to save this child," said Duncanville Interim Police Chief Matthew Stogner.

During a press conference Monday evening, Stogner said the homeowner was babysitting the 1-year-old, and there were three other children inside the home at the time of the attack. Only one child, who was not a resident of the household, was attacked.

The latest news from around North Texas.

UTD students protest war in Gaza alongside other student bodies

Choctaw Stadium to undergo multimillion-dollar renovation

Authorities have not revealed the relationship between the toddler and the babysitter.

Investigators said the homeowner owned four dogs. The three dogs involved in the incident are a male dog weighing about 100 pounds and two female dogs weighing around 80 pounds each. Duncanville Animal Control has identified the three dogs as Sheppard mixes.

The dogs were in a confined area and somehow made it inside the home before attacking the little boy, according to police. The woman reportedly jumped in between the dogs and the baby to stop them from attacking the toddler, which caused her to be injured as well.

"She jumped in between and tried to, I guess, tear them apart," said David Trout.

Trout told NBC 5 that his brother was previously married to the woman who owned the home where the attack occurred. Trout said for years, the woman has watched children at her house for family members and neighbors.

"She’s a sweetheart. She means well, she’s taken care of kids down there forever without any kind of problems," said Trout. "I just hate it for her."

Duncanville police said animal control officials showed up at the home and took possession of the three dogs involved in the attack.

"The three dogs are now in quarantine pending surrender by the owner. If the owner does not surrender the dogs, the Duncanville Police Department will file with the court to have the animals declared Dangerous Dogs. The dogs will remain in quarantine pending the owner’s or a court’s final decision," Duncanville Police said in a statement on Tuesday.

The dogs were euthanized on Saturday following the attack.

Investigators are now looking into whether the homeowner was running a daycare out of the home where the attack occurred.

NBC 5 reached out to Texas Health and Human Services to confirm whether or not the address of the home had a registered daycare license.

On Tuesday, HHSC responded to NBC 5 saying the home where the attack took place is "not a licensed child care operation."

The police department added that criminal charges could be filed as a result of the child's death.

"It’s still in the air. We’re looking at it. Obviously, we’re going to work with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and the family of the deceased to figure out our best course of action moving forward," said Stogner.

On Tuesday, an updated news release by Duncanville Police stated that out of respect for the family, the department will not release anything regarding charges pending consultation with the family.

Animal experts say this attack shows the worst-case scenario families can face.

"My concern is reflected in exactly what happened, and that is that, unfortunately, many pet owners are not aware of the fact that dogs and children are not necessarily always safe together," said Dr. Valarie Tynes.

Tynes is a veterinarian who specializes in animal behavior with the SPCA. She told NBC 5 that there are steps families can take to keep their small children safe around large dogs.

"One of the things I try to teach them is you never expect that you can leave a child, certainly under two or three, alone and unattended with a dog of any kind," said Tynes.

The vet said parents can use tools like gates to keep dogs away from infants and should watch an animal’s body language to ensure it doesn’t become agitated around a child.

"Even the best dog, the best-tempered dog, the best socialized, best-trained dog, if it weighs 80-100 pounds, can very easily accidentally harm a child in a split second," said Tynes.

Duncanville police said the three dogs involved in this attack were taken by animal control, and the homeowner will either have to surrender them or face a court order declaring the dogs dangerous.

Experts hoped this tragedy would be a reminder that families have to stay vigilant.

"Any dog can bite," said Tynes. "And the big problem is, of course, the bigger the dog, the more harm it can do."

NBC 5 went to the home and tried to speak with the homeowner about the attack, but they declined to talk to us.

DUNCANVILLE POLICE SHARE DETAILS ON FATAL DOG ATTACK

This article tagged under:.

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

Young brother and sister dead, several hurt when vehicle crashes into Michigan birthday party

Surveillance video from a Michigan home near where a suspected drunken driver slammed into a child’s weekend birthday party shows just how fast the driver was going before the crash happened. It also picks up the screaming and confusion afterward.

A law enforcement official monitors the perimeter of the Swan Creek Boat Club after a driver crashed a vehicle through a building where a children’s birthday party was taking place, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Berlin Township, Mich. (Kathleen Kildee/Detroit News via AP)

• Copy Link copied

A University of Michigan Health Systems Survival Flight responds to the Swan Creek Boat Club after a driver crashed a vehicle through a building where a children’s birthday party was taking place, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Berlin Township, Mich. (Kathleen Kildee/Detroit News via AP)

Authorities respond to the Swan Creek Boat Club after a driver crashed a vehicle through a building where a children’s birthday party was taking place, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in Berlin Township, Mich. (Kathleen Kildee/Detroit News via AP)

BERLIN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A young brother and sister died and several people were injured, some of them seriously, when a vehicle driven by a suspected drunken driver crashed into a young child’s birthday party Saturday at a boat club, a Michigan sheriff said.

An 8-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother died at the scene in the crash, when a 66-year-old woman drove 25 feet (7.6 meters) into the building about 3 p.m. at the Swan Creek Boat Club in Berlin Township, about 30 miles (48.2 kilometers) south of Detroit, Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough said.

“The scene was described by the first responders as extremely chaotic, with high level of emotions of those directly involved and those who witnessed this horrific incident,” he said.

Three children and six adults were taken to area hospitals by two helicopters or ambulances with life-threatening injuries, he said. Others injured were given first aid at the scene and some were taken to hospitals by private vehicles.

Goodnough did not identify the woman driving the vehicle but said she was taken into custody and held at the Monroe County Jail suspected of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated causing death. She was cooperating with authorities and likely would face more charges as the investigation continues, he said.

Authorities were notified the woman may have been at a nearby tavern before the incident, Goodnough said, adding they closed the establishment and planned to execute a search warrant there as part of the investigation.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

What Sentencing Could Look Like if Trump Is Found Guilty

By Norman L. Eisen

Mr. Eisen is the author of “Trying Trump: A Guide to His First Election Interference Criminal Trial.”

For all the attention to and debate over the unfolding trial of Donald Trump in Manhattan, there has been surprisingly little of it paid to a key element: its possible outcome and, specifically, the prospect that a former and potentially future president could be sentenced to prison time.

The case — brought by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, against Mr. Trump — represents the first time in our nation’s history that a former president is a defendant in a criminal trial. As such, it has generated lots of debate about the case’s legal strength and integrity, as well as its potential impact on Mr. Trump’s efforts to win back the White House.

A review of thousands of cases in New York that charged the same felony suggests something striking: If Mr. Trump is found guilty, incarceration is an actual possibility. It’s not certain, of course, but it is plausible.

Jury selection has begun, and it’s not too soon to talk about what the possibility of a sentence, including a prison sentence, would look like for Mr. Trump, for the election and for the country — including what would happen if he is re-elected.

The case focuses on alleged interference in the 2016 election, which consisted of a hush-money payment Michael Cohen, the former president’s fixer at the time, made in 2016 to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Bragg is arguing that the cover-up cheated voters of the chance to fully assess Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

This may be the first criminal trial of a former president in American history, but if convicted, Mr. Trump’s fate is likely to be determined by the same core factors that guide the sentencing of every criminal defendant in New York State Court.

Comparable cases. The first factor is the base line against which judges measure all sentences: how other defendants have been treated for similar offenses. My research encompassed almost 10,000 cases of felony falsifying business records that have been prosecuted across the state of New York since 2015. Over a similar period, the Manhattan D.A. has charged over 400 of these cases . In roughly the first year of Mr. Bragg’s tenure, his team alone filed 166 felony counts for falsifying business records against 34 people or companies.

Contrary to claims that there will be no sentence of incarceration for falsifying business records, when a felony conviction involves serious misconduct, defendants can be sentenced to some prison time. My analysis of the most recent data indicates that approximately one in 10 cases in which the most serious charge at arraignment is falsifying business records in the first degree and in which the court ultimately imposes a sentence, results in a term of imprisonment.

To be clear, these cases generally differ from Mr. Trump’s case in one important respect: They typically involve additional charges besides just falsifying records. That clearly complicates what we might expect if Mr. Trump is convicted.

Nevertheless, there are many previous cases involving falsifying business records along with other charges where the conduct was less serious than is alleged against Mr. Trump and prison time was imposed. For instance, Richard Luthmann was accused of attempting to deceive voters — in his case, impersonating New York political figures on social media in an attempt to influence campaigns. He pleaded guilty to three counts of falsifying business records in the first degree (as well as to other charges). He received a sentence of incarceration on the felony falsification counts (although the sentence was not solely attributable to the plea).

A defendant in another case was accused of stealing in excess of $50,000 from her employer and, like in this case, falsifying one or more invoices as part of the scheme. She was indicted on a single grand larceny charge and ultimately pleaded guilty to one felony count of business record falsification for a false invoice of just under $10,000. She received 364 days in prison.

To be sure, for a typical first-time offender charged only with run-of-the-mill business record falsification, a prison sentence would be unlikely. On the other hand, Mr. Trump is being prosecuted for 34 counts of conduct that might have changed the course of American history.

Seriousness of the crime. Mr. Bragg alleges that Mr. Trump concealed critical information from voters (paying hush money to suppress an extramarital relationship) that could have harmed his campaign, particularly if it came to light after the revelation of another scandal — the “Access Hollywood” tape . If proved, that could be seen not just as unfortunate personal judgment but also, as Justice Juan Merchan has described it, an attempt “to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election.”

History and character. To date, Mr. Trump has been unrepentant about the events alleged in this case. There is every reason to believe that will not change even if he is convicted, and lack of remorse is a negative at sentencing. Justice Merchan’s evaluation of Mr. Trump’s history and character may also be informed by the other judgments against him, including Justice Arthur Engoron’s ruling that Mr. Trump engaged in repeated and persistent business fraud, a jury finding that he sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll and a related defamation verdict by a second jury.

Justice Merchan may also weigh the fact that Mr. Trump has been repeatedly held in contempt , warned , fined and gagged by state and federal judges. That includes for statements he made that exposed witnesses, individuals in the judicial system and their families to danger. More recently, Mr. Trump made personal attacks on Justice Merchan’s daughter, resulting in an extension of the gag order in the case. He now stands accused of violating it again by commenting on witnesses.

What this all suggests is that a term of imprisonment for Mr. Trump, while far from certain for a former president, is not off the table. If he receives a sentence of incarceration, perhaps the likeliest term is six months, although he could face up to four years, particularly if Mr. Trump chooses to testify, as he said he intends to do , and the judge believes he lied on the stand . Probation is also available, as are more flexible approaches like a sentence of spending every weekend in jail for a year.

We will probably know what the judge will do within 30 to 60 days of the end of the trial, which could run into mid-June. If there is a conviction, that would mean a late summer or early fall sentencing.

Justice Merchan would have to wrestle in the middle of an election year with the potential impact of sentencing a former president and current candidate.

If Mr. Trump is sentenced to a period of incarceration, the reaction of the American public will probably be as polarized as our divided electorate itself. Yet as some polls suggest — with the caveat that we should always be cautious of polls early in the race posing hypothetical questions — many key swing state voters said they would not vote for a felon.

If Mr. Trump is convicted and then loses the presidential election, he will probably be granted bail, pending an appeal, which will take about a year. That means if any appeals are unsuccessful, he will most likely have to serve any sentence starting sometime next year. He will be sequestered with his Secret Service protection; if it is less than a year, probably in Rikers Island. His protective detail will probably be his main company, since Mr. Trump will surely be isolated from other inmates for his safety.

If Mr. Trump wins the presidential election, he can’t pardon himself because it is a state case. He will be likely to order the Justice Department to challenge his sentence, and department opinions have concluded that a sitting president could not be imprisoned, since that would prevent the president from fulfilling the constitutional duties of the office. The courts have never had to address the question, but they could well agree with the Justice Department.

So if Mr. Trump is convicted and sentenced to a period of incarceration, its ultimate significance is probably this: When the American people go to the polls in November, they will be voting on whether Mr. Trump should be held accountable for his original election interference.

What questions do you have about Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial so far?

Please submit them below. Our trial experts will respond to a selection of readers in a future piece.

Norman L. Eisen investigated the 2016 voter deception allegations as counsel for the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump and is the author of “Trying Trump: A Guide to His First Election Interference Criminal Trial.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

NPR editor Uri Berliner resigns after essay accusing outlet of liberal bias

A senior business editor at National Public Radio has resigned after writing an essay for an online news site published last week accusing the outlet of a liberal bias in its coverage.

In a Wednesday post on X , Uri Berliner included a statement in what he said was his resignation letter to NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher.

"I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years," Berliner wrote in the post. "I don't support calls to defund NPR. I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR I cite in my Free Press essay."

On Friday, Berliner was suspended for five days without pay, NPR confirmed Tuesday , a week after his essay in the Free Press, an online news publication, where he argued the network had "lost America's trust" and allowed a "liberal bent" to influence its coverage, causing the outlet to steadily lose credibility with audiences.

Berliner's essay also angered many of his colleagues and exposed Maher, who started as NPR's CEO in March, to a string of attacks from conservatives over her past social media posts.

Dig deeper: NPR suspends senior editor Uri Berliner after essay accusing outlet of liberal bias

NPR reported that the essay reignited the criticism that many prominent conservatives have long leveled against NPR and prompted newsroom leadership to implement monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage.

Neither NPR nor Maher have not yet publicly responded to Berliner's resignation, but Maher refuted his claims in a statement Monday to NPR.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," Maher said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

Contributing: Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY.