Heard of an old joke about the Garden of Eden? Eve looks at Adam and asks, “Do you love me Adam?” Adam raises his eyebrows and asks, “Who else?”

Who else indeed? That just about sums up the root of the single/only child situation— call it syndrome (OCS) or advantage.

The phenomenal increase of families with ‘onlies’—an only child without any siblings—biological or adopted, could make a host of words like brother, sister, nephew and niece obsolete in the near future. Opines Susan Newman, a social psychologist at Rutgers University and author of “Parenting an Only Child”, “Families have changed. I actually call the only child the new traditional family”. (sic)

Medindia’s survey on Single Child Syndrome in South India

Medindia’s survey of some men and women ‘onlies’ in South India, aged between 18 and 45 years, brought into focus some interesting factors. With the single-child family increasingly becoming the norm in India, the questionnaire was aimed at exploring the situation from an only child’s perspective.

• 88% said that their sense of responsibility towards aging parents weighed heavily on them.
• 96% said being the sinlge child forced them into some hard choices in life.
• 88% felt ‘smothered’ by ‘parental care’ bestowed on them.
• 72% missed the ‘sharing’ with a ‘non-adult’ family member.
• 38% missed a sibling for practical reasons, not so much for the emotional bonding. “You never miss what you’ve never had,” said one.
• 80% said they have a lot of ‘anger’ in them, probably because they’ve had to internalize a lot many things, not wanting to upset their parents.
• 80% said they were addicted to social networking on the Internet.
• 100% said they were opposed to the concept of a ‘single-child family’.

Interestingly, ‘single’ children who grew up in extended or joint families in rural areas said they never felt any different from those children with siblings, till they moved with their parents to cities for purposes of education and employment.

Single Child Syndrome: Fact vs Fiction

In the 1800s G. Stanley Hall, considered as the father of child psychology, dubbed being an only child, “a disease in itself.” Ever since then, an only child has been stereotyped with unflattering tags such as selfish, self-absorbed, aggressive, bossy, lonely and maladjusted.  Though hundreds of research studies have shown that only children are no different from their peers, the question whether the single child syndrome is a myth or a reality continues to be debated world over.

It is generally assumed that parents lavish attention on their only child, which renders the child self-centered, highly dependent on parents and lacking discipline and inter-personal skills. Research however shows that ‘onlies’ become extremely independent and take on responsibilities very soon in life.  They take on more than they can handle and rarely or never ask for help.  Pleasing parents and devoting almost an entire lifetime trying to live up to expectations, is known to weigh them down heavily, but in most cases the expectations are usually theirs and not imposed.

The desire to succeed, mainly for self-fulfillment, is predominant in a single child.  Studies also show that single children are rarely dreamy, like things straight forward, tend to get one thing done at a time and generally like their lives uncluttered—everything tied in neat parcels with no loose ends. A landmark 20-year study shows that an increased one-on-one parenting produces higher education levels and higher achievement motivation.