The Plight of the Only Child

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I’m a left-handed Jewish only child Gemini female from a divorced family.

Well, Taurus now if you ask whoever the hell came up with the new zodiacs.

I know what you’re thinking. After re-reading the first sentence, I’m thinking the same thing too.

She must be a lot of work.

It’s easy to think that if you believe the stereotypes regarding left-handers, Jews, former Geminis, females and only children.

Oy vey! Do they write nasty things about only children! Just the other day I came across an article where they describe only children as “narcissistic”, “self-centered”, “stubborn”, “autonomous”, “alienating”, “loners”, “aloof” and “odd”.

How dare they!

They left out “uniquely gifted”, “supremely intelligent” and “God’s greatest gift to the world”, duh.

What I read about only children both enlightened and scared the living shit out of me. Some publications try to give us the benefit of the doubt and state that the generalizations of only children are typically not true, but when I began reading the assumed traits, I found myself nodding my head in agreement not only for my own behavior, but that of every other God forsaken only child I’ve ever met.

As Woody Allen stated in Annie Hall about how outsiders view New Yorkers, he said, “Don’t you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.” I can’t help but feel that everything they say about only children is true too. I’ve begun to believe what others think but are too polite to say out loud. I think of us as narcissistic, self-centered autonomous loners. And to quote another line from Annie Hall taken from the great Groucho Marx, “I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member.”

Being an only child means you can smell others of your kind from a mile a way. As soon as you encounter a somewhat boisterous, overly confident, talkative or strong-minded person, there is a good chance that they’re an only child. Or high on coke. I’m not sure there are many non-similarities between the two. We are a distinct breed. Much like the Geminis, we wear our personalities on our sleeves. No secrets. You know exactly who you’re dealing with. And that is a mildly balmy person.

Can we be self-centered? Absolutely. It’s a little difficult not to be when you haven’t had to share a friggin‘ thing with anyone else. Can we be loners? Sure. You get used to spending a lot of time hanging out with stuffed animals as a child. Can we be stubborn? F yeah. We’re used to getting what we want and we don’t handle not getting our way very well. However, I can tell you firsthand that there is a misconception that we’re all selfish and bratty turds. Though often narcissistic, only children try to make up for their lack of large family by being very warm and generous to others. In other words, we desperately comb the Earth with our arms outreached hoping that someone, anyone, will take us in.

We can be interesting as all hell too. As children we often tried impressing the living shit out of adults because we falsely felt that we related better to them and we’re pretty well-versed in film and TV because we pretended to be any place other than alone in our bedrooms.

As dramatic as the generalization of only children often is, the role is barely discussed in birth order studies. I’d like to think this is because scientists and doctors can’t handle our shit. Our awesomeness is obviously so blinding upon exiting the womb that researchers just throw their arms up and say, “I’m spent.” All this attention is devoted to analyzing the effects of being the first, middle, or last child, while the only children are left quietly talking to themselves in the corner. If you’re the first child you’re typically the responsible one, the child you can rely on, who takes charge and is ambitious. If you’re the middle child you’re stuck in between the stalwart of the family (first born) and the baby of the family (last born) and this confusion causes you to become the black sheep and turn to huffing Reddi-Whip cans for comfort. The last born is typically the jester, the good-time kid, the one who coasts on the coattails of their older siblings.

Then there is the only child.

The red-headed step child to ALL OF MANKIND.

Hey, but what they say about only children is not all that bad though.

Time was nice enough to point out only children that helped change the world like Cary Grant and Elvis Presley. One guy who used to spank his wife and trip on LSD and another who ate himself into oblivion and died on the can at the age of 42.

Interesting reads: Only-child Myths Persist As More Parents Choose One Kid

What is your birth order and do you feel that it plays a role in your personality?