When a child says that he has no brothers and sisters, the following rhymes are almost certainly possible: “Aren’t you lonely?”, “Oh, you don’t have anyone to play with”and some automatically think that since he is an only child, then he is sufficient spoiled child.

Like many other things, often beyond the control of the individual, so being an only child means a stigma: in addition to being the only child in the family, for many this means that he will also be obsessed with selfishness, he will be an unadapted and incompatible child, while it is often believed that he “grows up ahead of time.”

It may not be clear from the study that only children are “worse” than other children, however, there seems to be a relative prejudice on the part of young children (up to 8 years), repeatedly even by the only children themselves.

Even the very word “only baby” it seems to carry a negative connotation. We don’t say “solo” or “loner”, but we use the first compound in the word, which conceptually separates it with a thin line from the word “loneliness”.

However, to catch the thread of the stigma, we must first return to 1896 also about E. G. Bohannon did research for Clark University “Strange and Unusual Children”. Among the 1,000 children who participated in the survey, 46 were the only children who, he concluded, “have imaginary friends, don’t go to school regularly, don’t get along with other children, are generally spoiled, and are in many cases unhealthy.” J. Stanley Hall and the first president of the American Psychological Association, who led the study, noted that “Being an only child is a disease in itself.”

In 1922 again the psychologist A. A. Brill argued that better for the human race, if only there were no children. 1968 in The newspaper “New York Times published an article titled “Syndrome of the only child”, as a strong recommendation to parents to have more children. But perhaps no one has surpassed the author George Crane where 1979 he called people don’t marry only children.

And then there is fantasy: Veruca Salt in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” the most spoiled child in history, Hermione in “Harry Potter” the most “annoying” of the group of young wizards and Rory Gilmour from “Gilmore Girls” he is a bookworm.

But to come to today, only children are much more common than in the past. This is stated in the report Our World Data. The U.S. birth rate per woman has fallen from 3.6 in 1957 to 1.7 in 2021. This can be facilitated by both financial reasons and the career ambitions of a modern person. However, in a 2015 survey 86% participants argued that families should have at least 2 children.

Brother-sister relationships certainly have a lot to offer children, but only children fill this “gap” in a different way. Research shows that children without siblings tend to be more respect and warmth to their parents while they are older ease of communication with teachers, as they are accustomed to talking with adults at home.

Besides, only children get along. better on intelligence tests, although they often big ambitions to school. However, as adults, all of these differences seem to decrease, as adults with or without siblings have the same “score” at all levels.

The only part where only children can ultimately differ is sociability. Research has shown that children at various stages of school age and older tend to prefer isolation more than group activities. Finally, only children more flexible (something related to creativity) although they may become less enjoyable.

On the other hand, do children sometimes lack social skills precisely because there is still stigma around them? The boundaries of whether having or not having siblings affects appearance can often be blurred. They are also normal children, not an exception to the rule, and this is the main thing.

With information from the Atlantic.