Simply the one?
So, are you one and accomplished?
Oh…he’s an solely baby?
I’ve been requested innumerable iterations of this query—sometimes by whole strangers—since I had my son 5 years in the past. However after experiencing postpartum melancholy not as soon as, however twice, I’ve been ambivalent about having one other child, so my reply to this invasive, all-too-common inquiry is difficult.
Some days, the language we use to speak about “solely” youngsters makes me really feel judged, or one way or the other lower than moms with a number of children. Different days, I really feel aggravated that questions on household planning have change into as quotidian as discussing the climate. Both approach, these conversations have made it clear simply how many individuals nonetheless consider that in terms of youngsters, one is the loneliest quantity.
If we take away emotion from the equation and look solely on the knowledge, it is smart why extra households are deciding to cease at one. A latest examine confirmed that in 2025, the typical value of elevating a baby till the age of 18 within the US is $300,000. This determine doesn’t account for the price of post-secondary training, which in Canada (the place I’m from) is predicted to rise to over $100,000 for a four-year college training. In Canada, one-child households are already the commonest kind, representing 45% of households with children, whereas the typical American household downsized from 3.7 youngsters in 1960 to 1.9 at the moment. With these financial pressures alone, it appears solely logical that the one-child household pattern will proceed. However logic doesn’t appear to be the main affect once we’re speaking about including extra children to the combo.
In her 2013 e book One and Solely: The Freedom of Having an Solely Baby, and the Pleasure of Being One, Lauren Sandler writes that the explanation the choice is so nuanced is as a result of “youngsters are a want, not a calculation.” I’ve noticed how my very own want to do the “proper” factor for my baby has made the age-old arguments for a second that rather more persuasive. Everyone knows them: A sibling is a lifelong good friend to your baby, they will hold one another busy, they’ll by no means be lonely! It helps with socialization and studying to share. Extra youngsters can share the duty of caring for his or her getting old mother and father. There’s simply as a lot, if no more, rhetoric concerning the problematic nature of solely youngsters. Within the late 1800s, two baby psychologists coined the time period solely baby syndrome to explain the destructive traits that their analysis confirmed solely youngsters usually possess, together with being spoiled, egocentric, maladjusted, and anti-social.
I would like the world for my son, of course—and but I’m nonetheless unsure if I’m up for doing it once more. It’s why I’ve discovered a lot consolation in a viral TikTok video from a self-described “one & accomplished mother,” who argues that being a mom of 1 permits girls to decide on motherhood in addition to themselves. The remark part is stuffed with proud mothers sharing what they’ve been capable of do with their lives by deciding to not have a second baby—from travelling to reaching profession targets and having extra time to do the issues they love.
