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Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo, 1st Edition
Only children don’t have to share bedrooms, toys, or the backseat of a car. They don’t have to share allowances, inheritances, or their parents’ attention. But when they get into trouble, they can’t just blame their imaginary friends. In Only Child , twenty-one acclaimed writers tell the truth about life without siblings—the bliss of solitude, the ache of loneliness, and everything in between.
In this unprecedented collection, writers like Judith Thurman, Kathryn Harrison, John Hodgman, and Peter Ho Davies reflect on the single, transforming episode that defined each of them as an only child. For some it came while lurking around the edges of a friend’s boisterous family, longing to be part of the chaos. For others, it came in sterile hospital halls, while single-handedly caring for a parent with cancer. They write about the parents who raised them, from the devoted to the dismissive. They describe what it’s like to be an only child of divorce, an only because of the death of a sibling, an only who reveled in it or an only who didn’t.
In candid, poignant, and often hilarious essays, these authors—including the children of Erica Jong, Alice Walker, and Phyllis Rose—explore a lifetime of onliness. As adults searching for partners, they are faced with the unique challenge of trying to turn a longtime trio into a quartet. In deciding whether to give junior a sib, they weigh the benefits of producing the friend they never had against the fear that they will not know how to divide their love and attention among multiples. As they watch their parents age, they come face-to-face with the onus of being their family’s sole historian.
Whether you’re an only child curious about how your experiences compare to others’, the partner or spouse of an only, a parent pondering whether to stop at one, or someone with siblings who’s always wondered how the other half lives, Only Child offers a look behind the scenes and into the hearts of twenty-one smart and sensitive writers as they reveal the truth about growing up—and being a grown-up—solo.
In this unprecedented collection, writers like Judith Thurman, Kathryn Harrison, John Hodgman, and Peter Ho Davies reflect on the single, transforming episode that defined each of them as an only child. For some it came while lurking around the edges of a friend’s boisterous family, longing to be part of the chaos. For others, it came in sterile hospital halls, while single-handedly caring for a parent with cancer. They write about the parents who raised them, from the devoted to the dismissive. They describe what it’s like to be an only child of divorce, an only because of the death of a sibling, an only who reveled in it or an only who didn’t.
In candid, poignant, and often hilarious essays, these authors—including the children of Erica Jong, Alice Walker, and Phyllis Rose—explore a lifetime of onliness. As adults searching for partners, they are faced with the unique challenge of trying to turn a longtime trio into a quartet. In deciding whether to give junior a sib, they weigh the benefits of producing the friend they never had against the fear that they will not know how to divide their love and attention among multiples. As they watch their parents age, they come face-to-face with the onus of being their family’s sole historian.
Whether you’re an only child curious about how your experiences compare to others’, the partner or spouse of an only, a parent pondering whether to stop at one, or someone with siblings who’s always wondered how the other half lives, Only Child offers a look behind the scenes and into the hearts of twenty-one smart and sensitive writers as they reveal the truth about growing up—and being a grown-up—solo.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
21 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
About the author
Daphne Uviller
6 books46 followersDaphne is the author of
This Was Not the Plan
, about the collision of three women's lives at an abortion clinic. Bestselling author Tom Perrotta says "Daphne Uviller is a shrewd and compassionate writer, able to imagine a wide variety of intersecting lives and outlooks, and find humor in even the darkest moments.”
Daphne is also the author of Super in the City , Hotel No Tell , and Wife of the Day, all featuring hapless, lovable heroine Zephyr Zuckerman navigating life and its mysteries in Greenwich Village.
Bestselling writer Elizabeth Gilbert ( Eat, Pray, Love ) called Super in the City "intelligent candy."
Publishers Weekly called Hotel No Tell a "refreshing, smart caper novel [that] will appeal to anyone who loves well-plotted mysteries and funny, off-the-wall characters” while Booklist says it's "an "irrepressible sequel...Snappy crime fiction with a sensitive side and a loving look at the Big Apple.”
Daphne also co-edited, with Deborah Siegel, the acclaimed anthology Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo.
A former Books/Poetry editor at Time Out New York, her reviews, profiles, and articles have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsday, The Forward, New York Magazine, Oxygen, Allure, and Self, for which she used to write an ethics column.
A third-generation West Villager, Daphne lives near the mighty Hudson River with her husband, kids, and dog. She currently co-directs a non-profit that alleviates clothing insecurity in her town.
Daphne is also the author of Super in the City , Hotel No Tell , and Wife of the Day, all featuring hapless, lovable heroine Zephyr Zuckerman navigating life and its mysteries in Greenwich Village.
Bestselling writer Elizabeth Gilbert ( Eat, Pray, Love ) called Super in the City "intelligent candy."
Publishers Weekly called Hotel No Tell a "refreshing, smart caper novel [that] will appeal to anyone who loves well-plotted mysteries and funny, off-the-wall characters” while Booklist says it's "an "irrepressible sequel...Snappy crime fiction with a sensitive side and a loving look at the Big Apple.”
Daphne also co-edited, with Deborah Siegel, the acclaimed anthology Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo.
A former Books/Poetry editor at Time Out New York, her reviews, profiles, and articles have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsday, The Forward, New York Magazine, Oxygen, Allure, and Self, for which she used to write an ethics column.
A third-generation West Villager, Daphne lives near the mighty Hudson River with her husband, kids, and dog. She currently co-directs a non-profit that alleviates clothing insecurity in her town.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 44 reviews
February 13, 2008
This was a wonderful collection of essays to read. As a "lonely only," I found myself being able to relate at least on some level with many (though not all) of the contributors of this collection.
Some recollections and writing would draw me to tears, some would make me smile. All of them were genuine, although some I related better to than others. Molly Jong-Fast's submission was interesting, but her childhood was very different, and her view as being the only child her parents had together was also very unique. If I had to say what sort of camp I was in for onlies, I'd say my experience was more of a Sarah Towers/Sara Reistad-Long hybrid, with a bit of Joel Hodgman and Peter Ho Davies thrown in. But really, this description isn't quite right; my experience and their experiences were and are unique... or at least that's what I'd like to think.
For those of you who don't understand the "singular joys and solitary sorrows" of being an only child, I think this excerpt from Betty Rollin's "You're It" is best:
What does only childhood do to a person? I'm certainly self-centered; on the other hand, I think I'm less needy of attention that those who experienced the kind of childhood neglect I longed for. I have close friendships, but sometimes I'm too demanding. I give a lot to my friends, but I want a lot back. I want love from them and often I get only like.
Some recollections and writing would draw me to tears, some would make me smile. All of them were genuine, although some I related better to than others. Molly Jong-Fast's submission was interesting, but her childhood was very different, and her view as being the only child her parents had together was also very unique. If I had to say what sort of camp I was in for onlies, I'd say my experience was more of a Sarah Towers/Sara Reistad-Long hybrid, with a bit of Joel Hodgman and Peter Ho Davies thrown in. But really, this description isn't quite right; my experience and their experiences were and are unique... or at least that's what I'd like to think.
For those of you who don't understand the "singular joys and solitary sorrows" of being an only child, I think this excerpt from Betty Rollin's "You're It" is best:
What does only childhood do to a person? I'm certainly self-centered; on the other hand, I think I'm less needy of attention that those who experienced the kind of childhood neglect I longed for. I have close friendships, but sometimes I'm too demanding. I give a lot to my friends, but I want a lot back. I want love from them and often I get only like.
March 18, 2010
As the parent of a possible only child, I am very eager to hear from only children about their lives and experiences. This sounded like an ideal read. However, I found most of the writers to be too similar, and their stories to be like anyone's childhood stories (and rather depressing as a whole.) But then I realized that maybe that's the point. Being an only child isn't a person's sole identity, just as having siblings defines only a small part of me.
Due to the depressive nature of the stories, I felt myself being dragged down by the book- up until the very last story, by Teller (of Pen and ... you know.) His was a very sweet and lovely story, about a person who chooses joy in their life and appreciates the beauty around them. His story seemed to be less about someone who is an only child and more about the happiness and love to be found in life. I'm so glad I saw it through to the end!
Due to the depressive nature of the stories, I felt myself being dragged down by the book- up until the very last story, by Teller (of Pen and ... you know.) His was a very sweet and lovely story, about a person who chooses joy in their life and appreciates the beauty around them. His story seemed to be less about someone who is an only child and more about the happiness and love to be found in life. I'm so glad I saw it through to the end!
January 5, 2025
A thoroughly enjoyable, if at-times uneven, series of essays about only children. The preponderance of the essays are from artists and writers, and most, I must say, from fairly oddball families. So perhaps not an accurate representation. But still, I learned a good deal that reflects usefully on my own singleton child.
April 1, 2012
For the most part, every firstborn spent some portion of his or her life as an only child. Some - like me, just 19 months older than my sister - don't remember much about that time; others, like my stepdaughter, who is five years older than her brother, recall it well. (And a few of us have probably taunted our younger siblings at least once or twice with the fact that we were here first...) And then there are those like my son, who has remained an only child for nearly 24 years; the younger step-siblings he acquired at age 22 live across the country and aren't a daily factor in his life. As it happens, I'm not just the parent of an "only," I'm the daughter of two of them (although my mom became an older half-sister when she was almost 17).
I decided quite early on that I only wanted one child, and I've written about that before. My son has never really seemed unhappy about his singleton status, but when the opportunity to read the essays in Only Child came up, I was very interested in other perspectives, especially since I have the impression that he's a bit of an exception in his contentment with it. I'm also a regular reader of Deborah Siegel's blog, Girl With Pen, so I was aware her work on the book.
The book contains 21 essays organized into four sections - childhood as an "only," significant others and friends, parenting, and losing a parent. As might be expected with an anthology, some of the pieces are stronger than others, and different readers will draw different things from it. I was interested in comparing the writers' perspectives and memories of only-childhood to my understanding of my son's, and curious about how they might address stereotypes about onlies. These are some of the impressions I take from the book:
Some of the writers were very content to be only children, while others begged for siblings - and some went back and forth.
Only children seem to have particularly close and open relationships with their parents. Several of the writers talked about the "triangle" of their family, and that was expressed in a positive manner - that is, as a "stable" shape. At the same time, they recognize that in such a small family, the members can be strongly invested in one another, perhaps too much so. It occurs to me that this makes the temptation toward "helicopter parenting" particularly strong for parents of an only (which makes me even more glad I resisted it with my son, pretty much). But for the most part, the closeness is seen as unremarkable within the family - but quite remarkable from the outside.
I got the sense that, at least among the only children who contributed to this book, the absence of sibling rivalry and closeness with their parents helped them grow up with more security and self-confidence than average.
Most of the only children here seem to deny the "spoiled" stereotype, at least in the material sense - they'll admit to being spoiled by parental attention, though. As far as the "selfish" designation often applied to onlies - because they "never had to learn to share" - some of the contributors feel that because they didn't have to fight siblings for attention, toys, or space, they're actually more generous and giving. (I think there's something to that, in not having a need to define and defend "turf.") However, sometimes that can lead to real problems with boundaries, or lack of them - an observation which actually gives me a little better understanding of my dad.
My favorite section of the book is the second one, "We Are...Family: Significant Others and Friends." This portion contains the editors' own contributions; Siegel's essay talks about her hopes of finding a partner who will "complete" her family, while Uviller's story imagines what life might have been like with a sister. Both are among my favorite selections; I also enjoyed Molly Jong-Fast's piece on growing up as Erica Jong's daughter. Sara Reistad-Long's "Separation and the Single Girl" and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn's "Becoming an Only Child" - a fairly uncommon experience resulting from the death of a brother - were particularly moving. The "parenting" section is titled "A Sib for Junior?" and I think that's telling; it's very interesting that only children frequently don't want to replicate that experience with the next generation, and that may be one way to learn how they really feel about it. (I'm waiting to see how that plays out with my son - and I'll be glad to wait a few more years, thank you.)
Only Child contains some fascinating reading and interesting stories, whether you grew up "only" yourself , are the partner of one, or are considering whether to raise one (just one).
I decided quite early on that I only wanted one child, and I've written about that before. My son has never really seemed unhappy about his singleton status, but when the opportunity to read the essays in Only Child came up, I was very interested in other perspectives, especially since I have the impression that he's a bit of an exception in his contentment with it. I'm also a regular reader of Deborah Siegel's blog, Girl With Pen, so I was aware her work on the book.
The book contains 21 essays organized into four sections - childhood as an "only," significant others and friends, parenting, and losing a parent. As might be expected with an anthology, some of the pieces are stronger than others, and different readers will draw different things from it. I was interested in comparing the writers' perspectives and memories of only-childhood to my understanding of my son's, and curious about how they might address stereotypes about onlies. These are some of the impressions I take from the book:
Some of the writers were very content to be only children, while others begged for siblings - and some went back and forth.
Only children seem to have particularly close and open relationships with their parents. Several of the writers talked about the "triangle" of their family, and that was expressed in a positive manner - that is, as a "stable" shape. At the same time, they recognize that in such a small family, the members can be strongly invested in one another, perhaps too much so. It occurs to me that this makes the temptation toward "helicopter parenting" particularly strong for parents of an only (which makes me even more glad I resisted it with my son, pretty much). But for the most part, the closeness is seen as unremarkable within the family - but quite remarkable from the outside.
I got the sense that, at least among the only children who contributed to this book, the absence of sibling rivalry and closeness with their parents helped them grow up with more security and self-confidence than average.
Most of the only children here seem to deny the "spoiled" stereotype, at least in the material sense - they'll admit to being spoiled by parental attention, though. As far as the "selfish" designation often applied to onlies - because they "never had to learn to share" - some of the contributors feel that because they didn't have to fight siblings for attention, toys, or space, they're actually more generous and giving. (I think there's something to that, in not having a need to define and defend "turf.") However, sometimes that can lead to real problems with boundaries, or lack of them - an observation which actually gives me a little better understanding of my dad.
My favorite section of the book is the second one, "We Are...Family: Significant Others and Friends." This portion contains the editors' own contributions; Siegel's essay talks about her hopes of finding a partner who will "complete" her family, while Uviller's story imagines what life might have been like with a sister. Both are among my favorite selections; I also enjoyed Molly Jong-Fast's piece on growing up as Erica Jong's daughter. Sara Reistad-Long's "Separation and the Single Girl" and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn's "Becoming an Only Child" - a fairly uncommon experience resulting from the death of a brother - were particularly moving. The "parenting" section is titled "A Sib for Junior?" and I think that's telling; it's very interesting that only children frequently don't want to replicate that experience with the next generation, and that may be one way to learn how they really feel about it. (I'm waiting to see how that plays out with my son - and I'll be glad to wait a few more years, thank you.)
Only Child contains some fascinating reading and interesting stories, whether you grew up "only" yourself , are the partner of one, or are considering whether to raise one (just one).
Want to read
July 18, 2017guess what we're spending a lot of time talking about these days
ETA, inspired by Nocturnalux: feel free to weigh in! How many siblings do you have? How many children? How's that working out for you?
ETA, inspired by Nocturnalux: feel free to weigh in! How many siblings do you have? How many children? How's that working out for you?
March 3, 2008
I happen to hold a membership card for the only child club. It was refreshing to discover what other onlies thought about growing up as only children. Some loved it and some hated it. I fit into the category of I rather enjoyed it. I don't know what it's like to grow up with siblings so I don't know if it would have been better or worse. Others in this book acknowledged the topic. I did notice a lot of the authors mentioned they read a lot of books as children and I loved reading that! I had three sets of encyclopedias and a library full of books to entertain me. I loved it.
Imaginary friends were talked about and I forgot that I had one. Her name was Sara. This book brought back a lot of memories and I was thrilled to read these stories.
Some of the stories I related to better than others but that is to be expected with any book of short stories.
Imaginary friends were talked about and I forgot that I had one. Her name was Sara. This book brought back a lot of memories and I was thrilled to read these stories.
Some of the stories I related to better than others but that is to be expected with any book of short stories.
January 15, 2010
Some stories were better than others. I really didn't feel this dealt with being an only child as much as the writer's relationship with their parent/parents. I'm raising an only child and I felt this gave me a little bit of insight into what she may be experiencing, but not much.
March 31, 2016
Couldn't finish this one. The writing was too pretentious and a lot of the stories felt unfinished. I guess I'll have to look elsewhere for relatable only-child non-fiction.
November 26, 2017
Only Child...I was planning on reading a chapter but read most of the book in one sitting...I found it fascinating...as a single mother to an only child and as an adult only child (since my sibling passed in my early 20's) I could relate to some of the stories.
"Only Child" would have received a higher rating if there was more variety in the stories or more depth or an extra something. The narrative started off strong and a feeling of "yes...that's it" but then the themes were recycled and without further exploration. I understand, it's essentially a book of short stories and I typically find short stories lacking. Disappointing since I thought the book was so engaging in the beginning and kept reading hoping there would be a little bit "more" and perhaps with a little more "hope." It seems when we explore our lives we look for the dysfunction and more of the wonderful would have been nice.
"Only Child" would have received a higher rating if there was more variety in the stories or more depth or an extra something. The narrative started off strong and a feeling of "yes...that's it" but then the themes were recycled and without further exploration. I understand, it's essentially a book of short stories and I typically find short stories lacking. Disappointing since I thought the book was so engaging in the beginning and kept reading hoping there would be a little bit "more" and perhaps with a little more "hope." It seems when we explore our lives we look for the dysfunction and more of the wonderful would have been nice.
Read
April 15, 2020Various essays by only children who are also writers, including John Hodgman, Lynn Harris, and Teller. Some relished their only status, others longed for a sibling. They also wrote of their own family plans, and how they felt about having more than one child themselves.
February 20, 2021
I enjoyed this book, but it reinforced to me that there's no such thing as a universal experience. I kept waiting for a writer to capture how much and how specifically I enjoyed being an only child, but no one quite got it. And I really didn't relate to those who wished they'd had siblings.
Read
January 19, 2025Delightful, especially Teller's contribution about Mam and Pad. As the mother of an only, as an educator and a counselor, Only Child helped me understand the 'onlys who aren't lonely' and enjoy all the love an only showers on beloved parents.
March 14, 2021
3.5 stars.
January 18, 2022
3 stars only cuz i scanned most of it BUT what I did read was painfully accurate
March 8, 2023
A wide variety of perspectives covering a range of emotions.
November 3, 2011
"In this collection of original, frank, personal accounts, twenty-one of today's most celebrated writers -- all of them only children -- reveal the pleasures, peculiarities, and pain they faced growing up, and growing older, without siblings. More than just stories of head counts and birth order, these essays air the dirty laundry, reveal the singular joys, and grapple with questions of love, loss, and solitude. The authors will make other onlies grin and grimace in recognition and show the rest of us what it's like to be a party of one."
~~back cover
I must be weird. None of these stories resonated with me. And yes, I'm an only child, and have hated it all my life. I was forever trying to find a family that had more relatives than mine (we were a singularly small group: I'm an only child, my mother's only sibling was childless [that makes me an only only, you know.] My father had several brothers and a sister, but they are all back in Ohio and I've never met any of them.
None of the stories came close to talking about what it's like to be the point of such an inverted pyramid. All eyes on you, all family aspirations yours to fulfill, yours to fail and let the whole family down, etc. I hated it! As I grew older and began to find out that my family of origin was skewed heavily towards major personality disorders, I wished even harder for a sibling. "I didn't do it, your father didn't do it, and the dog didn't do it." Useless to protest that I didn't do it either -- my goose was already precooked. If I'd had a sibling, we might have compared notes and come to the conclusion about how skewed our family was -- and maybe it wouldn't have taken me so many years to find out, and even more to try to begin to undo the damage.
As we all got older, it would have been lovely to have a sibling, someone to share the burden of caring for them as they declined in health, and proceeded towards leaving this world. Lovely to have had someone to help me clean out the trailer, stuffed with the accumulated detrius of years and years of hoarding against the next Great Depression.
Some of these stories touched on that aspect of being an only child, but most of them ended happily ever after: reconciliation with their aloneness, happy families with their parents. That wasn't my experience, although I really hoped I would read about others who felt like orphans long before their parents' deaths made that status a reality.
~~back cover
I must be weird. None of these stories resonated with me. And yes, I'm an only child, and have hated it all my life. I was forever trying to find a family that had more relatives than mine (we were a singularly small group: I'm an only child, my mother's only sibling was childless [that makes me an only only, you know.] My father had several brothers and a sister, but they are all back in Ohio and I've never met any of them.
None of the stories came close to talking about what it's like to be the point of such an inverted pyramid. All eyes on you, all family aspirations yours to fulfill, yours to fail and let the whole family down, etc. I hated it! As I grew older and began to find out that my family of origin was skewed heavily towards major personality disorders, I wished even harder for a sibling. "I didn't do it, your father didn't do it, and the dog didn't do it." Useless to protest that I didn't do it either -- my goose was already precooked. If I'd had a sibling, we might have compared notes and come to the conclusion about how skewed our family was -- and maybe it wouldn't have taken me so many years to find out, and even more to try to begin to undo the damage.
As we all got older, it would have been lovely to have a sibling, someone to share the burden of caring for them as they declined in health, and proceeded towards leaving this world. Lovely to have had someone to help me clean out the trailer, stuffed with the accumulated detrius of years and years of hoarding against the next Great Depression.
Some of these stories touched on that aspect of being an only child, but most of them ended happily ever after: reconciliation with their aloneness, happy families with their parents. That wasn't my experience, although I really hoped I would read about others who felt like orphans long before their parents' deaths made that status a reality.
January 11, 2016
I really wanted to enjoy this more than I did. It is important to note that I tried to get through the book, but could not finish because each of the stories didn't explore in depth the reasoning for specific behaviours of the onlies, and rather just touched the surface with very detailed information for setting the context of specific events in their lives. These events, however, are not really conclusive, and are rather just splattered throughout each chapter, leaving a more open-ended analysis as to why the author chose to highlight those specific events. It is more of an anecdotal account on the only experience rather than deep insight and analysis which one might find in self-help/psychology books. The authors did review their experiences slightly, but it was less direct than I would have liked ; I found many details irrelevant to capturing the feelings, worldview and experience of the onlies. Some of the details don't do more than build the context of each story/essay, and I just find myself losing interest in why they believed they behaved in certain ways in childhood (i.e. One chapter discussed the child wanting a chimp, and spent well over 2 pages explaining how the father had been fond of chimps in his past--this is the kind of stuff that I think can be nipped out. I'd much rather it focus on whether the person still feels an animal can fill the fears of emptiness of growing up or living alone--channeling some sort of psychosocial anchor to home, stillness, and certainty, or paralleling a blood bond with a sibling). The stories share the "only" worldview, but they do so in a way that includes all the little details that are only pertinent to the writer and his/her life in that specific event. They do very little for the reader if he/she is expecting to gain deeper insight. However, I suppose this is supposed to be a collection of essays rather moreso than a psychology/self-help book. Just know that it is more anecdotal rather than direct, so if you are okay with that type of writing like storybooks and fiction, then you should be able to stay focused and enjoy this book. I typically don't like reading fiction; if it's based off of a real person's life, I go in expecting more direct analysis that removes the fluff and details one would find in fiction stories.
April 14, 2012
For the first time in my life I finally felt like someone understood me. All of my friends have siblings, and I am the only person in my family who is an only child. So I never really knew how other only-childern felt, and I actually did not really think about it much until I read this book. Now I did not identify with every short story in here, but a few of them hit home pretty hard. This is a great book for anyone wanting to know what it feels like at times to be an only child...We are not all spoiled-attention seeking brats; we are actually quite the opposite because we did not have to compete with anybody else for our parents attention. I think most only-childern are less needy. But of course, that is only my opinion, so read for yourself!
July 25, 2012
I absolutely LOVED this collection of essays about growing up an only child. Many different writers from very different backgrounds have come together to tell a story about a defining moment in only-child-dom and how growing up without siblings affected them each, making them who they are today. Each chapter has it's own personality, and there are sad and happy tales, but I enjoyed every one of them. I almost never pick up non-fiction and this one just sucked me in (I'm trying to branch out a little) and I couldn't be more pleased with myself. Only children and parents of only children will ADORE this book. I laughed, I got misty eyed, and I loved the character and humanity throughout.
LOVE IT.
LOVE IT.
January 22, 2009
It was really great to read so many perspectives on being an only child. It also gave me some insight into my own life and some of the reasons I do/have done the things I do. There was a lot of discussion on the issue of only children wanting to have more than one child and the reasons behind it and it was reassuring to know that I am not alone in this desire ... nor the fears that I wouldn't be able to be a proper parent because I don't understand sibling relationships. But at the end it was just nice to know that my many personality quirks are not just me but are also a hallmark of being an only.
July 29, 2016
I can't claim to have really read this, because some of the essays were so insufferable I skipped over them. They could have been subtitled: "Affluent people whine about their childhoods."
There were a few really standout essays--the one by John Hodgman (which was why I read the book) about why he feels he must have a second child due to his singleton childhood is absolutely hilarious. Teller's is also a nice look at a very close knit family as the parents age and begin to need his help more and more. Luckily, he had the financial means to deal with this on his own.
All in all, this wasn't really a must read collection for me.
There were a few really standout essays--the one by John Hodgman (which was why I read the book) about why he feels he must have a second child due to his singleton childhood is absolutely hilarious. Teller's is also a nice look at a very close knit family as the parents age and begin to need his help more and more. Luckily, he had the financial means to deal with this on his own.
All in all, this wasn't really a must read collection for me.
October 3, 2007
I had high hopes for this collection, but they didn't really pay off. Bought it on a whim at an independent bookstore that's affiliated with Aroma Coffee House in Studio City. It was part of a lovely afternoon of writing and browsing before a writing group meeting, but that's about as far as it went.
I don't know why, but the writing just didn't grab me and it took me a long time to get through the book. I guess I'm still in rebound from _Food and Booze_, which entirely enchanted and thrilled me.
I don't know why, but the writing just didn't grab me and it took me a long time to get through the book. I guess I'm still in rebound from _Food and Booze_, which entirely enchanted and thrilled me.
January 15, 2008
As an only, I looked forward to this book hoping for some sort of camaraderie with the authors, I suppose. All in all it was a quick and pleasant read, arguably the best story was last (Teller's).
What surprised me were those stories of onlies who were clearly not happy with the situation. Since my own background was really positive, I found myself shaking my head, saying, what's not to like?
Fun for its range and diversity of experiences, and it was good to see some stories from people who ended up onlines, too.
What surprised me were those stories of onlies who were clearly not happy with the situation. Since my own background was really positive, I found myself shaking my head, saying, what's not to like?
Fun for its range and diversity of experiences, and it was good to see some stories from people who ended up onlines, too.
May 19, 2011
As I struggled with whether or not to have a second child, I tried to get my hands on everything I could read about only children. This collection of essays was an interesting perspective on how some adult onlies felt about growing up without siblings. I can't say that this book helped with my decision to have just one child, since everyone's experience is unique - and that goes for children who grow up with siblings, just as much as without siblings. Yet I very much enjoyed reading these various recollections of family life.
September 10, 2016
As the wife of an only and the mother of a probably-only, I enjoyed this book. It was interesting to get the perspectives of different aspects of being an only. From growing up with all of the attention (for good or for bad) to being the only child to mourn your parents. Not something that I have really thought about. It definitely brought some insight to my boys, but really brought home how individual all of our experiences are.
June 26, 2013
I nodded a lot in recognition of seeing some of my experiences as an only child reflected, and I was amazed at the diversity in family structure in the essayists. Some folks hated being an only child, and some folks loved it. The authors wrote essays about growing up as an only, how it affected their relationships and family planning choices, and how only children are affected by the end of their parents' lives.
October 1, 2015
I'm a only child. I enjoyed this book. Many of the writers had something in common with my experience. Unlike some of the writers I never liked being a only. I didn't stop wishing for a sibling until it was too late to hope for one. I never even got a step sibling because when my mom remarried- it was to someone with no children! My children think I overcompensated for being a only. I had nine children.
July 26, 2007
if you are an only child then you have no choice but to read this collection of essays. some of them are funny, some of them are devastating, and all of them are immensely readable and beautifully written. it leaves you with a sense of community, a sense of relief that even if you dont have siblings you arent alone. sounds cheesy but its true.
November 21, 2010
I stopped reading it, it got boring. The stories were interesting and made it clear to me that being an only child is not bad if you have good boundaries with your child. Maybe also that even though I have a brother and a sister - emotionally speaking, I grew up and still am an only child and it's not so bad.
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