lONLeY Child
I'm an adult. Thirty-five, to be exact. Why am I still harping on being an only? Those of you who are onlies will understand....maybe. I've been told that some people actually like having no siblings. Inconceivable to me, but....to each his/her own.
The recipe for my childhood: Take a one-bedroom apartment. Add one father, one mother, two cats and slowly fold in one child. Give the child the only bedroom, but fill up the closets with the parents' things. Never knock when you enter the child's bedroom, even when she reaches her teen years....just come and go as you please. Don't give the child a sibling, but expect her not to bother you when she requires some interaction with actual human beings....after all, cats and stuffed animals are enough, right? Make her so dependant on her friends that she ends up eventually driving most of them away. Blah, blah, blah...pity party. *insert eye rolling here*
As an adult, there are different consequences. As I touched on briefly above, my life became all about my friends. I was so desperate for a sibling, that I placed entirely too much responsibility on my close friends, expecting them to treat me like a sibling. But you know what? (Taking the risk of sounding obscenely cliché): Blood really IS thicker than water. Can you believe it? Sooner or later, mere friends can cut you loose if you, say, get mad when they spend too much time with their new boyfriend (this was the main cause of my rifts, even after I was married). It took me years of almost literally no friends to learn from that. Fortunately, those friends were the real deal and most of them are back in my life again.
Another downside is that I have no one to whom I can say "Mom's doing it again..." and have them immediately understand. There's no one who has the slightest idea what it was like to grow up in my house. Wah, wah, again. Sorry. Just needed to get that off my chest.
So now I've been married for 7 1/2 years to a wonderful man. I have two equally wonderful sons, ages "almost" 3 and 7 months. My first son was a surprise. I wasn't sure I was cut out to be a mom. But he is a joy, with his angelic golden curls and bright blue eyes....my "bestest" little buddy....and I'm so glad that I had that unexpected blessing given to me. About six months after his birth, the quest to conceive again began to consume me. I hadn't been certain about wanting to be a mother....but I WAS certain about having either zero kids or more than one. I was determined to give my son a sibling who was (hopefully) close in age. It took 12 months and a cycle of Clomid, but we finally got pregnant again. And my baby boy is the most sunny, happy baby I have ever seen (and that's more than just mother-bias, although there's a lot of that thrown in too :D).
So, if you've been reading this I hope you're not too bored with my story or turned-off by my self-pity. Stick around and I'll try to be more entertainingâ—‹:D
The recipe for my childhood: Take a one-bedroom apartment. Add one father, one mother, two cats and slowly fold in one child. Give the child the only bedroom, but fill up the closets with the parents' things. Never knock when you enter the child's bedroom, even when she reaches her teen years....just come and go as you please. Don't give the child a sibling, but expect her not to bother you when she requires some interaction with actual human beings....after all, cats and stuffed animals are enough, right? Make her so dependant on her friends that she ends up eventually driving most of them away. Blah, blah, blah...pity party. *insert eye rolling here*
As an adult, there are different consequences. As I touched on briefly above, my life became all about my friends. I was so desperate for a sibling, that I placed entirely too much responsibility on my close friends, expecting them to treat me like a sibling. But you know what? (Taking the risk of sounding obscenely cliché): Blood really IS thicker than water. Can you believe it? Sooner or later, mere friends can cut you loose if you, say, get mad when they spend too much time with their new boyfriend (this was the main cause of my rifts, even after I was married). It took me years of almost literally no friends to learn from that. Fortunately, those friends were the real deal and most of them are back in my life again.
Another downside is that I have no one to whom I can say "Mom's doing it again..." and have them immediately understand. There's no one who has the slightest idea what it was like to grow up in my house. Wah, wah, again. Sorry. Just needed to get that off my chest.
So now I've been married for 7 1/2 years to a wonderful man. I have two equally wonderful sons, ages "almost" 3 and 7 months. My first son was a surprise. I wasn't sure I was cut out to be a mom. But he is a joy, with his angelic golden curls and bright blue eyes....my "bestest" little buddy....and I'm so glad that I had that unexpected blessing given to me. About six months after his birth, the quest to conceive again began to consume me. I hadn't been certain about wanting to be a mother....but I WAS certain about having either zero kids or more than one. I was determined to give my son a sibling who was (hopefully) close in age. It took 12 months and a cycle of Clomid, but we finally got pregnant again. And my baby boy is the most sunny, happy baby I have ever seen (and that's more than just mother-bias, although there's a lot of that thrown in too :D).
So, if you've been reading this I hope you're not too bored with my story or turned-off by my self-pity. Stick around and I'll try to be more entertainingâ—‹:D
posted by B at 11:53 AM
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