‘One and Done’ Parents, How Are We Really Doing?
The older woman at the grocery store leaned over my cart last Thursday afternoon. My son, four years old, was gripping the side of the cart, holding a box of cereal he had picked out, and she looked at him and smiled. “Is this your only one?” I nodded. It’s a question I’ve answered maybe a hundred times. She clicked her tongue. “Oh, you need to give him a little brother or sister. Before it’s too late.” She said it with genuine kindness. I just said, “Have a good one,” and pushed the cart out to the parking lot.
That moment stays with me. She was following a script that says small families are slightly sad, and the same script follows you around every day of this life. At birthday parties someone will look across the room and notice there aren’t other children running around. At the playground another parent will ask whether we’re going to “try for another one.” Even the phrase “one and done”—like a haircut style you picked out once—has never felt like something I chose so much as a shape we grew into.
So, how are we doing? Depends on the hour.
There are hours where I feel completely settled. We stopped at one for all the honest reasons—less pressure, more space for the child we already have, a chance for me to remain a person with a little something left over at the end of the day. I like being able to say yes to overnight camp in a few years. I like having enough patience in the tank to read the same truck book ten times. I like that my son gets two parents who are not constantly exhausted, which is its own quiet gift.
But there are other hours, late at night, when doubt still sits on the edge of the bed. It usually arrives after a moment like the one with his cousin last month. The cousin came over with his older sister, and my son spent the first fifteen minutes physically shielding his entire toy bin from both of them. My sister-in-law laughed and said, “Oh, that’s an only-child move. He’ll learn once he’s in school.” I laughed too. But the comment landed in me the way those comments do.
I think about that moment a lot. That idea—that siblings are a kind of social bootcamp and without them your child will grow up unlearned in basic human skills—is persistent. But here’s the truth I’ve come to: I’ve watched children with four siblings hoard things like someone might steal their bags. I’ve watched oldest children boss everybody around because it’s the only way they get any attention. Proximity doesn’t teach generosity. Having a parent or a teacher who gently and consistently says “it is his turn now, you give it to him” teaches generosity. That we can do. We can absolutely do that.
What’s been more useful has been teaching him, on purpose, things that I might otherwise have let slide if I imagined a sibling doing the job. Turn-taking at home is a real, scheduled act. When I read him a book, I’ll say, “I get to turn the pages this time. When it’s your turn, you can do it.” He waits. It is a small practice, but it builds the muscle of waiting without attention. I also don’t jump in when there’s a tussle at the playground anymore. I sit on the bench unless blood is drawn. If he wants his space back, he has to use words. If the other kid won’t give it, he has to find a different way to play. Mostly, he does. His friendships are chosen, not assigned, and they mean a lot to him because he’s had to earn his place in them.
One of the things that has surprised me most is how much adult attention our son gets and how I have to balance it. When we take him to restaurants, he talks to the server. He asks real questions about the weather and what’s on the menu. It’s charming, but it’s also because he lives an adult-heavy life. He would rather be listening to us than playing alone. We’ve had to build times into the week where he simply plays by himself in his room for half an hour while I drink coffee in the kitchen. Not to suffer. Just to be there with his own thoughts. It’s a skill I didn’t realize only children needed support in, but it’s as important as socializing.
The bigger social piece is something we’ve deliberately built. For the last year, we’ve had a standing arrangement with two other families—each of us brings our kids over to play on alternating Sunday mornings. There are five children in total, no parent hovering much. They argue. They solve it. They learn to include each other or not. I don’t need to give him siblings; I need to give him a village. That is the practical answer, I think. I’ve become more direct about creating those opportunities than I used to be, because the loneliness of an only child—if it exists—is not made by the lack of brothers and sisters. It’s made by the lack of kids his own age, at regular enough intervals to matter.
As for the people who ask whether we’re having another—I’ve changed what I say. For a long time I would tell them the whole story, the finances, the pregnancy, the recovery, all the reasons. Nobody deserves that explanation, and it never convinced anyone anyway. Now I say, “We feel like our family is complete.” That’s the whole script. If someone pushes, which sometimes happens, I add, “And you know, when I’m ninety, I won’t be doing any of this again.” That usually lands as a joke, but it’s also the quiet truth. I love being the parent of one child. I know enough about my own limits to know that I can give him a really good life, not a stretched-thin one.
So how are we doing? Today—pretty well. I watched my son ride his bike in the driveway this morning, and he looked back to check I was still there. He wasn’t anxious. He just wanted to know he wasn’t alone. I waved. He kept riding. On days like this, there’s no question in my mind that we made the right call. There are other days, and I let myself have those too. I don’t have a second child here, so I can’t run a side-by-side experiment. I only know that our family is three chairs at the kitchen table, and it fits us well.
That’s as close as I can get to an answer today.
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