Just the one? The misconceptions of the only child | Taylor Glenn

Having only one child is something many people frown upon, but the reasons for this are unscientific and unfounded.

Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's not feeling up to incubating another human. Maybe it's my unshakeable dislike of Dustbuster-shaped family cars, or the thought of having worse than a one-to-one ratio of parents to children at any given time. Whatever my reasons, I've experienced surprising resistance since I started admitting we might be stopping at just the one. "Wait till you hit 40 and panic!" and "But she'll be so lonely!" or "Oh, hooray! You're pregnant again, right? Oh my god, sorry, it's just your billowy top."

Here I thought I'd be freed of childbearing harassment once I'd had a child. (Incidentally there's a good post about nosing in on women's fertility status that recently went viral). When people used to ask if I was "trying for a baby" I'd go Full Snark and say things like "Nope, we're trying for a panda. It'll be tough, genetically - but the world needs more." Being confronted about having an "only" has rendered me more tongue-tied. It can feel like no-man's land: you're an ousted traitor of the No Kids Club, but if you didn't know better, you could be made to feel like you're not a real parent unless you double down.