In these days when it is so in vogue to ferret out a constant stream of new stereotypes and then to systematically deplore them, I present a new stereotype to condemn.
How do you get a spoiled child? You withhold spending time with him or her and thus fail to get to know him/her and fail to let him/her get to know you; you fail to properly discipline and impart values to said child, including but not limited to giving in to temper tantrums and rewarding such revolting displays with the desired toy that invoked the unacceptable behavior; you shower the child with gifts and tell yourself that that will make up for all of the companionship and getting-to-know-you time that you’re not spending.
Now for the obvious corollary: how do you get an unspoiled child? By raising him or her exactly as my parents raised me. Each of them spent tremendous amounts of time with me. We played card games and board games together; we watched TV together and commented upon what we’d seen; we sang together; we danced together (they taught me to dance); we went to the beach together; we watched lightning together, and Daddy explained to me its cause; and, it goes without saying, we shared every dinner together. And they were strict disciplinarians, and no, doing so is not child-abuse, it is parental responsibility. If I ever dared to throw a temper tantrum over a desired toy, my bad behavior guaranteed that I would never receive that toy. Whereas, if I asked very nicely and politely, I might receive it; the odds were about sixty-forty in my favor. I quickly learned courtesy from that object lesson, and then, yes, they were quite generous. But only because I had met their standards of behavior. Have you guessed yet what stereotype I am addressing? The absurd assumption that an only-child is automatically spoiled, and that a child with siblings is never spoiled. Utter rubbish. As you may have guessed, I was an only-child. In my lifetime, I have encountered a fair number of other only-children, and very few of them are “spoiled” individuals. I have also met quite a few spoiled adults and children, and very few of them were onlies.
Let’s refer back to my second and third paragraphs above to illustrate why. It stands to reason that the more kids that you have, the less time that you have to spend with each one. With multiple children, each child has less of an opportunity to be properly acquainted with each parent, and relationships remain comparatively superficial. Further, with multiple children, more bad behavior goes unnoticed and unpunished, and thus, uncorrected.
My late father was one of nine children. He described his childhood as a circus and a fiasco. He was determined not to do that to me. As a result, I had every opportunity to develop an intensely close relationship with both parents. There was nothing that I couldn’t talk about with either of them.
I also enjoyed plenty of opportunities to develop a vivid imagination and an active fantasy-life, which could never have happened if I’d suffered the constant potential distraction of other kids popping in on me willy-nilly. It takes time and uninterrupted concentration to immerse oneself into one’s own private world, and one is too inhibited to try to do so if one must anticipate constant interruption. Without the privilege of the necessary time in which to develop a complex fantasy life, these many stories (based on a wide variety of fandoms) and this website would not exist.
I treasured my parents and I miss them terribly. But every single day of my life, I mentally thank them for giving me the ultimate honor of having been their only child.
