Only The Lonely

Is only-child syndrome a thing, or is your one child policy actually good for your little one, asks Margot Bertelsmann

IN 1896, THE American psychologist Granville Stanley Hall famously said, “Being an only child is a disease in itself.” Fair enough, he lived in a time where the average family size had reduced from seven children in a family, on average, in 1800 to 3.5 in 1900 – a massive shift in just 100 years. To him, the idea of only one child in a family was anathema.

But he had no idea how much worse it was about the get, did he? Estimates from the CIA World Factbook in 2016 are that the average American woman has 1.87 children. There’s no doubt, as soon as women are able to control their reproduction, fertility rates in developed countries just keep declining.

But let’s examine that 1.87 children per-woman figure more closely. It suggests that many women choose not to have children at all, and that a family size of between one and two children per family is “the norm” – although, increasingly, the whole notion of a “norm” is falling away as human beings continue to choose how to constitute their private lives (as long as they are lucky enough to live in societies where that choice is possible).  

WHY ARE WOMEN HAVING FEWER CHILDREN?

The “good news” reason is that, even 100 years ago, 6 to 9 of every 1 000 women died in childbirth and one out of every five children died before their 5th birthday. People consciously tried to have as many children as possible to safeguard against the expected losses. As childbirth became safer and women began to be able to control their reproductive cycles and space their children, and as child mortality decreased, family sizes decreased too. One or two highly prized children, who received all the parental resources, began to replace a brood.