The pros and cons noof being an only child, translated…
Mimi Chou is the only one in her class without any siblings. In Hualien, it is truly rare, to be an only child, as I’d gone lecturing at the schools I’d asked, “Those who are only children raise your hands”, sometimes, there wouldn’t be one in the entire school. Once I’d gone to lecture to a middle school class, as the students found out that Mimi Chou was the only child in my home, other than shock, they’d grilled me, “Teacher, how can you make your daughter so lonely!”
I’d laughed aloud, without any more explanations, because that was not the lecture topic that day, and it was hard for me to explain to the students in a few short quick words, that “there’s good AND bad, in the various forms of life.” If we don’t see solitude as loneliness, then, it isn’t necessary a bad thing, then we may have, more ways, of handling it, not demanding the isolated individual to return back to the group.
I was very lonely in high school. Back then, I’d gone from home to Taipei to study, I’d not gotten picked on by my classmates, but I’d still felt like the odd one out, I was so unhappy every single day at school, and, as the afternoon bell rung, I’d run off. My explanations of that were that children from the countryside have a hard time adapting to the city life, and as I grew up, I’d come to realize, that my classmates from high school and I, weren’t from the same group.
but not having siblings to play with…
As I went into college, my interpersonal relationships got better, and, it seemed, that the pains from my high school years were, gone for good, until I’d had Mimi Chou, accompanied her to grow up, to make the friends of various ages, having her learn to socialize with children of various ages, did I look back at my own experiences, and finally saw the structural problem of why it was that I’d not had any friends back in high school: the classes, the students were all set, with the rigid schedules, the students were in school from seven in the morning, to at least five in the afternoon, you were, forced, to be with that same group of individuals, sometimes, it’s not a matter of not wanting to, but you just, couldn’t get along with this particular group, and yet, there’s, no escape for you. I understood that my loneliness wasn’t because of how I’d felt alone, but how I was, forced, to stay at a place that makes me really unhappy.
Actually, blood relations are a relationship we can’t choose for ourselves, it even had the legalities attached to it, plus the societies’ moral values too. Because you can never leave it, even if you leave, but the relationships are still intact, we’d often lean towards “settling the matter” with those whom we have problems with, the society won’t accept those who escaped, and, even if we managed to escape, there’s still, a lot of pressures on the individual, and s/he ended up, returning.
The children saw how only children in their coming of age, didn’t have siblings to play with, and couldn’t understand the concept of “no matter what, you’ll always have someone to play with”; however, what I saw was, although the only children needed to adapt their mindset of “At home I’m the center of the universe, but I am only one of the kids at school”, but they will develop unique abilities that children without siblings have, for instance, how to play on one’s own, how to find fun things to do when they’re all alone, anywhere, developing a relationship with the adults (meaning making friends with the adult friends of the parents’). And, they’d not needed to handle issues of “what if I grow up to not be like my siblings”.
Being alone doesn’t necessarily mean loneliness, I’m working really hard, for Mimi Chou to see it, that loneliness, is a decision made by the self on independence and ability.
So, this would be one of the lessons that children with siblings will have a hard time to learn, because only children don’t have any siblings to play with, and they will find ways to entertain themselves, which is why most of the only children have a more active imagination, which leads to having better problem-solving skills.