There's a lot of ups and a lot of downs of being an only child. Ultimately, there's a lot we don't understand about life with siblings, and we're not sure if we really want to understand...
1. Sharing
Whether it be a car, food, toys, a bedroom, only children have never had to share anything a day in their life. There's no annoying siblings around to grab the remote out of your hand, or wake up ten minutes earlier than you to steal the car away. It's fantastic.
2. Playing All By Yourself
Most toys were not made for a single person to play with all by themselves. Dolls, board games, Legos... They're all significantly more entertaining with someone else. Only children, however, don't have the luxury of someone to play with other than parents. Parents are also really bad at pretending Barbie is alive, let alone even fun to play with for six hours straight.
3. Holidays
Sitting at the kids table means sitting alone, in another room, at a table. Since we were little kids, we've gotten stuck at the adult table listening to our parents and grandparents fight over politics and who has the worst job while awkwardly picking at our food. We've never been able to relate until very recently, and by now, we've heard it all.
4. Family Vacations
Miami Beach sounds like a fun place to go for spring break. Until you go with your parents. Instead of getting to go to wild beach parties, you get stuck going to historical and nature museums. And if you want to wander off, well, good luck on the streets of Miami alone.
5. Being REALLY Awkward
If you have siblings, you were socialized early on. You hardly ever had alone time, as you were living with other kids. Only children, however, only got to see other kids at school or during a play date, ultimately equating to us all being incredibly awkward around people. It just happens. It's a thing. It sucks.
6. Talking To Yourself
Once we reached the age of being able to stay home alone, we got a lot of alone time. Probably too much alone time. Ask any only child and if they don't admit it, they're lying. We talk to ourselves A LOT. Out loud. Which makes having a roommate in college really hard because sometimes you catch yourself doing it, or your roommate thinks you're talking to them. It's embarrassing to say the least.
7. Always Having To Accept Blame
If you have siblings, it's basically a guarantee that you blamed them for everything bad you did. Whether you broke a flower pot or your mom found alcohol in the ceiling tiles of the basement, you had someone else to blame. For only children, even if it wasn't our fault, we had to accept the blame for everything. Cat broke the vase? Well... the cat can't talk. So according to mom, I broke the vase.
8. Being Spoiled
The most stereotypical only child is spoiled rotten. And while it may not always be true, it is pretty true. Parents with siblings always have to pull the, "well if I get you this, then I have to get one for all of your siblings." Only children don't have this problem, so when we ask for something, we're a lot more likely to get it. Which means we're pretty much drowning in stuff.
9. Over Protective Parents
There's literally no one else in the house for your parents to focus on. Sneaking out of the house is near to impossible, and there's no one else to blame if you come home past curfew. You can't get away with anything, so ultimately you get in trouble for everything.
10. Not Having Friends Your Own Age
You've sat at the adult table every Christmas since you were born. Basically, you popped out of the womb knowing how much taxes suck and the thirty minute commute down the nearest interstate highway is downright miserable at 8:30 a.m. And don't even get started on the corruption in our government. You've never been able to relate to people your own age because you spend the majority of your time around people four times your age. But hey, what's so wrong with that?
