First, let me get this straight. Technically, I have four half-sisters on my father's side who are all 10+ years older than me, but I grew up living in a house with just my mother and me for my whole life. That's why I believe that I am qualified to write from the perspective of an only child. Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you about my experience. Sometimes I love to hear people's preconceived notions about what living as an only child must be like. I often hear people say that it must be great because you "don't have to share your things with anyone." Well most days I would wish I had someone to share my things with. I feel like people who have siblings must have an ingrained annoyance at being told they must share their things and therefore envy the life of an only child. But in my opinion this envy only comes from not being able to see the whole picture.

I usually sum up my experience growing up as an only child with one word: lonely. At home there was no one for me to talk to or hang out with. My mother was always working very hard in order to support us and I greatly appreciate and love her. But when she got home from a long work day, entertaining me was the last thing on her mind. As a result I had to retreat to finding ways to entertain myself, usually meaning watching an unhealthy amount of movies and reading many, many books. Thus, I grew up to be quite the introvert. Not really comfortable being around large groups of people but craving company at the same time. I remember when people used to tell me, when I complained about being lonely, that I had plenty of friends at school. Maybe that's why to this day I actually like school and college. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I guess due to years of looking forward to going to school, to be able to hang out with people my own age has made me this way.

I guess a good thing about being an only child would be that in terms of getting an education, specifically going to college, you and your family only have to deal with one set of student loans, instead of having to pay for an education for multiple people at relatively the same time. That is one thing I am grateful for. Even though I know that I will be in debt because of my student loans, probably for a long time, I am glad that it's just me that my mom has to worry about in terms of finances. That doesn't means that things aren't tight. I know that people think that as an only child you can get anything that you ask for. That seems pretty ridiculous to me. No matter the number of children a family has, they will only be able to afford what they can afford.

Something I really longed for as a child was someone to share the blame. Growing up in a house with just my mother and I, if something bad happened, for example, breaking a glass or eating food that wasn't supposed to be eaten, I got the blame for it. If it wasn't my mom then it was obviously me, there was no other alternative. No one to share my punishment with me. Being the only child meant that you got the brunt of the attention, but is that necessarily a good thing? It makes you feel like you can't mess up and that you're always being watched. There's no one else there to divert attention from yourself. You can either flourish in that environment or cave under the pressure of feeling like you have to do your best all the time.

All in all though, I wouldn't try to change the way I grew up. It has made me the person I am today. I do carry a heavy heart when I reflect on the lonely child that I was. A child who used to dream of having siblings around my age who lived with me and could share in my happy and sad times. But just knowing that I survived that loneliness is enough for me now.