I’ve been an only child for about 18 years now and I wanted to share my experience. Most of my friends have a sibling (my best friend has three) and they’ve always told me they couldn’t imagine being an only child.

Many people fear being alone, but it comes naturally to me. While I do love being around other people, it’s not difficult for me to not leave my room for extended periods of time. I’m really good at cleaning my room, organizing my closet, and arranging all my belongings because when there’s nothing else to do, cleaning becomes entertaining. That might just be the neat freak in me, but the point is, when you’re bored and have no one to play with, you quickly find ways to entertain yourself.

Sharing is not something that comes easily to me, although I wish it did. I don’t share well largely because I’ve never had to. Until college, I had never shared a room or a bathroom with another person. I don’t generally like people touching my stuff because no one really did, with the exception of when friends were over.

I never had an older sister to teach me how to do my hair or put on makeup without looking like a drag queen, so I learned to make use of the Internet. Generally speaking, if I ever need to find out how to do something, I can find it online and follow the instructions for a successful result.

When I was younger I read a lot of books to pass the time. I didn’t have a brother or a sister to play make-believe with, so that left me with the option of entering an imaginary world via reading. I did also watch a substantial amount of television, and I still do (Netflix is bae).

You learn how to defend yourself. You don’t have an older brother threatening to beat up the boys who hurt your feelings, you are the lone target when your parents are upset about something, and you are constantly told that you’re spoiled.

Let me just touch on the “spoiled” topic. Spoiled has a negative connotation; the word is often associated with rotten fruit. The truth is, you often can’t blame someone for being “spoiled.” In elementary school especially, I remember being called spoiled in a derogatory way. Honestly, it really wasn’t my fault that my parents didn’t want any more children and thus I did not have to share their resources with anyone. It’s hard for other people to understand when they don’t experience the same thing as you, but only see the shiny new things you’re getting. Granted it’s not like my parents were buying me ponies or anything crazy, but I never had to do chores for an allowance because if I really wanted something I knew I could just ask my parents. Although I recognize that there are benefits to an allowance system and teaching children to earn their own money, I appreciated my parents waiting for me to learn that lesson later on in life. I hope this paragraph didn’t make me sound like a snob, or that my parents raised a brat, but I just wanted to highlight that “being spoiled” is often just part of being an only child, and it isn’t always a negative thing.

I’m generally pretty good with parents. I’ve spent enough time at all-adult dinner parties to know how to strike up conversation with them. When I was younger, I made friends with the adults around me: the postman, the repairman, and my dad’s colleagues. Having a stay-at-home mom, most of my time was spent with her. Being around adults never puts me on edge, but for some reason, children scare me. Never having to help my parents with raising a younger sibling, I don’t really know how to handle kids. When they throw tantrums I have no clue how to make them stop.

As an only child you become a professional white-lie teller; you have to construct something that is solid enough to convince both parents, because you best believe they’ll both be on your case about ANYTHING you want to do. I’m not advocating lying; however, it does prove to be useful in awkward situations that you want to escape or avoid. In addition, because you don’t want to disappoint your parents, you’ll generally develop a good filtration system when speaking to them so they’ll continue to think highly of you. You simply downplay or don’t mention anything that’ll upset them and focus on what will work in your favor. You learn to add just a dash of fabrication to further enhance your story. What they don’t know can’t hurt them, or so they say.

When I’m placed in a high-stress environment, yes I will get mild anxiety, but ultimately I survive. When you’re an only child, the pressure is always on you. I was expected to excel academically and my parents always prioritized my future success. When excellence is expected of you, you learn to do well because you have no other choice. Additional efforts are made to avoid disappointment; I don’t have a perfect sibling that can make up for me being a disappointment. Admittedly, I wasn’t the star student or anything, definitely did not have perfect grades, and absolutely procrastinated most of the time I should have been working, but I ended up doing well enough for my parents to be proud of me.

With that said, because I was my parents' number one priority, they did everything to give me the best opportunities in life. I am so incredibly grateful to be at WashU, and I know for a fact I would not be here without my parents’ support throughout the years.

Lastly, my favorite part about being an only child: I always know that I’m both of my parents’ favorite. Not having siblings means not having to compete for mom and dad’s love and attention. I’ve never been “the ____ sister," or "the more ____ one", or "the less ____ one”, I’ve always just been able to be me, and for that I’m thankful.

Disclaimer: I don’t think that it's better to have siblings or be an only child; I think they’re just different experiences. I don’t think that parents of multiple children do not love their children as much as mine loved me. I don’t want to criticize or judge anyone’s parenting skills; this was just my experience. And lastly, I’m sure there are many parents of multiple children that provided everything for each child that my parents did.