In defense of having an only child

What if it's the best of both worlds?

Before we dive in— friendly reminder that our next support group is Sunday December 15th at 7pm EST for paid subscribers. Hope to see you there!

Whenever I talk on Instagram about being “one and done" (OAD), I get lots of responses. Some people dumbfounded and angry, they call me selfish and demand that I have another… when I explain I had medical complications (I will probably do a post on this at some point) with my last child, they say I should adopt. Others tell me that they were only children and hated their experience and assume my child will have the same.

Whether you choose to have children, and the number you have is a highly personal choice based on a number of factors. The internet can be a wild place, filled with projection, personalization and catastrophizing, to name a few.

So as always, as you are going through this process of trying to make a decision, I want you to remember a few things.

1. Everyone has their own experience. Just because something happened (or didn’t happen) to someone, does not mean it will be the case for you.

2. People are typically really bad at giving good advice, this is because unless they are trained in separating themselves from their biases (like a therapist is), it is incredibly hard to not project your personal experience onto someone else.

Having an only child feels like the best of both worlds.

I really struggled with whether I wanted to have a child or not. I saw a lot of the drawbacks and my biggest fear would be that I would make the wrong choice and regret having a child. I scoured the internet (especially reddit) trying to understand what made people regret having kids. I attempted to safeguard that this didn’t happen to me.

I feel very lucky that I do not regret having a child at all; and like everyone in the world tells you, it is very difficult. I struggle with overstimulation and mom guilt. The toddler phase has been significantly more challenging for me than having a newborn or baby. I can’t imagine putting any more work on my plate without significant mental health impacts, which makes me so so grateful that my husband and I are only having one child. I know we in theory could and would figure it out if we had another, but I don’t want to. I don’t have a desire to be stretched in that way. And that is a very fine reason to keep your life as it is.

For me, having an only child feels like the best of both worlds. I get to keep one foot of my life still in my ambition and career, and the other in parenthood. I don’t have to fully surrender into spending all of my free time with my family, but I still get to enjoy a lot of the fun and magic of being a parent. I can trade off taking care of her with my husband. This means, we each still have time for friends and hobbies. I get so much joy out of my work, especially side projects like this substack and my podcast, which I would probably feel pressure to give up. It feels like if I had another child, the wave of parenthood would crash over me and I would lose myself.

I love that my attention can be fully spent on her when I am not working. The idea of splitting my already limited time feels… wrong. And while I know many parents feel this and then say their heart just grows when they have another child.. I don’t want it to. My heart already feels huge as it is.

My life already feels big and vulnerable because of the nature of my job. I run a services business with many therapists who I continuously worry about and manage. I have multiple offices that I have had to physically let go of control over. My plate feels full and I don’t want to stretch myself anymore. One lesson I have learned the hard way, just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD. There are an infinite amount of choices in this life that we can make. An infinite amount of paths we can take. But one thing that is finite is our time and energy. And the sooner we face that fact, the more honest we can get with how we want to spend it.

All this to say— you don’t need any GOOD ENOUGH reason to have or not have however many children you want. And honestly, I am sick of women needing a “good enough” reason to do anything they want with THEIR life. Desire is a plenty good reason.

Maybe I am selfish for wanting to keep my relationship with myself. Maybe my daughter will grow up to hate me and be furious that she did not get a sibling. But I firmly believe that having one child makes me a better parent. And as parents aren’t we supposed to be the best parents we can be? It’s funny how we tell parents to put their own oxygen mask on first (aka take care of themselves), but then get mad at them when they do.

Photo by Maxime Bhm on Unsplash

This is not to say that I have not felt pressure to have another child. Everytime I see someone announce that they are having a second or third kid, there is a part of me that feels sad. Not because I want another child, but because I feel as though I am doing something wrong by going against the grain. Or that I may grow to regret this choice.

But that is the nature of making hard decisions. All require risk in some way. If we knew the exact correct thing to do.. if we could see into the future, it would not be a hard choice to make. All we can do is look at our values, weigh the pros and cons and make the best choice we can. Cheers to women having the FREEDOM to make the right choices for themselves.

Finally, I wanted to leave you with this excellent note from a fellow one and done parent. I loved this so much.

If you are a parent of one child only or are considering having one child, I would love to hear from you!

Thanks for being here! And hope to see some of you next week!
Amanda