Only-Child Syndrome

Gimmie a break ....

I always like to see how people ended up at my blog and man there have been lots of Google searches about only children, and only child syndrome. Then you run into articles that quote things like only children are lavished with attention, undisciplined, and plain spoiled which right now I’d like to call BS on.

Am I spoiled? Yes, but not because of the fact I am an only child more so than I was an over achiever who worked hard in school, worked hard at any job I had, and overall am a pleaser. I was always up to more good than I was bad and I was rewarded. 

Does that mean I got everything I wanted?  NO! We were not a rich family growing up and the things I was spoiled about were more like food, and books, etc. There were no computers, iphones, and Nintendo DS. When I look at my friends with more than one child and see the things they are given because the neighbor next door has one I just laugh. I was spoiled but it wasn’t material.

Was there discipline? Of course and lots of it. If you were to ever meet my mom you’d know to this day she still has no issue smacking my hand and telling me no. I grew up in the years that CPS didn’t come to your house for spanking your children and there was the one summer that I stole her cigarettes and I spent the remainder of the summer in my room, no TV or radio. Still to this day my mother remembers things I did and when I got caught stealing (she caught me before I got out the store with it) I am the one who wrote the letter exiling myself from the family. She showed me that letter I wrote after that addressed to her full name, and signed by her ex daughter. She didn’t even have to tell me how much trouble I was in because I knew right from wrong and I knew exactly what I did wrong.

Hell one time I let the F-word slip when I was young, and I’m sure to this day my folks chuckled about it but I cried all the way home scared of what was to come. I punished myself way better than my parents ever did and in a lot of cases they let me do just that. It would be years before I figured out they did this because I came up with stronger punishments than they would have. 

I was the one most hard on myself and still am. When I feel entitled to something it’s because I’ve worked hard to get it not because my folks gave it to me. Not because I should just get it because I’m ME, and ME is the most important.

If you are dealing with an only child now who gets it all you can bet there are just as many middle children running around with the same gadgets. The same lax parent attitude, and birth right has nothing to do with it. It’s just a sign of the times, and a change in parenting. So the next time you Goggle only-child syndrome because they are out of control, take a look at yourself. Parenting makes all the difference and if you want to make sure you raise a humble child, then teach them to be just that. At least teach them that if they are going to walk around head high and full of entitlement that they learned to walk around with that kind of attitude all on their own and not because you’ve just bought them all the newest toys or best clothes. There is nothing wrong for celebrating your child’s accomplishment but keep it in check and don’t buy into all only children are one in the same because we are examples of our parents. Ask mine, she’ll tell you that every time. 

The only child comes home …

In 2009 I lost a job that in the end I hated so it wasn’t really a loss. No instead it was the loss of a paycheck, but in the end I know I’d still be there miserable had it not happened. I didn’t exactly go out on good terms as a certain finger got me into some hot water but truth be told they were looking for any reason considering me and MEGABITCH were never going to get a long and the company was never going to become company focused. 

 So what did that mean for the only child?? I went home. *sigh* This was my worse nightmare especially at my age but sometimes in this company you have to suck up your pride and do what you have to do, and coming home was just that. 

 The thing that surprises me most is that it hasn’t been horrible and this morning reminds me of why sometimes being here allows me and my mother to heal and reconnect. Some of my most favorite moments are when we lay in her bed, coffee in hand and just talk about all those things that I’ve been sheltered from for so long. She ALMOST treats me like an adult. 

 I don’t plan on being here much longer as I’ve been fortunate enough to find a job in what is considered a short period of time. (2 months) I have to say I will miss being here, but not enough that I’ll be here for the long term. Thank you Uncle Sam and the wonderful tax return that will allow me to catch myself up and get out back in the real world, but also thank you unemployment that I never got for making sure that I stayed so damn broke that life felt impossible but thank you to the wonderful friends, boyfriend (smitten) and again to my parents …

2010 is my year;  I can just feel it. 

/end mushy posts sometime this week I’ll get into the nitty gritty of making fun of myself because as nice as being here is for now. I still fight tooth and nail to GET MY WAY …. 

Almost time for the closing credits ....

I’ve written about the fact that I created a set of creative non-fiction during the school year that focused on Illness, Death, and God based very simply on my Aunt’s battle of cancer. There is still one more act left to those writings and they started to come together tonight as my mother started a hospice suggested coma to help my Aunt get through the next hours and the pain they can bring.

When I wake up tomorrow I hope the chapter has ended. I know that this site  was never intended to be a muse for such seriousness and  so I will share a conversation I had with my mother before I left about the fact that I would indeed  be using my blog for immediate therapy ….

“You have always been able to write, and I could never do anything that creative.”

“Yes, but I can’t punctuate for shit, so I’d need to be good enough that a publishing company would be willing to edit and correct my spelling.”

“Well I always wished you’d have grown up to be a writer.”

“Wished?”

“Mom you know that writing isn’t like stripping right?” “I mean no one is going to make me work the day shift because I’m too old.”

My mom laughed for just a minute and that made me feel like I had given something valuable besides the meal I cooked tonight. I hope that I can continue to bring her little laughs as life is about to nose dive, and we all forgot our chutes.

Still breathing ....

I wanted to start writing about a normal summer life. Beer, sand, and plenty of trips but life decided against. I talked about my semester of writing and it looks like life is about to write my last chapter of my portfolio of illness, religion, and god. Death is going to be added to the mix and because my head is so wrapped around the events paining me such as my aunt preparing to pass I am having a hard time thinking of anything creative.

My mother turned 51 and I swore a text was all she was going to get, but instead I learned of hospice and went and sat and just watched my sit and watch.

Smitten has been gone for so long that it makes my heart ache, and I am counting the  minutes until his plane lands. I need a strong shoulder right now and I know that his can carry the weight.

I am still looking forward to dinner with Lust and getting an update on the adventures of Wondergrl. There is also my dad’s birthday and father’s day to look forward to where I will break out some culinary skill for the masses.

Numerouno will be celebrating his birthday this week and I have yet to decide if I am ready for dinner just yet. We spoke a few times this weekend but with everything going on with my aunt I have to be careful to not let him carry me. He knows my family, my aunt, and it would be so easy to get caught up in that familiarity and forget that we are where we are because of his past actions. Our friendship has to be rebuilt in a slow fashion and his birthday might be a little too soon.

In other news I am still a rockstar at work and thank goodness for that. It’s enough to keep me busy without going completely insane right now. It kept me grounded today and I only found myself in tears once.

So yeah, I apologize no happy stories to report just yet.

Nope, Not Dead ....

It’s been over a month since I have written anything that didn’t deal with drugs, death, or religion. I actually have a whole portfolio from this semester filled with three very different views of my life and my memories both current and old. It’s hard to sit here and not take myself so serious but that is exactly what I need.

Everything these days feels so serious and it’s really starting to change my outlook on many things. Things are getting serious at work, and even though I’m the new company ROCKSTAR it almost feels like a grown up job and I am just not ready for that. I still have so much school left and the balancing act has to be one of perfection.

My relationship with Smitten has been serious, and lately it has been serious rocks. We are strained with his travel schedule, my impending family stress and the things that so easily made us laugh have lost their luster. I know this is the growing pains part and I am ok with that. I just really wish they would have waited until everything else in my life had settled.

I am happy to report that if there is one person I can count on to not give me the serious it’s Lust. His birthday is coming up and I am so excited I can barely stand it. We haven’t seen each other since October and even though we have our txt messages, and very irregular catch up phone calls I know that I can count on him to make me laugh until I cry.  I need some of that laughter and I know his birthday will provide just that. I was also smart enough to make him agree to dinner a month in advance because Wanderlust might soon have a Wondergrl and well you know how couples and birthdays are. That is all I’m going to say about that because I don’t want to jinx any goodness that might be on the horizon for him.

I’d like to give more of an insight of the serious but it just wears me out thinking about it. My mother turns 51 in 3 days and we aren’t even speaking.

Numerouno (who is making his first appearance here/ i.e. first love) has come back into my life amongst a whirl wind of his own drama. I swear just every now and then if the men in my life would listen to me they’d save themselves some drama, heartache, and cash. Why he’s back, what he wants, and the things I’ve learned about things that happened 10 years ago will be a story for another day. All of the events are very relevant.

Tomorrow I have to travel and the only real purpose of this post was to make me write something so anyone still reading knows that it’s summer and I hope to fill the next two months as often as I can with posts about silly good times.

 

 

There is so much to say ...

Family, cancer, failing grades, all things that could be used to describe where I am right now but I know its all temporary one way or the other ...

I'm not ready to write about any of it just yet though ....

My two cents ...

I feel bad when people Google “only child syndrome” and end up here of all places. Not because I think my blog is bad, but because I don’t have any answers in regards to what you do with an only child. This blog was started because I have some of the classic symptoms of what an only child is, but as with the first post of the blog I don’t think I am deficient. Today I was linked by This Blog and his reply to me was funny but it made me take a minute to think about what I have to say about only children as a whole. I will preface all of this as I am no expert, and can only use my own life and other only children I know as a litmus test of what the rest of the world of only children might be like. 

So, if I had any advice to give what would I say? How about quit stressing about it, and raise a child that is respectful, polite and don’t give your only child everything they ever wanted because I promise you someday it will come back to haunt you.

What might be most amusing is that I date a man who has a 12 year old only child. I give him grief about the fact that I can almost pinpoint some of her every moves. There has been many times in which I have said “told you so”. One of our earlier conversations as we decided to become serious was would he ever be open to adoption. The reason I asked was because in a very early conversation he told me that him and his ex-wife only had one child so they could give the child everything they wanted. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that as long as you really don’t give your child everything they want. I stay away from anything that might be considered parenting advice because I’m not a parent, nor am I her parent. That doesn’t mean that I don’t on the other hand tease him of what is to come. The other thing about his 12 year old is very honestly I am scared to death to meet her. I know that might sound funny, but if she was 6 it wouldn’t matter but I remember myself at 12. I remember my parents being divorced, and I especially remember how awful I acted and although I have no reason to believe that would be the case here; it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t crossed my mind.

I can tell you that I never, ever wanted siblings. It’s much in the way that I don’t want to have a paternal child. It just never hit me as something that was missing. If I have to be honest when BMOC came into my life as an adult I had a very hard time adjusting to him and the attention my mom gave him. Now some of that has to do with the fact that my mother didn’t do a lot of those things for me because she wasn’t around, but some of it was also because she had always just been my mom once we were back on track. BMOC has never lived with my mom, but I will say that I was JEALOUS of him for quite some time. It wasn’t until him and I formed our own relationship that I moved past it, and then pushed for my parents to as involved in his life as they could because a lot of my jealousy was based on things that I felt I didn’t get. So, yes I do have a sibling but the age difference and the fact we have never lived together did nothing to improve my only child ways.

The moral of my story is that if you are an only child, there is nothing wrong with you. You can find love and be happy no matter what. Take time to be appreciative of the things you have and the people in your life. It has taken me 30 years to find someone who loves me despite some of my horrible habits. I say if it can happen for me, it can happen for anyone.

If you are a parent of an only child I will REPEAT raise them to be the best they can be just as you would do with any child no matter what the number. You really are the driving force and can either improve your only child or hinder them. Parenting is key to all children, but don't bitch 30 years later when your only child still thinks their birthday is a week long event. I can tell you that my parents have just come to accept it.

If you are looking to date an only child, good luck. I won’t even begin to lie about how that in itself is an art and it takes someone who is really not too worried about sharing themselves while waiting patiently for the only child to start to share as well. However if you stick around to when they get to the sharing you’ve made it to the good part, because I refuse to believe that all only children are incapable of loving anyone but themselves.

 

YES .. I’m an only child … so sue my PARENTS

Excuse me while I rant.

It should always be remembered that only children are only children because their parents made that choice for one reason or the other. I don’t ever remember at any point in my life my mom or dad coming to me and asking if I had an opinion on whether or not they should bring another child in to the world. It just kind of worked out the way it did and so here I am 30 yrs old, and yes I have traits that SCREAM only child. I am however over the stereo typing. I have goggled only child more than once and some of the things said all over the net are sad. Not all only children fit in a box. Lord knows I’ve been screaming that a lot lately at the new job.

I actually heard this week that I might not make a good mother because of the fact the world must revolve around me. WTF? There are a few facts about only children when it comes to love, and relationships.

In my opinion I need to be with a giver, and in most cases the compatibility usually is with someone who isn’t an only child. I also find myself far more compatible with someone who is older than me as well. I have no idea if that is because I’m an only child, but I’m sure there is someone out there that would be willing to psycho analyzes it. For me personally dating an only child didn’t work but I’m sure that is not a hard fast rule just the way it happened for me. 

Am I am ok with needing to be with someone willing to give and bend? Yes I am but it is a tight rope walk in the fact that I also need someone willing to call me out on my actions. This isn’t a secret and any man I’ve ever dated has been told this exact thing. I don’t hide behind being an only child as an excuse for my actions. I can be selfish, I am needy, and I will throw out my bottom lip if I think it will get me something I really want. I don’t really care if I ever out grow all of those things, because a lot of times they are more out of fun than anything else. Although, there is no denying that some of it is pure emotion and in those cases I work very quickly to put myself back in check. 

 There is however no blue print of what I will be like as a wife, let a lone a mother but there is no denying that how I was brought up will come into play. That is also to say there is not a blue print for how someone else who had siblings will turn out either. What I’d really like people see however is that I am kind, generous, and overall a good person and that will also lend itself to my role as a wife or mother? In the end when it comes to me and being an only child it doesn’t really have to be all about me and my world, sometimes I just need to feel like it is.

Black Friday Blues …

I have done nothing today. When I say nothing, I mean I haven’t moved from bed and TV. I thought earlier about moving, maybe going to get some late lunch early dinner, and totally determined that it was a waste of time.

I had thought about heading out of town tomorrow and forgot that I have to donate platelets tomorrow so that kinda kills my road trip mood. There is something to be said about having your blood sucked out of one arm and put back in the other that just doesn’t scream head out of town. I will tell you however that it does make you a cheap date when your all done.

I don’t really have anything of interest to say. Thanksgiving was great. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. The type of laughter you can only have with people who have known you since before you could drive. I ate lots but stayed away from the sweets. I guess that’s one bonus point in my lack of self control when my meal plan is concerned.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day, and didn’t suffer to much of a Turkey hangover. I also hope at least someone out there went and spent enough cash for me too in celebration of BlackFriday.

I'm THANKFUL for :

This year I can say I am simply thankful for everything. I whine, I complain, and life is never ever what I want it to be, but at the end of the day I have everything to be thankful for.

The friends I have made, and become closer with in the past year. I am not sure that it gets said enough but I do have some amazing friends. The past year there hasn’t be a challenge in my life that I haven’t been able to turn to them for guidance and support.

Turning 30. This year I got an amazing three day production of birthday festivities each one special in their own way. Another reason to admit just how lucky I am.

My family. I may not say it enough but I am extremely thankful for my family paternal and otherwise.

The job that I hate and love all at the same time.

My relationship with Smitten. It’s been an interesting, trying and challenging past few months but all in the ways that that help you grow as a person. I am thankful that we have taken the time to work through the problems one by one, and continue to work through the tough spots and enjoy the really good.

Lastly I am thankful for this video, because GOD that was when MTV and the Music Awards hadn’t totally jumped the shark.