Why do people get so weird about only children?

As a young child, I asked my parents the usual rigamarole of questions young children ask, including the infamous, “Who do you love more, me or my sister?”

Mom turned to me and said the only correct answer to that question, “I love you both the same.”

Then, I asked, “Why did you have a second child?”

Mom said, “Your father and I realized that only children tend to be weird. So we wanted to have one more.”

And, of course, I held on to that belief, steadfastly thinking this was an ancient truth, an axiom bestowed upon us by god, a case studied repeatedly proven across time.

At age 14, I met a friend, Robert, who was a fellow military brat living in a new city. He who was an only child. I mentioned what my parents told me about only children. He laughed it off — but never let it go. Months later, we were riffing and teasing at each other, and he said, “Oh, is it because I’m an only child?”

I said, “Tisk tisk. Did someone get their feelings hurt?”

We gave each other a hard time, but always respected one another. It was apparent this was a sore subject for him.

The only child stereotype is a stubborn one. Not many people know where it originates from, or why it stays. And it reveals something about our problematic everyday thought process.

For thousands of years, being an only child was a relatively rare event. Children were born and raised en masse — in part because of a lack of birth control — and because parents needed help with farm labor. With industrialization, and the mass entry of women into the workforce, this pattern changed and families dramatically shrank in size.

The only child stigma officially began in 1896, with psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who posited that only children were destined to be misfits and eccentrics, describing the only child as “A disease in itself”.

In 1922, psychologist Abraham Brill, wrote, “Whether burdened by heredity or not, the only child usually shows one prominent feature, namely, he is a very poor competitor in the struggle for existence…he is devoid of those qualities which characterize a real boy.”

There was a real stigma, a general perception that all only children were coddled and spoiled. And one can surely conjure a memory of such cases if they want. I knew a neighbor, Jessica, who was an only child, and who was treated like a princess from day one, and given more Christmas presents than the rest of the neighborhood combined.

But — this occurrence of spoiling is not more common than it is with children who have siblings. Moreover, the brat is not mutually exclusive to the only child.

In 1968, the New York Times ran a piece, “The only-child syndrome”, saying that only children are over-exposed to adults, unable to rough-and-tumble with children, and never humbled when parents give attention to a sibling instead of them. Thus, they are maladjusted as they entered school and adulthood. The author, Alfred A. Messer, even went so far as to encourage parents to adopt a child if they only had one of their own. The concern was real.

In China, where a one-child policy was implemented, there is still a stigma against only children, despite them being the predominant family setup. They call it “little emperor syndrome“ which describes the only children of upper class families, who are showered with praise, gifts, and attention from everyone. They ostensibly become insufferable and spoiled adults.

And one can imagine if you are an only child, who feels otherwise well adjusted, yet see this hysteria about your status proliferate. Does it call into question your own sense of self and wellbeing? Any insecurity can be talked into existence.

High quality, loving parents, are really the thing that’s overlooked in the discussion of only children. I found zero evidence showing there’s a substantial detriment to being an only child.

If anything, being an only child confers an advantage in terms of achievement. The only child may receive more attention and guidance than they would, with other siblings competing for resources. One study showed that only-children were more likely to seek and get help from a teacher in class, because they are used to dealing with adults more often.

Yet, only a few decades ago, some psychologists wrote and spoke with utter confidence that raising only one child was signing him or her up for a disability in life.

In China, in particular, there has been enormous social research on the subject of only children and how it has impacted their citizens, culture, and emerging generations. And yet, again, no significant difference was found.

For example, my aforementioned friend, Robert, is perfectly well-adjusted now as an adult. He became an officer in the Army, flies helicopters, and is married to his high school sweetheart. The guy couldn’t be more likable and fun. But because of this weird trend in society about only children, he was and is at the brunt of countless jokes.

Perhaps we humans can’t help but look for any small way to other a person. If everything else is normal and good about them, we remind them that they are an only child, and so they must be weird.

And worse, we show them movies that are absolutely inundated with examples of only child outcasts and brats. There’s the tyrant child, Veruca Salt, from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, who tantrums and demands a squirrel, ransacking the factory floor, before being dropped down a chute.

There’s Coraline from Neil Gaiman’s book, Coraline, who is painfully lonely and isolated. She finally finds an outlet via an alternate world where her life is far more idealized and free from the problems and isolation she faces back home.

In case after case in films, the only child is depicted as either the obnoxious, type-a know-it-all, the emo lonely kid who doesn’t know how to make friends, or something in-between.

And sadly, because we imbue this stereotype upon children, it often manifests into existence. One study by Dr. John Flanagan, found that only children are more likely to enjoy time to themselves, and less likely to socialize with other children, in part due to the stigma they faced.

Only children will eventually be more common than 2 or more. In fact, we are quite close already. The average number of children being born has been slowly dropping over the past 50 years in the United States. It fell from 2.44 in 1965, to 1.6 in 2025.

There’s nothing wrong with having siblings and they can surely provide benefits. I’ve enjoyed having a sister, even if we bickered a ton as kids.

But we should perhaps question these hand-me-down theories about people that carry on, despite a lack of hard evidence. Perhaps only children would be more likely to socialize and be friends with other kids, if they weren’t being constantly asked why they were weird, or why they didn’t have siblings.

I regret my part in playing into this narrative and hope others take a pause to examine assumptions that so quickly jump to.

When I look back at the many other children and adults I’ve encountered, the spoiled tyrant title has not discriminated in choosing its offenders, least of all by how many siblings they have.

I shall return to the basics and stop judging people for things they can’t control.