Unfollowed OurSignedWorld

@altrechts I love love love these comments like this! I also remind myself that I have 3 brothers and sisters, none of which I speak to at all or have seen in almost 20 years (1 I've never even met!). I know several people who would fight their siblings on sight. And I know one set that destroyed each other's lives throughly and completely.

Siblings guarantee nothing but that there's more of them than you.
 
@altrechts Same, I’m an only. My husband, while he has older brothers. There is a 16 year age difference between him and his closest in age sibling.
By the time he has any active memory of his childhood, all his brothers had moved out of home.
He sees them more as uncles / cousins than brothers, because they didn’t grow up together, didn’t have shared experiences as kids and are from completely different generations.

We both have no concerns with being raised as onlies, and most of the reasons people cite against it happen in families with siblings anyway 🤷‍♀️

Our son is 22 months old and will be an only. I’ve had moments where I’ve wanted another, but it’s purely because I want to relive the early moments I had with my son. But I really don’t want to juggle 2 kids and what comes with that - I also had a lot of anxiety being pregnant and having a newborn, intrusive thoughts about something terrible happening and I don’t want to go through that again, even though it was pretty well managed and mild in comparison to a lot of PPA.

My husband is completely comfortable with being OAD. And that always steers any momentary “cluckiness” back to what we really want.
 
@altrechts Yeah. My partner has one full sister, a half sister, and two step-siblings. Guess who’s the only one with their life together and a good relationship with their parents? We’re trying to convince his parents to move across states and live with us now, before their heath really declines - and so the sisters will have to stop taking advantage of them and treating them like crap. It’s just so frustrating. Siblings do not guarantee that there will be any help caring for aging parents.

Meanwhile, I’m an only, and not worried about caring for my mom at all. She’s quite well off, has long term care insurance, etc. It’ll be fine. I mean I’ll be there for her too, but we’re going to be able to get her paid assistance, it’s not all going to fall on me. Much easier for her to put herself in that position with one kid than five… my in laws aren’t destitute but I would worry about them in old age with no help.
 
@heismine Same for my parents. They have set themselves up well, funerals/wills are already planned and paid for. All of this because they were OAD. It pays off long term for everyone.
 
@writergirlrs The way end-of-life care determines whether people procreate or not is fucking stupid, I'm sorry. Also how bold of anyone to assume they won't just get hit by a truck one day when their child is still a kid. Every only child I know in person is cool as hell and seem totally content with their status. NO ONE should be getting pregnant unless THEY personally really want another child.
 
@bencramsie People don’t consider this. We will all be lucky if we make it to old age and die peacefully in our sleep, but nothing is a guarantee. My mom died and I was 20, my sister was 16. I had a co worker a long time ago who died of cancer in her 40s and her son was probably not even 5..
 
@susa Also, you could be extremely long-lived and your child(ren) could predecease you or have too many of their own health issues to coordinate your care. I think of people living until they are in their 90s, and their children are in their late 60s and 70s themselves, or sadly have already passed away from natural causes.
 
@ababwaalijaz Yeppppp. My last great aunt recently passed at age 97. Her youngest child died of cancer almost a decade ago at age 65, and her oldest child is 80 and has Alzheimer’s and is in poor health. There was a possibility that she would outlive two of her children.
 
@bencramsie To me it’s like…if you can think about end of life care this far ahead, you can make the preparations to not need a bunch of support from your children. Put all the money you’d spend on another kid into your retirement savings and long term care insurance, boom, done.
 
@puremgtowpaladin I also feel like whether you have 1 or 2+ kids you should not be expecting them to look after you… this sentiment drives me nuts. Prepare yourself for this situation and you don’t need to rely on your child(ren).
 
@writergirlrs I’m a dementia and palliative care nurse and in my experience 95% of the time all the burden falls on one child, regardless of how many siblings there are. There is usually a lot of fighting and resentment when more than one is involved. I am happily OAD.
 
@70xseven My mother is in the early stages of dementia and lives in an independent living facility near me. My sister is a six hour plane ride away. I arrange all my mother’s care, visit multiple times a week and take care of all her financial and medical affairs. My having a sibling doesn’t make a difference. Having a supportive husband and only one small child to take care of does. I can’t imagine doing everything I do for my mother with more than one child in my house to take care of also. Dealing with her medical situation, as well as my father‘s before he passed has made me realize just how much planning I need to do before I get to their stage in life. Unfortunately, they were not prepared for aging. Financially, they were fine, but no arrangement of care other than their children. Which I will not do to my child.
 
@70xseven My mom is one of three and they live in the same city as my nana and my aunt almost exclusively takes care of my nana. Whenever my mom asks if we will give our only a sibling, I scoff lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top