Mother of all ice breakers! “Do you have any siblings?” And I just go, “No.” Their eyes fill up with sympathy, which I fail to understand. “Oh, you don’t have siblings. Do you not feel lonely?”
“Umm, no. I don’t have siblings. But I have people around me to talk to. Why are you so sad?”
“Aww, poor thing. She doesn’t even know what it’s like growing up with a sibling.”
Well, that’s only some of it.
Then there are some who think that I was lucky because I didn’t have to share, my parents gave me ‘the queen treatment’, I got all the attention and everything I wanted. And guess what, being the only child apparently ‘explains a lot to these people’.
I Actually Share More Than You’d Think
If you think I don’t know how to share, sorry to break it to you – I can share... food and clothes.
Who would have thought after 25 years of my life I’d have to stand and explain the ‘golden virtue of sharing’ to my friends from my moral education class? In fact, I think I can share way more than others who have sibling, maybe.
I Got Twice the Whacking, TBH
You think getting all the attention is great and means your parents care about you more? Well, all parents care. The love for children multiplies from what I have heard and doesn't get divided. Talking about attention, there was a time when most of the things I did were monitored, closely. That’s why my ears stick out from my face like Aamir Khan’s in PK.
Whenever I did anything wrong, my ears would get pulled and sometimes I’d be dragged too. Remember, I got twice the whacking, one for the mistakes I made and other for the sibling I could have had (who knows?).
I Told Myself off Before My Folks Could
As a child I was constantly competing with myself. Something most people don’t realise about only children is, we tend to be WAY harder on ourselves than what’s required. If I came second in class, before my dad/mom could lecture me, I would scold myself looking in the mirror.
Mirror, mirror on the wall... was my best friend after all? No it wasn’t. And no, I didn’t have an imaginary friend either, sorry about that.
Say if I was spoilt with fancy stationary or a new bike or a Nintendo game cassette, it wasn’t just because they loved me but also because I was being ‘rewarded’ or ‘baited’ for something and it doesn’t stop at that.
Now that I am all grown up, I am the only one to take the ‘family name’ forward?!? Matlab bloodline khatam hai, samjho!
When You’re Not a ‘Child’ Anymore...
It’s only when you start adulting, you realise that your parents are starting to act like children. They want attention. When they fight you’re expected to butt in and go like, “Staaap, I am having to read Netflix subtitles because of your cacophony.”
If you have siblings, you don’t have to think as much about being around your parents and caring about them 24X7 or their old age. Why does it affect me? I wonder if I will be able to fulfill all their needs when they grow old like they did for me as a child.
Will I be able to sit with them and listen to their “Tuesdays With Morrie” type analysis of approaching death? Will I be there with my father when he recounts stories he’s been telling me since I was three and my mother’s looking at my pictures from my first birthday? What makes it harder is, I have seen them as children who would cater to everything my grandparents needed and what kills me is when they say, “Child, you go fly in the big wide world, that alone will keep us happy, always!”
Speaking on Behalf of All the ‘Only Children’ of the World...
See, I might like to keep my room in a certain manner.
If the moisturiser is to the left and the combs to the right, that’s just how things are for me.
When Monica in ‘Friends’ with a sibling was allowed to be a control freak, I don’t think you can hold it against us. And seriously, what’s wrong with saying my pet is my sibling? No, calling me a loner is not helping your case either. Just FYI, I am sure I can make a better conversation with the elders in the room because guess what... when you were fighting with your sibling for the remote, I was sitting at a dinner table forced to be a part of ‘the adult conversation’.
I love being the ‘only child’ because that makes me love my best friends like they are family and all my cousins are just as good as siblings. I love being the ‘only child’ because I am close to my parents.
But there’s just one regret, I have too many embarrassing photos of me staring at me in my living room!
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