i have a brother three years my junior and a half sister 12 years my junior. my wife thought i was an only child when she met me, and most other people i meet think i am an only child. i'm not close to my siblings.

i'll refrain from voting but my wife likes being an only child.

Yeah, only child here too. While I always wished that I had siblings when I was a kid and would convince myself that I had a twin out there somewhere (I'm a Gemini! Born on the 22nd! two twos, see, it must be true!!!) I honestly think that it helped me form really strong relationships with friends, develop a great social group of people I love dearly (over the years) and also made me cope perfectly well with my own company- something I find many people cannot do. The downside is that I can't fight for shit, but there you go...

Not crap in my case, side of waffles.

The girl I'm seeing now said that I'm 'the least like an only-child only child she's ever met.' Which basically means that I don't share a lot of the characteristics most only children have, despite being one.

This is a good thing, to me. N/C

I'm an only child with a sister.

I was an only child through all my childhood, into my teens. There are 13 years between my half-sister and I. And she was still a baby when I pretty much split outta there, so, yeah.

I'm an only child, and it's too bad. I enjoy solitude.

I was one of seven. I can't imagine what it would be like being only one - our house was a madhouse most of the time. For better or worse, I learned about compromising. It sucked when resources (food, tv, bathroom) were scarce.

People ask me where I fell in the order - and I say the middle. Then they smile and say "Ahhh".

bunch of weirdos with no hand down from their older siblings. can't imagine being the only one. Parents seem to be all over their only kid. Sounds overwhelming.

burun wrote:I always wanted a twin brother.

Only Child

There’s so much I could tell you,
fingernail of my fingernail,
bloodshot pupil of my bloodshot eyes.

A house built itself up gradually
over dead dogs with tree-limb altars,
over hibernating yellow jackets,
over delicate tensions we
burn off like a tick at the temple. Oh,

where were you when the old man crept naked
through the house with his .38,
swearing there was a faucet on somewhere—
we’d been robbed and the sorry son of a bitch
had the gall to drink a glass of our water.
This dragged on into the winter.

The cold brought out the worst
in anybody.
A child got beaten unconscious
in December, with a snow shovel.
A child hid himself in the bushes
with a high-powered pellet rifle
he pumped as if loading a shotgun shell—

a Buddhist might call it karma, what happened,
the snow flying all around.

But what would your expression be
for the way his ankles were tightly bound
with a piece of chopped-off hose?
As he was dragged through the dirty snow,
what would you have whispered,
face I have never seen,
sister I keep on missing?

You’re the one I always wanted—
the grape vine that taught me how to fall,
the graveyard I call my garden.

Only children seem to derive perverse pleasure from the act of humiliating their significant others on Internet BBS's.

BTW that's a great poem, Brett.

barndog wrote:I was one of seven. I can't imagine what it would be like being only one - our house was a madhouse most of the time. For better or worse, I learned about compromising. It sucked when resources (food, tv, bathroom) were scarce.

People ask me where I fell in the order - and I say the middle. Then they smile and say "Ahhh".

from one middle child to another: salut!