Lonely Child?

I was bored waiting in the doctor's surgery today when I came across an article where a woman talked about how she was being "bullied" into having a second child, despite being happy with only having one child. Now, being an only child myself, I was shocked to read how people began to call her selfish and a horrible mother for not providing her child with a second sibling. I do not recall having one child as a crime, and I would like to think my mother was wonderful with raising me without siblings running around.

I can see the pros and cons in why families would want to have multiple children:

• Pro - Socialization. Siblings are around someone else who is not an adult. They have someone to play with constantly and live with someone they can relate to.
• Pro - At school I found that older siblings looked out for younger siblings, often when the younger is being bullied. Or teachers often take a liking to the next generation of students they've already taught.
• Pro - Family Values, a boy and girl for the perfect family image? Possibly.
• Con - Money, Money, Money, Money........

I guess this explains my lack of friends and constant bullying at school? And why teachers had problems remembering my name? But also could explain how my parents managed to save up loads of money?

This resulted in me being known as that "spoilt loner brat with no friends" at school. Truth was I had friends, I have loads of friends, my parents have high paying jobs, enough that I know that if i did have a sibling or two we would still be able to afford the house we live in now.

The worst part of this article was where comments made to this woman were along the lines of "what if your child died?" as if to suggest families with one child are at a higher risk of dying or something stupid? I do not understand the insensitivity of some people, but this one took the cake for me. Does this mean people think that to have a second child is in case the first one dies? Like a back-up spare part? If I have kids, I hope to raise them with enough brain cells to not be associated with this kind of thinking. And maybe, because the amount of children people have is just so important to nosy humans these days, just to annoy them, I will just have one kid.