One Is Not A Negative Number

Pardon me. I've committed a faux pas. I've produced an only child.

The only child is a "disease in itself," stated psychologist G. Stanley Hall in the 1930s. Researchers today say the only child is self-centered, lonely, maladjusted. Or perhaps self-confident, independent, accomplished. Or maybe both. I can't say. My concern here isn't for the "onlies"; I'm standing up for the parents who produced these little curiosities.

The sociable woman at the checkout stares at my son and me, having eyed us together in the store several times before. "So," she finally asks, "you only have the one child?"

I smile politely. "Yes, just one," I say.

But wait! Should I explain? You see the truth is that I could only . . . what? Only conceive one? Only adopt one? Only afford or tolerate one? Only need, want, find, borrow or manage one?

The woman at the checkout isn't the only one curious to know why I don't have more kids. I've been asked if I have only the one too many times to remember, and yet I still get flustered. I still stumble over what to say.

Would it help if I poured my heart out, described years of infertility? I suppose it wouldn't be my fault then? I would have tried to have at least the acceptable two. Would I need to be so frequently reminded of the surgeries, temperature readings, emotional pain?

But what if I confessed I wanted to have only one? That I am satisfied with only one?

I'll never tell which is true.

Still, the question annoys me. "You only have the four?" I want to shoot back. The two sets of twins? Only the girls?

But more than the intrusive question, what troubles me is the sense that others, perhaps even myself, see me as inadequate, or selfish.

My child's singleness, I have been told, must have an unquestionably negative effect on him. He must be selfish. After all, in his solitude he can't learn how to share! I look around at my more reproductively successful friends. Their multiple children share what? Rooms? Clothing? Stuffed animals? No, no and no. Does one child sacrifice for his sibling? Does he eat macaroni and cheese for a month straight so both can go to overnight camp?