How We’re Giving Our Only Child a Childhood

I never thought I’d have only one child.

When I was a little girl, I prided myself on my brood of Cabbage Patch Kids. I knew their full, obscure names and their birthdays, and I spent umpteen hours in my bedroom.

I would make them plastic eggs and toast for breakfast while playing house.

I figured I’d become the old lady who lived in the shoe and had loads of children.

Are only children lonely? Read more here. 

But once my husband and I finally got around to having kids of our own, we were a bit older. And a bit less resilient to the sleepless nights.

We were given such a perfect, easy child, we figured we’d quit while we were ahead.

After our son was born, my mother-in-law moved in. This happened because I'm a work-from-home writer, but I also wanted our son home with us for as long as possible. So, we really needed the help.

And that's how we quickly went from a household of two to four.

I guess we were a bit unconventional in terms of modern-day families — while most homes had more kids than grown-ups, we found ourselves with three adults to one child.

"And suddenly, we went from a household of two to four."

As our son got older and was starting to learn to talk and walk, we started to think of the possible ramifications on our son of having an adult-heavy household.

Because he didn’t have siblings, we didn’t want him to “skip” the kid stuff: learning to have carefree fun, to get dirty, to push limits and to socialize with other children.

So, we tried to make sure that he really embraced being a kid every chance he got. So he's allowed to:

Make messes

OK, so we didn’t let him play in potted plants or colour on walls, but we always went outside after a rainstorm or during spring thaws to play in puddles.

Every summer he plays in the mud (and literally covers himself head to toe), and we have had full-on food fights in the backyard. When he started on solid foods, we never worried about having a neat and tidy baby — we stripped him down to his diaper, put the food on his tray and let him have it. Young minds learn so much from sensory activities: it builds motor skills and language development, and it helps to build nerve connections to the brain as well.

Be loud

Not all the time — we don’t live in an amusement park!

But we had our moments when we got really loud. We had dance parties at home or in the car where we’d sing at the top of our lungs, and during witching hour when I could tell he needed to just get it all out before bed, we’d yell and scream and then collapse laughing.

Kids have a lot of pent-up emotions, and while I don’t want it to come out in a tantrum, I want my son to relieve his anxiety or frustration with some vocal play.

Enjoy the simple pleasures

There are so many wonderful little nuances of being a kid: going out in the rain and getting your hands dirty and laughing about farts. These kid-like moments are more easily discovered when you have more then one child because they can all share in the experiences.

But an only child, especially one who is living with three adults, may miss certain opportunities to revel in the simple things.

So we always go out to play in the rain or snow, and we get really dirty when we’re gardening in the summer. We lay in the grass and guess what shapes the clouds are or gaze at the stars.

"... once in a blue moon we have dessert for dinner."

And we stop at gumball machines, we always get chocolate milk and — when you could still go to toy stores — we would turn on all the toys that make noise at once (and we’d scurry off to the next aisle to hide).

We play April Fool’s pranks, we have Christmas in July and once in a blue moon we have dessert for dinner. Because you only get to be a kid once. And I don’t want my son to miss a single moment.

My only child might be exposed to a lot of adult things, but there are still ways to ensure he gets to do a kid-version of everything too.

How do you give your only child the experience of childhood in your adult-heavy house? Let me know in the comments!