What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an only child?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an only child?

Being an only child is an issue that can provoke many opinions regarding the point of view you see it from. It is obvious that it can have many downsides, but these days there are many advantages that can come to our mind.

Thinking first about the advantages of being an only child, there may be many reasons for parents nowadays to have just one child. The very first advantage is the cost of the things: clothing, food etc. Another important advantage is that parents can dedicate more time to their children education, because they only have one. Moreover, there are more possibilities of doing activities together as there is more time to spend.

However, there are also many disadvantages for these children if they don’t have any siblings. I consider the most important issue is that they can’t socialize as much as children with brothers or sisters do. In addition to this, they cannot have fun when they’re at home, if their parents work. And the last but not least important is that they usually think more about themselves, being sometimes a bit selfish, as they aren’t used to sharing things with anybody.

Bearing in mind all these bad and good points I’m going to write about my own experience. In my case, I have a brother and I reckon that it’s really good to have him. We have similar ages and we have the opportunity of doing many things together. Both, my brother and I, play tennis every Saturday, go swimming three times a week and play computer games together. I also help him in his homework if it’s necessary because he’s younger than me and he wants to study the same degree as me. And what’s most important we get on well!