5、Formerly, in moving about in the world, how often one heard when in society, a youth was bumptious or a girl showed signs of selfishness, "Ah, but you make allowances for an only child"—the inference being that an only child was an animal brought up on the adulation and over-indulgence of its fatuous parents! In the period of Douglas Jerrold and Kenny Meadows the only child of popular legend was synonymous with the "spoilt" child, as we see him in 'Heads of the People', seated on the dinner table, and brandishing his father's watch and chain among the shards of the decanters and wine glasses. It was a self-descriptive note of the period, by the way, that the sole interpretation of the word "spoilt" was "over-indulged".
6、But nowadays, owing to the spread of the feeling of paternal responsibility, another phase has set in, and our "spoilt" only child is a harried and over-supervised and over-scrutinized being, whose parents have never been able to forget the fact of his natural handicap, and in consequence have never let him be for a single day since he was born. In their over-anxiety on the score of their child's "onliness" they have lost the simple and common-sense outlook, and forgotten the golden promise that in quietness and in confidence shall be their strength.
8、The disadvantages of being an only child cut deeper than I have outlined in the case of Phyllis. An only child is in danger of developing or retaining a multitude of inefficiencies. For him, the fun and fellowship of nursery life have never existed, that deprivation alone bringing with it a hundred detriments. There has been no one to dare him to do things, no one to egg him on to the valuable experiences of innocent mischief, no one to stimulate him into becoming ingenious and, in the best sense, able-bodied. It is melancholy to realise that an only girl may reach the ripe age of eighteen and never have played rounders in her life, or even pulled the cork out of a seltzer-water bottle. In a large family, the natural laggard is chaffed out of muffishness into becoming handy and self-helpful and, as a rule, of course, there are not servants enough to do everything for everybody, so the children, to their great advantage, must do some things for themselves. Again, what is garden life to an only child? My heart has ached to watch an only child trying to play in a garden, quietly and alone, week in, week out. I contrast it with the shouts and glee that resound from another garden, where a family of children are at play and their endless business together. How is the lonely child to learn reasonable unselfishness, how is he to learn to put a good face on disappointment and a smile on pain, except in the tonic company of other children around him in his home? His parents, measuring him by himself, may fancy him a fine fellow, but how are they to judge, short of that test? "I cannot praise," says Milton, "a cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed."