In the city, 17.3% of children who were an only child; 15.8% of boys and 12.9% of girls in the country. This difference between the sexes is not significant, but it still exists. Parents from rural areas will find it easier to decide on one child when they have a son, because they see the boy as the heir of their property and the bearer of their family name.
No statistically significant difference between the sexes in the frequency of only children in the city. Urban area parents are less likely to give their son an advantage over their daughter than rural area parents do. Sometimes spouses have only one child against their will, if, for example, the mother becomes infertile or the father loses the ability to fertilize.
When a child is born and the parents are not interested in the child or do not agree with each other, there is a danger that they will be unfriendly towards the child. Children descended from an unloved partner may even be abused by the parent. If the parents wanted more children, but for any reason could not have them, it is very likely that the parents will turn their grief into the ultimate care for the only child.
The only child, precisely because it is the only one and extremely spoiled, is particularly vulnerable in mental development, according to studies. Neurotic disorders and behavioral disorders are more often expected in only children than in children who have siblings. Our examination of mental disorders of school children shows that the only children show even fewer disorders in their behavior than the children who are not the only ones in the family.
Only children are mentally healthier than children who have siblings, according to a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada. They found no significant difference in the frequency of behavioral disorders in only and children with siblings in rural children. The relatively high level of education and economic development is largely due to the above-average intelligence of people who have achieved such social positions.
The relatively high standard of living of parents is often the reason they have only one child, because they want to maintain such a high standard for their child as well. A higher economic standard also brings a higher cultural standard. It stimulates the mental development of the child, stimulates its intelligence and the development of its emotional reactions. More cultured parents have a higher general education than those at a lower level of social development.
They are also more likely to seek professional help if their child is not developing properly. These are all factors that contribute to a more positive psychological development of only children.
In the countryside, different motives encourage parents to limit their reproduction to one child. These are mostly economic interests of the family and biological factors, such as inability to conceive after the birth of the first child. It is probably more common in the countryside than in the city due to the higher number of unprofessionally performed births and abortions.
Only children are on average in a slightly more favorable situation than children who have brothers and sisters, but they are still exposed to some specific dangers. When a child has no siblings, the parents are sometimes very prone to spoiling it. They are particularly motivated to do so if they had more children and died, or could not have more children due to illness, or had a child only after years of infertility.
Mothers who stayed with one child due to disagreement with their husband are also prone to spoiling the only child. Fathers who are disappointed in marriage, and in the fact that their wives no longer want to have children, are also sometimes inclined to spoil their only child.
A mature child is a child who is too serious for its age, who in its conduct imitates adults too much, repeats their statements and views of the world, and seems to have matured too soon. Proper mental development requires the company of other children. Parents often keep their only child too close to them out of fear or ignorance or out of excessive ambition for it to be brought up particularly well.
Man has a very close tendency to take away the value of what he does not know or is incomprehensible to him. The lack of exercise in adapting and cooperating with one’s peers makes it difficult for such a child to create social contact with peers. It hides its reduced ability to approach other people, to accept them and to come to terms with them under the guise of a certain contempt.
