1. “You must be so spoiled!” While I did get a lot of things I wanted growing up, I still think I heard “no” from my parents more than most people did growing up.

2. We tend to be closer to our friends and family. Our friends are treated like the brothers and sisters we never had, and our family takes them in as if they actually were.

3. We love being around large families. Growing up having just a family of three, whenever we get around a large family we are entranced by the way everything flows within that family. Everyone has a place and a special part and that is so fascinating to us.

4. “Why are you already in bed? It’s only 10 o’clock and its Saturday.” No matter what we look like on the outside, we are all old souls on the inside. We mainly had interactions with adults growing up and tend to be a little more mature than our peers. And in my case, you become “the mom friend.”

5. “The talk.” No not the birds and the bees talk, the only child talk where your parents sit you down and explain to you why you’re an only child. It’s awkward, and in many cases, it’s just one giant apology.

6. We cry. . .a lot. We tend to be a little more sensitive than other people. Since we never had the constant picking-on and name-calling during childhood we didn’t have a chance to grow a hard-outer shell to let things just roll off our backs like other people.

7. Helicopter parents. Every move you make, whether it be good or bad, is watched by our parents. We never had a chance to sneak out of the house, go to parties often, stay up late and talk with our siblings, or blame our mistakes on someone else. But when we’re all they have; can you really blame them?

8. We love to be the center of attention. We never had to fight for it growing up, especially when you’re the baby of all your cousins. So naturally we learned to be the center of every family event.

9. We aren’t ones to put ourselves out there. Other than with our family, we normally keep to ourselves and don’t put ourselves out there very often, so when we do, it’s kind of a big deal to us.

10. We don’t share. We may try, but we’re not very good about it. Not with food, toys, clothes, or really anything that is ours.

11. We are obsessive. Whether it be with our parents, our possessions, or our hobbies, we protect everything that is ours with our heart and soul.

12. There’s always that fear of judgment. Without having someone that we share all our secrets with, has witnessed all our embarrassing moments, and knows what we look like when we first wake up in the morning, we always have that constant fear in the back of our mind that people around us are judging us; even if there’s nothing that we could be getting judged for.

13. There are pictures of you EVERYWHERE. Sometimes it gets a little obsessive. The good pictures, the bad ones, the baby ones, and the “awkward stage” ones all framed perfectly and hung on the wall for everyone that enters your house to see.

14. Believe it or not, we actually can function on our own. Many people think that as an only child you have everything done for you. While that might be true in some cases, most of us can cook our own meals, do our own laundry, and even clean our own rooms.

15. “Don’t you wish you had siblings?” This is something you hear a lot. While we might not always want them, there have definitely been times when we have thought about what it would be like to have them, and often wish there was someone else there that we could pin the blame on.