1. "You are spoiled rotten to the core."
Sure, I might get double the presents at Christmas time when comparing myself to a daughter with siblings. My parents may go all out for my birthday just about every year and throw me a big party if I want one. I am the one they look at and ask where we should eat when we go out from time to time. But does this mean that teenagers without brothers and sisters are unappreciative brats? Not necessarily. I say "thank you" and give big hugs when things and opportunities are given to me. Do my parents blow money on me by always buying me brand-name clothes and the next best cell phone every time it comes out? Of course not. My parents are sensible and they love me, but they know that they do not have to buy my love. They have made me work for things so that I will appreciate them more. I get treated just like any other person who has siblings, I probably just get more of that one on one attention and some of the decisions made in the house revolve around me. Not because I want them to, but just because my parents like to provide and care for me, because they say that I am the center of their world.
2. "I bet you're always lonely and bored out of your mind."
Actually, that's not entirely true. Being an only child allowed me to turn other people that I share no blood relation with into family. Looking at the true side of things, as a child, I didn't have a brother or sister to play with, and to this day I would have loved to have had either. That's just another person to love and care about, why would I pass that up? But my best friend from elementary school turned into my sister. The one that I never had, and my parents love her as their own. She was constantly at my house, just like a sister would be. If it weren't for her, yeah, I might have been a little bored. I wasn't though. I was completely content. As I met others, I just added them to my list of family, like the people I go to church with. My three person family expanded and is still growing and I couldn't ask for better.
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3. "You're so sheltered and your parents are over-protective."
Honestly, when I was a girl in high school, I agreed with this one. I don't know what it is, but parents with only one child have an even harder time with letting us leave the nest. I didn't go to as many places as my friends with siblings did. My curfew was always way earlier that everyone else's (that's still true to this day and I'm in college.) I constantly have to call or text before I head somewhere and when I get there. It really did get on my nerves, because I thought my parents just didn't trust me to make my own decisions. Now, I see that all of it has been for my own good. I probably would've gotten into things that I shouldn't have, but because my parents basically did their version of background check on anyone I went anywhere with, I stayed away from the rough crowd. At times, it can be highly annoying but I know that they're doing this because they love me. I would rather have parents like I do than parents that don't care at all. I hate the times that I forget to think about it in that way, because I'm usually ranting to them about how they don't let me do anything at the time. And that's wrong of me.
If you're an only child, embrace it. Don't accept the labels that people slap on you. You know you and the relationship that you have with your parents, so tell them the real side of the story- the one that matters- your side.
