Spoiled brat. Golden boy. Little emperor.

All of these terms have one thing in common; they are directed at only children most of the time. Considering that I’ve been an only child my entire life and was raised in a way that most people stereotype, these terms are certainly not uncommon to me.

But I think it is interesting that it isn’t people who I have met recently, recently being in the last four or five years, who say these things to me. More often than not, it is other family members who call me these things.

I’ve been told many times by older cousins, especially considering I am the baby on my father’s side of the family, that I have been sheltered my entire life because I am an only child.

While this may be true to a certain extent, once the time comes to live on my own it became extremely difficult to still be a sheltered person (and I mean that literally and figuratively).

But the point about only children that I want to make clear is that it is a way overblown concept. Like I said earlier, most of the people I have met through college and when I moved away from home do not believe that I am an only child. Most of the time my family looks at me as the baby of the family and the spoiled or sheltered one, but once I left home I was a person who didn’t necessarily reinforce what people thought of as the type of only child they have known.

I take pride in the sense that I don’t act spoiled or rely on my parents for everything. For me, being an only child gave my parents a chance to make sure that I knew I couldn’t rely on them for everything, and that I was going to have to be responsible for myself.

In a scholarly paper written by former professor at Northwestern University, Allissa D. Eischens, the overblown stereotypical attributes of an only child were highlighted.

“In China, couples are encouraged to have only one child in order to help curb population growth. These children, or ‘little emperors,’ as they have been called, are generally seen as spoiled monsters,” Eischens wrote. “However, only children are also often seen as high-achieving motivated, and successful.”

The last part of the comment, Eischens attributes to B. Brophy, who wrote for the U.S. News and World Report.

Those three attributes, “high-achieving, motivated, and successful,” are three of the things I have thought of more when looking at the lives of the only children I have known. But those are things rarely stressed by most people when they think of only children.

More often, people think of only children as kids who cannot relate to others in many different scenarios because they may lack social skills due to their lack of a relationship with brothers or sisters in their own household.

However, for me my older cousins served as brothers and sisters in my life and gave me the same kind of crap that older brothers and sisters would. I can still recall feeling bullied by my older cousin Bryan over something as silly as a Sega Genesis hockey game. He taught me as much as anybody how to deal with people my age in the world. And, as far as I’m concerned, I turned out OK. I don’t knowwhat Bryan would say about me though.

Actually, maybe I do know. He would probably tell me to stop babbling about myself, and call me a spoiled brat.