Henrietta Hay's Column

Only children are spoiled brats as children and maladjusted, unhappy and lonely as adults. Now wait a minute here. Who says so? I'm an only child and I say it isn't so. I think we have had a bum rap through the years and the stereotype needs to go.

As a kid I thoroughly enjoyed being an only child and as an adult, I am very much aware of the advantages I had and the positive influence it had on my life. I got to thinking about this as I was reading of the battling Redgrave sisters and decided that there might be real advantages to being an "only."

There have been many books and articles written about only children and they mostly try to explain us as though we are a distinct species. Granted, there are some characteristics that most of us have in common, like being perfect, but I am not convinced that our individuality is entirely dependent on how many siblings we have.

I will confess, however, that given loving and supportive parents or parent, the only child has a lot of advantages.

I found that as an only child the special treats more than made up for any disadvantages. I got to do a lot of grown up things that most of my friends missed. Taking one child out to dinner or to a show is quite different from taking several. My folks loved live entertainment. Come to think of it, when I was a kid there wasn't much of any other kind. The movies were still pretty few and far between and television wasn't even a glint in anybody's eye. So we saw practically all the vaudeville that came to Denver. Remember vaudeville? The Orpheum had a new show every week, everything from opera singers to jugglers, from stand-up comics to two person horses. The horses were special because my Dad thought they were the funniest things in the world and practically rolled in the aisle. I still don't quite understand it, but you never know what a parent will find funny.

The Broadway Theater in Denver was a stopping point for a lot of famous entertainers. Most of them I have long since forgotten, but I do remember hearing that funny little Scotchman, Harry Lauder, leaning on his crooked cane singing "Roamin' in the Gloamin'. And my favorite comedienne of all time, Bea Lillie, played the Broadway once. Imagine my indignation on reading that Joan Rivers thinks she is the Bea Lillie of the nineties.

So what I lacked in built-in playmates, I made up in other ways and that is true of only children today. According to researchers on the subject, onlies tend to be overachievers. There's nobody to knock them down. They tend to have a high level of self-esteem and they are generally highly motivated toward education. They are constantly encouraged. They often are perfectionists and drive themselves very hard trying to live up to parents' expectations. These things are not hard to understand. They grow up with the exclusive love and attention of their parents. They don't spend their childhood being yelled at by siblings calling them "dumb." They aren't forced to share everything they have, a trait which is alien to children's nature. They usually feel very secure. Why not? They never have to compete for attention. And when it's time to grow up, most of them are able to do it successfully.

Onlies may be victims of one of the last unexamined prejudices in this country. A "real" American family consists of at least two kids and the onlies are still a bit on the outside. Look at television presentations of families from "Leave it to Beaver" to the Huxtables. Can you think of a show featuring an only child?

On the other hand, although I don't like to brag, I am in some pretty good company, small though it is. Many of the famous onlies that I have found are artistic people, Van Cliburn, Burt Bacharach, Lillian Hellman, James Michener, Leonardo da Vinci. On the somewhat more practical side, there were John Kenneth Galbraith and William Randolph Hearst. And there were two great humanitarians, Indira Ghandi and Eleanor Roosevelt. To keep the balance, there is at least one football player, Roger Staubach.

This has been very hard to write because I have watched friends with beloved sisters and brothers and have felt a bit wistful sometimes. Even so, I think being an only kid was great, and if that's what you happen to be, enjoy it.