I am an only child, and I don’t wish to generalise, but I am convinced that only children are more susceptible to enmeshment than children from larger families. Maggie Mamen, who has written on the ‘Spoilt Child Syndrome’ might disagree with this. We often hear of such children being ‘spoiled’. The only child has the full focus of parental love. On the surface they can be over-loved, and this, of course, is very understandable. In reality, however, such over-love can be a parent having their needs met from their child. In this sense it is a form of abuse, albeit the parent or parents are totally unaware of the harm they are doing in terms of forming their child’s personality.
Now, the important thing to understand is that early separation from their parents, especially from the primary caregiver, is vital for a child. Children’s behaviour clearly illustrates this, and such separation should be in process by the time the child is 6 months old. The child will physically begin to move away from the parents at that age. He or she will begin to explore their own house, crawling into a room to investigate this new world, while at the same time crawling back to check if ‘mammy’ is still around. And so it goes, until the child eventually ventures into the big world, and someday moves away. if there are any only children out there, including older ones like myself (we are always children to our parents, even when middleaged ourselves!!!), perhaps you would like to comment. Have you been spoiled as a child? Over-indulged? Got everything you asked for? How has this affected you in your behaviour as an adult?