To have a single child, or more?

Dear Dr. Donya, I got your e-mail address from The Jakarta Post, as I subscribe to the paper.

I'm 39 years old, married to a 31-year-old woman and have a five-year-old daughter. I'm stationed in Surabaya, and I'm a Chinese-Indonesian. I work at the company while my wife runs a store. My working day is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and my wife's from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m..

I have only one brother, who has two daughters. My wife has a brother who also has two children, and a sister who has a daughter and is expecting another one.

My daughter is in the second year of kindergarten next semester. She is fine and has no problems with school. At school, her close friend is also a single child. After school my daughter sometimes plays with maids at home, or visits her cousins. She attends coloring/drawing class once a week, and last month she was also in the English class (two days a week, but not anymore, as she found herself bored in class).

What has bothered me so far is that my wife wants to have another child so my daughter will not end up lonely.

But I don't want another child. I feel life is getting tougher as time goes on, and having another child would add another lifetime burden, as we would have to take care of the child for life.

Moreover, whether the child would be happy in her or his life is difficult to say. Even schooling is tougher now, compared with my time. There is also tough competition at work, while social life is almost nonexistent.

If my daughter gets a sister, maybe she can share things together, but what if she gets a brother? Will she get company to share? I believe sharing can be done better with someone of the same or similar age and the same gender.

Does she really need a sister or brother? Even if the pregnancy starts now, the age difference will be about six years.

In the future, will she regret not having siblings? What is the negative impact of being a single child in the family? Will she become lonely in the future, say, if the parents are gone?

I see more and more people are having a single child (even in the regular cartoons in The Jakarta Post, like Rose is Rose, The Born Loser, and Ferd'nand the characters are illustrated as having one child only). I see that people from developed countries tend to have a single child or even no children at all. But when I meet my friends, they keep asking me, why do you have only one child? What is your opinion about the problem above?

-- Hantoro

Dear Hantoro,

Thank you for the question. I believe you are not the only one with this problem. There is no right or wrong when you decide and know what you want.

You personally don't want a second child but your wife does, so talk to each other and list the benefits of having more than one child compared with a single child. If you two agree and are clear with what you want then you can handle the situation with your child either way. If she is five years old and she sees her cousin has a sister or brother, of course she will want the same.

Having a sister or brother, to most parents, means that the children will have friends and help each other when the parents are not around. But that is not all true. A lot of single children grow up to have their own family and do well in their own lives.

There are many questions about single children, such as, will they be lonely when they grow up? Nobody can answer this question because in this era the trend for living alone is more popular than ever before and a lifestyle marked by solitude is reforming our thinking on the family unit. I hope you get the answers you are seeking.

-- Dr. Donya