My daughter is an only child, but… Will she be an only child?

When I used to play car races at home as a kid, my car always won.

No one was blocking my shots when I shot into the little toy basket I had on the wall.

I myself gave the reply when I played with the dolls, and the story unfolded on my own terms, because I was, and am, an only child.

At home he always played alone.

Sometimes, being alone, I didn't even need to play physically: I just had to imagine the story, lying down peacefully: in short, there was no one to interact with.

Maybe that's where my current taste for the horizontal position comes from.

There were times when he longed to have a normative family, with two parents and a couple of brothers, like those in

that I saw on TV in the 1980s, but being an only child didn't cause me any particular harm.

What's more, I experienced it as a privilege: I found the idea of ​​having to share my mother's attention with other people hateful.

I felt special.

My mother, before I was born, had tried to have other children, but she had lost them.

I don't know if if they had been born I would have been born or if, on the contrary, the quota would have been filled.

If I had stayed in the plane of non-existence or if I had materialized in one of those bodies that were born.

But that is philosophy.

In short: it never seemed like a bad plan to me to be an only child, a presentation of the human species in single doses.

The protagonist of the movie

as Robert de Niro, as Barack Obama, as Aitana from

.

More information

The duel: when babies arrive and grandparents leave

They say that being an only child confers certain personality characteristics.

Being more creative (because of playing alone, I suppose) and, for obvious reasons, more independent: I feel quite comfortable in solitude, if it doesn't become cosmic.

An independence that can border on selfishness, a lack of interest in others, a lesser tendency to share, which is to love, or to work as a team.

The gossips say that we are pampered and capricious.

,

.

As only children, moreover, we have not experienced first-hand what fraternity is, because we have not had siblings.

If I think about it, the existence of another being who was also the son of my parents would seem strange to me.

Looks like a usurper to me.

Only children sometimes get bored (or at least they used to get bored in less fun times), but getting bored is a healthy habit in danger of extinction.

Now I am the father of what, for now, is an only daughter.

We do not know if she will continue to be.

It has been said of Candela that she is a “cheat girl”, an epithet that I did not know until I met Candela herself.

She cheats not in the sense that she fools her or that she fools you with her tricks, but in the best way: that she is so innocent and naive that it makes you want to have another offspring.

That she leaves you wanting to repeat.

However, it is not clear that he will have siblings.

Sometimes we are clear that yes, other times it seems simply unfeasible.

Sometimes we wish that Candela had a brother, so that she would not be alone, neither now nor in the hostile future that she presents herself, but other times we think that she is privileged to have all our attention (and our heritage).

What a pity it is when a little brother is born to the firstborn and he dies of jealousy.

Also, if it is difficult for us to raise Candela, we cannot imagine what she will be like having two: they say that the work is not doubled, but multiplied by 10. Perhaps we will be better this way, the three of us, calmer.

Only children are proliferating in Spain: if before they were (we were) the rarity, now they have (we have) signs of becoming (becoming) the norm.

The Fertility Index (average number of children per woman) was 1.19 in 2021, that is, Spaniards are not being replenished in the new generations.

There is a lack of people, although there are plenty on the planet.

The reasons for the increase in only children are,

, the same as those of the low birth rate: there are no good economic conditions, there is no work, there is no possibility of becoming emancipated young, rents are through the roof, a life full of experiences and adventures and a strong professional performance are imposed on us, work is increasingly absorbing and reconciling is difficult, and so on.

In other words: there is no money, there is no time, there is not much desire either.

There are those who prefer, a very respectable thing, to have a pet and take it to the hairdresser.

Neither the material nor the cultural conditions accompany a society where production and consumption prevail over reproduction, which is cornered and almost frowned upon.

The proliferation of only children, the low birth rate, leads to difficult demographic consequences: a country with fewer and fewer young people is increasingly difficult to maintain.

There will be many people to care for and few people to care for her.

The demographic pyramid, which is turning upside down, with the weight so poorly distributed, is collapsing due to the blind effect of social gravity.

What will Candela think when she develops her own demographic ideas.

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