Is Choosing to Have One Child a Selfish Decision?

If you’re expecting another child, you may face questions like, “Are you planning to have another?”

I encountered this question one brisk November morning in 2019 while shopping at the farmers’ market, where I was met with surprise by an acquaintance.

“Probably not,” I answered.

“But it’s unfair to deny him a sibling,” she remarked, eyeing my 11-month-old who peacefully slept in his stroller.

My husband and I had no desire for a second child. Yet, a frozen embryo, resting in a tank of liquid nitrogen at a facility near Oxford Circus, demanded our attention. This was one of two high-quality embryos from what we had agreed would be my final IVF cycle after five years of trying to conceive.

One of the embryos resulted in our son, leaving us to ponder the implications of neglecting the other. Our lively and joyful boy validated the potential happiness that could arise from that second embryo’s existence.

However, along with adjusting to sleepless nights and the clutter of baby supplies, a second child would mean leaving our charming flat on a leafy street near Camden Town, where the cramped second bedroom could barely fit a single bed. Plus, with our satisfaction in parenting one child, was it wise to invest roughly £250,000—the average cost of raising a child to 18 in the UK—into a second?

“Would you do it all over again?” a fellow mother asked during a break at our weekly playgroup after singing “Five Little Ducks.”

One woman chimed in, “My sister is my best friend. I can’t imagine denying my daughter that opportunity.”

Her words struck a chord. I once had a sister, my closest companion, who was two years younger. She was the person I envisioned sharing life and caring for our elderly parents. Sadly, she passed away unexpectedly just a week before my son was born, at the age of 45.

While many of my friends have not experienced the loss of a sibling, several have complicated relationships or are estranged from theirs. I also know many only children, including my husband and mother, who are robust, resourceful, and hardly fit the lonely stereotype.

Throughout the winter of 2019-20, as we continued considering the fate of the embryo, I questioned whether it was selfish to opt for just one child, perhaps something we might look back on with regret. My husband frequently mentioned how fulfilling his own childhood was. “What about as an adult, when your dad was dying? Didn’t you wish for a sibling then?” I pressed him.

“It never crossed my mind,” he replied.

Then the pandemic hit and fertility clinics were closed. When they reopened in May 2020, the thought of having a baby in a world where groceries had to be disinfected and everyone feared each other’s breath was unappealing to me.

By the time my son was almost three and some normalcy returned, I was eager to enjoy life’s pleasures again: dinners with friends in Soho and yoga retreats in Sussex. I felt assured that my husband and I were handling raising one child quite well.

In fact, we felt we were thriving. Adding another child seemed daunting, especially as we were already older parents at 48 and 49. In late 2021, we took our first weekend away alone, enjoying the peacefulness of a cabin in Kent while scrolling through our son’s pictures, grateful for having time together—something much harder with another child.

According to 2023 data from the Office for National Statistics, around 45 percent of families have only one child, yet most women I know have more than one. In my son’s class, he’s one of only two single children. I appreciate the simplicity of raising one child—managing one set of homework or dealing with one case of nits—though at times I feel a bit out of place.

“You can always change your mind,” a father commented to me at a children’s birthday party while holding his younger daughter.

I didn’t share with him that I’m now 54 and postmenopausal or that last year we finally donated the embryo to research. We had wished for it to be used, but due to my husband’s autoimmune condition, our clinic would not permit it. It saddened me to think it could never have life, but I also recognized that our family of three suits us perfectly.

My son is currently six and has never expressed a desire for a sibling. He finds joy in playing alone for hours, whether drawing or designing intricate train tracks. As his recent school report highlighted, he “plays so kindly and cheerfully with his diverse group of friends.”

Like my son, I too was raised as an only child, but unlike him, I experienced firsthand the companionship of a sibling before facing that loss. Despite the heartache, I’ve come to understand that a fulfilling life can take many forms, which gives me hope for my son’s future.