Thoughts on homeschooling an only child

I'll not link to the post that has got a few of my fellow "homeschoolers of onlies" upset, but suffice to say that there are other homeschoolers out there who think onlies should never be homeschooled. My own one-and-only is an only by our choice. I know other one child families who are so by choice and others who may have wanted more than one, but are one child families nonetheless. No matter how a family comes to be a one child family, they have the right to be left to own lives without judgment upon the fact of their onlyhood.

In my extended family, there are no other onlies. We're the freaks of the family anyway, (Dh is a pagan. I'm a witch. We're both Marxists. And so on and so on...) so our chosen onlyhood is just more grist for the mill to our detractors. Frankly, we don't give a flying fuckerolie what they think. It does get tedious, however, to hear the same old tired phrases.

"He must be lonely."

"Aren't you going to give him a little brother or sister?"

"Why don't you want to give him a little brother or sister?"

"What do you mean, you don't want to give him a little brother or sister?"

"I'll bet he's just begging for a sibling all the time, isn't he?"

"That [onlyhood] is so sad."

"Miscarriages?" This one is always whispered with a sad tone, which if I had suffered miscarriages, I would find not only intrusive, but hurtful and patronizing as well.

Some people will say that they think onlies are spoiled. They usually have no more than random anecdotal evidence to support this claim. They are never people who actually have an only. Of course, I have only my own experience to draw from on what an only child is like, and then, I only have my own child to reference.

In our world, T is probably the centre. Unpopular as this idea may be among my acquaintances IRL, I'm not interested in where my so-called career is going during this chapter of my life. I'm not interested in being super-woman. I couldn't care less what other women think I should be doing right now. I have chosen to give this chapter of my life totally, completely and quite willingly to raising my child. Daycare doesn't raise him. School doesn't raise him. I, and my dh, do. That includes educating him as well.

L, my husband, once pointed out that "we have the luxury of being a small family." I do indeed think of it as a luxury. We don't have to juggle the schedules of multiple children, nor shoulder the expense of added children, nor deal with issues of sibling rivalry. I admire women and families who deal with these things with joy and success, but that isn't us. That isn't what we chose. I'm not in competition to be mother of the year. Our life is not a competition.

As for homeschooling an only, we find that we have a lot of luxury there, too. Everything is truly one on one -- sometimes even two on one. We don't have to worry if the curriculum we've chosen will work with multiple ages, learning styles, personalities, etc. We don't have to wonder if we're devoted equal (and enough) time to each child.

Oh, sure, there are drawbacks, too. That's life. My point, however, is that we do just fine, thank you very much. Don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel sorry for my son. We certainly don't feel sorry for ourselves. But, also, don't tell us what we can and can't do based upon some uninformed, inexperienced, irrelevant opinion you happen to have pulled out your ass.