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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lam and I'm Christian Sager. Robert weird. Questions.

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Speaker 1: Are you an only child? No, I have two younger sisters.

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Speaker 1: I'm the eldest child. But I thought you had a stare.

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Speaker 1: But you have to They they split since I last

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Speaker 1: heard about them. Now there's two of them. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: there are, each with their own, you know, separate personalities.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, how about yourself? I actually have the

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Speaker 1: reason why I did the split. Thing is I have

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Speaker 1: a twin brother and sister. I'm not a twin of them.

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Speaker 1: They are twins and they're ten years younger than me. Um,

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Speaker 1: they were adopted, so I was ten years old when

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Speaker 1: they were adopted, and so I was an only child

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Speaker 1: for the first ten years of my life. Well, actually

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Speaker 1: we my parents fostered a couple of kids before they

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Speaker 1: adopted my brother and sister, and then they adopted my

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Speaker 1: brother and sister and it's been now now we're all adults. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So so you have a little bit of the the

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Speaker 1: only child experience. Yeah, I definitely, like the first ten

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Speaker 1: years of my life, I remember adults making only child

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Speaker 1: cracks at yeah, like jokes, not teachers, but more like

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Speaker 1: family friends are like aunts and uncles and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: saying stuff like oh you better watch out, like the

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Speaker 1: he's going to grow up to be an only child

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Speaker 1: or something like uh. But I don't know, I've always

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Speaker 1: had a different experience with that term than I guess

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Speaker 1: what the stereotype is. Maybe, Yeah, Like I definitely remember

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Speaker 1: growing and this is not something where where it was

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Speaker 1: like even like my parents saying it or specific teachers,

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Speaker 1: like I can't remember like anybody really pushing the only

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Speaker 1: child syndrome agenda. But I feel like it was definitely

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Speaker 1: out there in the culture, this idea that if there's

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Speaker 1: a family and they have only one child, that child

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Speaker 1: is going to be a nightmare. That child is going

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Speaker 1: to be spoiled, they're gonna be a brat, they're gonna

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Speaker 1: be and it's and you'd certainly see it to varying

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Speaker 1: degrees in popular media. You do. And let's be honest too,

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Speaker 1: as adults now and I'm absolutely guilty of this. There

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Speaker 1: are people that I meet in life and I go, oh,

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Speaker 1: they must be an only child. Yeah, it's such a

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Speaker 1: predominant nare you end up summoning it, even even if

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Speaker 1: you don't logically agree with it, even if you're not,

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Speaker 1: you don't apply much thought to it. Yeah it is.

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Speaker 1: It's weird. Like so all right, I guess we should

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Speaker 1: spell it out if if people are unfamiliar with this,

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Speaker 1: although from what the research said, it's pretty much common

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Speaker 1: in every culture. It's not just an American thing, which

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Speaker 1: is something I learned for this episode. But the idea

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Speaker 1: here is that only children end up being selfish and lonely.

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Speaker 1: U they're maladjusted and they end up being loners. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the other thing is that they're overprivileged and overly intellectual.

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Speaker 1: Uh So that's a little or or or not or

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Speaker 1: not that intellectual, according to at least one variant of

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Speaker 1: the myth that we'll get into. Okay, that's a little

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Speaker 1: different from what I always assumed the stereotype was, which

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Speaker 1: was I guess I always had it in my head

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Speaker 1: that the only children were less conscious of social cues,

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Speaker 1: and they subsequently talked too much in conversation, and they

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Speaker 1: usually talked a lot about themselves. They're sort of noxiously

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Speaker 1: self confident. That's what I thought it was. And I

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Speaker 1: guess like after looking at the research and how like,

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Speaker 1: at the beginning of every article on only child studies,

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Speaker 1: they had to sort of explain, well, here's the myth,

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Speaker 1: and here's how we debunk it. I've been living a lie,

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Speaker 1: like my version of the only child. I gotta come

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Speaker 1: up with a new name for these people, uh, like Singleton's.

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Speaker 1: I saw that term a lot. Is that one them Singleton's?

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Speaker 1: Or maybe I just shouldn't generalize as much, Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: that's what ultimately way it comes down to generalizations and

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Speaker 1: stereotypes regarding Singleton's And I also have to add on

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Speaker 1: this that that my son is an only child. So

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Speaker 1: so a lot of this is not only me looking back.

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Speaker 1: I'm like these ideas that were predominant, uh, in the

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Speaker 1: culture growing up, but also like how I look at

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Speaker 1: my own son and I and I find myself. I've

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Speaker 1: I've over the past, um, you know, four years, I've

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Speaker 1: had to sort of push down some of these narratives

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Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, saying, Oh, he's gonna

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Speaker 1: maybe should have should have a second child so I

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Speaker 1: have someone to talk to, or oh, you know he's

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Speaker 1: I sure hope he's not a spoiled brat because he's

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Speaker 1: the only one wh's getting all this attention blah blah

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Speaker 1: blah and uh and so yeah, this episode is about

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Speaker 1: exploring this idea where it came from, and looking at

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Speaker 1: what the research has to tell us about not only

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Speaker 1: only children in Western culture, but we're also going to

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Speaker 1: get into a little bit about the so called little

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Speaker 1: Emperors of China, especially like what happens when an entire

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Speaker 1: society is forced to have only children whatever repercussions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and indeed, how do you even study that? I

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Speaker 1: would like, before we get into this. I have hung

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Speaker 1: out with your kid a number of times, and I

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Speaker 1: never got the sense that he's got quote unquote only

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Speaker 1: child syndrome. So I hope nobody's telling you that. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things where, to come back to

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Speaker 1: a previous episode on on the Barnum Effect, you can

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Speaker 1: always sort of pick and choose what aspects of a

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Speaker 1: generalization you want to apply and so, and that's what

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Speaker 1: I find myself doing, Like I'll be around like when

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Speaker 1: you mentioned about oh, well, you know, maybe single children

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Speaker 1: or more outgoing and a little obnoxious, and they talked

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Speaker 1: too much. Like instantly, I'm checking those some of those

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Speaker 1: things off in my head. I'm like, oh wow, Baston

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Speaker 1: never shuts up. He talks all the time. I had

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Speaker 1: so much confidence. But he's a little He's a little

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Speaker 1: that's the thing. He's Yeah. So if you had said

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Speaker 1: the stereotypis other a little bit shy sometimes and I

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Speaker 1: would be like, oh, yeah, just shy the other day.

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Speaker 1: So exactly, there's a lot of different ways you could

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Speaker 1: apply it to sort of like fulfill your own prophecy

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Speaker 1: about exactly when it means well, yeah, I mean, so

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that you brought up to like the the

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Speaker 1: idea of the social pressure because every article we read

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Speaker 1: for this, So you have a son and I have

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Speaker 1: no children, and I just immediately was like, wow, I

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Speaker 1: had no idea how much pressure there is on parents

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Speaker 1: one way or the other, whether you have an only

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Speaker 1: child or you have more than one child, Like you're

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Speaker 1: doing something wrong in society is telling you about it constantly, right,

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize that. Oh yeah, you know that's I

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Speaker 1: think that's something that a parent has to come to

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Speaker 1: terms with pretty early, is yeah. And I imagine it's

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Speaker 1: similar with any kind of responsibility, Like, um, like I

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Speaker 1: don't own a dog, but I know there are lots

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Speaker 1: of voices on dog ownership. This is the right way, No,

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Speaker 1: this is the right way. This is the wrong way.

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Speaker 1: If you're doing this, then you're just a complete monster.

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Speaker 1: It's similar with children. Yeah, yeah, oh certainly. I mean

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Speaker 1: listeners probably have heard me talk about my dogs before.

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Speaker 1: I have two pit bull mixes, and I've taken one

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Speaker 1: of them through uh what is like certification behavioral training, right,

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Speaker 1: and it was extreme for what I thought. And then

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Speaker 1: like we we've started taking our second pit bull to

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Speaker 1: a different place for training, and we realized, oh, there's

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Speaker 1: entirely different methodologies, just like there are with parenting, uh

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Speaker 1: for training your dog. Um. Yeah, and it like one

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Speaker 1: was more strict and like you beat the alpha, right,

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Speaker 1: and then like the other one is more like, you know,

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Speaker 1: focus oriented and positive reinforcement. Yeah, so it seems like

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Speaker 1: there's some some common ground there. Now. We mentioned earlier

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Speaker 1: that we have all these different Singleton's, these different only

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Speaker 1: children in popular media and our stories and our movies

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Speaker 1: and our fictions, and how those kind of informed this

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Speaker 1: really this this kind of conflicting notion that either only

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Speaker 1: children are the worst or the absolute best, like it's

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Speaker 1: on the spoiled brat end of the spectrum. Verukas Sault

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Speaker 1: from Charlie and the chocola factor instantly comes to mind.

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Speaker 1: That's true. Although all right, I'm trying to remember now

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Speaker 1: it's been a while since I've seen it. I know

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Speaker 1: Charlie's grandparents hang out in bed all day. But does

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Speaker 1: he have siblings? I think that he, if I'm remembering quickly,

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Speaker 1: he might be only child as well. But he's you know,

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Speaker 1: growing up in this crowded household. And so that okay,

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Speaker 1: that right there speaks more to what we're going to

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Speaker 1: find out in the in the research, the Charlie and

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Speaker 1: the Chocolate Factory syndrome, which is Charlie is better adjusted

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Speaker 1: in the movie or in the book because of his

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Speaker 1: socio economic situation, and the rook assault is not because

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Speaker 1: she's spoiled. She's spoiled because of her socioeconomic situation, right,

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Speaker 1: not necessarily because she's an only child, although from the

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Speaker 1: research it's the other way around. It seems like, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, another another popular media thing that came up

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Speaker 1: when I was looking around is Harry Potter like virtually

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Speaker 1: all the children, not not all of them, and you,

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Speaker 1: you Potter experts, can correct me on this, but we

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Speaker 1: certainly are the weaklies. There are certainly not only children,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of the characters are both the really

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Speaker 1: awful villainous ones um but also the heroes, Harry himself.

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Speaker 1: So we see this conflicting idea, and I wonder to

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Speaker 1: what extent is this. Yeah, we're echoing these ideas and

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Speaker 1: expectations of only children, but maybe there's this in creating

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Speaker 1: a narrative, it's easier to not figure out what their

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Speaker 1: sibling relationships are, or there's like this desire from those

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Speaker 1: of us who are not only children to look, I

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Speaker 1: can have either you know, have all the positives or

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Speaker 1: the negatives of being a child and having these relationships

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Speaker 1: with parents. Have it all focused on you. Well, like

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Speaker 1: any good myth. As we've talked about on the show before,

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Speaker 1: it seems that the only child syndrome myth has spawned

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Speaker 1: an archetype. And I imagine that there's been plenty of

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Speaker 1: things that have been written in the last hundred years,

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Speaker 1: but probably even further back than that, because this, like

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Speaker 1: as we'll find out that this is a cultural idea

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Speaker 1: that has deep roots. And I think that, you know,

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Speaker 1: it seems that these uh writers or maybe subconsciously adding

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Speaker 1: that trope in, whether they know it or not. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that that sounds reasonable. Who else we got

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Speaker 1: on the list? You've got, of course, Damien from the Omen. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if only Damien's parents had just had another kid, they

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Speaker 1: can fix it, right, that's the thinking. Yeah, I feel

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Speaker 1: like a lot of horror movie characters, Jason Vorhees, Norman Bates,

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Speaker 1: I think, and again I wonder how much of that

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Speaker 1: is like just an expression of how little thought goes

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Speaker 1: into the character development of a monstrous human character where

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Speaker 1: they say like, oh, and he had a mixedtep thing

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Speaker 1: with his mom, or and his mom is a witch

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Speaker 1: or something, and then someone might ask what about his siblings?

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Speaker 1: And I haven't got time for that. Let's we've got

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Speaker 1: blood effects of the panel. Watched Bates Motel at all?

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Speaker 1: I haven't, but I understand they introduce a sibling. Yeah

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Speaker 1: in that show. Yeah, I I only watched a little

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Speaker 1: bit of the first season, but I'm pretty sure there's

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Speaker 1: a like half brother or something like that in there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that matches up with what I was seeing in

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Speaker 1: the research. But apparently in the original we get the

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Speaker 1: sense that he's plase. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a

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Speaker 1: couple of stats that I want to run through before

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Speaker 1: we dive into more on only children, sort of setting

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Speaker 1: us up for that, like what we were talking about

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Speaker 1: regarding like parents and expectations, at least here in the

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Speaker 1: United States. According to a New York Times piece that

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Speaker 1: we referenced a very like deep dive into the only

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Speaker 1: child syndrome philosophy, one in five American fan Lee's has

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Speaker 1: just one child. So that's far less than I would

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Speaker 1: have thought. And according to a Time magazine article. The

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Speaker 1: U s Department of Agriculture reports that in the US

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Speaker 1: get this, each child cost their parents around two hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty six thousand and fifty dollars before college on average.

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Speaker 1: You know, I don't have kids, So I hear that

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Speaker 1: and I go, ah, like that's a lot. I hear

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Speaker 1: that and go walk. Yeah, but you're probably aware of

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Speaker 1: it more over time, right, like educational costs, food whatever. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's certainly it's it's like a daily reality

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Speaker 1: of But what I immediately think is like, how does

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Speaker 1: anybody afford to have more than one child? You know,

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Speaker 1: Like I have friends who have like three, four kids,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, how are you doing that? Like who's

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Speaker 1: paying the bills? Are you just horribly in debt? You know? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know it's it's part of the whole switch wishing too,

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Speaker 1: is you we live in this age where people are

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Speaker 1: making choices about their family structure and their size of

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Speaker 1: their family. You know that thanks to thanks to the

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Speaker 1: use of contraceptives of course, and then of course other

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Speaker 1: modes of of building a family such as adoption. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you make distinct choices and what that the

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Speaker 1: number of children is going to be whereas you know,

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Speaker 1: based on the researchers I was looking at here the

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Speaker 1: like the older model, and pretty much everywhere was you

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Speaker 1: just had kids until you could not have them anymore,

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Speaker 1: you know. And it wasn't a choice of like how

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Speaker 1: many how many children do you think you'll have? No,

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Speaker 1: it's it's just until they stopped coming out. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um.

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Speaker 1: In fact, one of the things that's been noticed is

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Speaker 1: that in modern society, single child families spike when there's

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Speaker 1: economic downturns, like for instance, that Time article was written

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Speaker 1: during the recession, so they're seeing a big spike in

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Speaker 1: people who are saying like, that's it, like just one

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Speaker 1: kid is enough for us. Um. And the reason is

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Speaker 1: why parents usually have a second child. This was when

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Speaker 1: I really got into that uh social pressure thing that

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Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of. So usually they say it's for

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Speaker 1: their first child so the first child won't be lonely.

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Speaker 1: But other parents say they do it because they love

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Speaker 1: their first child so much they want to experience that

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Speaker 1: love all over again. They want the full experience. And

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Speaker 1: I've heard that from some of my friends. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think about that every day too, because it will

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Speaker 1: be this thing that you love in your current relationship

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Speaker 1: with your child, and you know that's gonna go away

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Speaker 1: at some point, and then you know who's gonna you know,

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Speaker 1: who's gonna who's gonna snuggle, who's gonna you know, who's

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Speaker 1: gonna play Legos with you? You know, and you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I've got to have that again. I guess the second

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Speaker 1: child is the right choice. And then, of course some

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Speaker 1: religions advocate against birth control, so you end up with

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Speaker 1: a lot more kids. Like my friends back in Boston

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Speaker 1: who are Catholic, they come from families where they've got

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Speaker 1: like eight ten siblings or something like that, because that's

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Speaker 1: just kind of the norm um. But then there's this

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Speaker 1: one from Science Daily that I read. Check this out.

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Speaker 1: Some people say they have only one kid to prevent

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Speaker 1: carbon pollution, and I've never heard that before, But there's

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Speaker 1: a two thousand and eight study in Global Environmental Change

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Speaker 1: that found that an American can prevent twenty times more

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Speaker 1: carbon pollution by having one fewer child then they can

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Speaker 1: by adapting eco friendly habits for the rest of their life.

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Speaker 1: Well that's that that to me. I don't know, I

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Speaker 1: can't speak for everybody that does sound like a wonderful

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Speaker 1: fact to pull out in in retrospect. I guess, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it seems a bit extreme. Yeah, a lifestyle choice,

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Speaker 1: but I mean it's it's you can certainly put it

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Speaker 1: on the pro list. You do pros and right, I

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Speaker 1: can say, like now I can say, oh, that's why

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Speaker 1: I don't have kids. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm saying it's

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Speaker 1: my carbon footprint. Yeah, it's for the my read on it,

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Speaker 1: and every the thing is because everybody is different. Everyone

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Speaker 1: walks into the situation with the same with it with

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Speaker 1: a different with differ and ideas and different expectations. But

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Speaker 1: I feel like there's so many different pressures, some that

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Speaker 1: you're you're aware of and some that are just kind

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Speaker 1: of in the ether of your culture that are informing

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Speaker 1: your decision. That it's that's it's difficult to nail it

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Speaker 1: down to just one thing, you know, Oh yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: I mean just looking at all these different reasons, you know,

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Speaker 1: I I imagine that we have listeners out there right

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Speaker 1: now who are screaming at their podcasts saying, wait, wait, wait, no,

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Speaker 1: my reason is this. You know, there's got to be

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Speaker 1: an infinity of reasons. But we try to make sense

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Speaker 1: of it right and packages well, this is like, well,

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Speaker 1: one thing that comes up with me a lot is um,

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Speaker 1: so my son is is adopted from China, and so

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Speaker 1: people will say, oh, why did you decide to adopt

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Speaker 1: a child from China? And like the answer to that

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Speaker 1: question is not like it just a succinct. Oh well

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Speaker 1: the reason A, B, and C, Like the reasons change

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Speaker 1: the the it's a learning experience, as should go through

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Speaker 1: that that process. And uh, and I imagine this is

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Speaker 1: the same with with bio babies and other forms of

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Speaker 1: acquiring children, building families, etcetera. Is that you may go

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Speaker 1: into it with one idea, but those ideas are going

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Speaker 1: to evolve, and even after you've made your decision, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have new information that's coloring whine you made that decision.

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Speaker 1: So it's difficult to boil it all down with something

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Speaker 1: as majorly complex as being a parent. Yeah, of course

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Speaker 1: there's gonna be multiple reasons. Um In Pew who does

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Speaker 1: They're they're the masters of surveys that we're always setting

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Speaker 1: them on this show that is Survey and American Motherhood.

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Speaker 1: And forty six percent of the adults that they interviewed

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Speaker 1: said that two children was the ideal number of children

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Speaker 1: for a home, which struck me as interesting because I

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Speaker 1: guess it brings us back to the idea of like

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Speaker 1: the atomic family. Yeah, um so at one point five

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Speaker 1: or the two point five one point Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: it is one point five, which always gives me like

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Speaker 1: a fallout franchise vision of like the mutated child with well,

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Speaker 1: that was you and me too, because we grew up

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Speaker 1: during the Old War, right, so that of course made sense.

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Speaker 1: It's probably different now. But get this, Only three percent

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Speaker 1: of the people in the survey said that one child

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Speaker 1: was ideal, and only three percent said that zero children

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Speaker 1: were ideal. So that strikes me as and it definitely

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Speaker 1: doesn't play out when you think of Okay, so the

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Speaker 1: New York Times piece said there's one in five families

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Speaker 1: just have one child, but three percent say one child

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Speaker 1: is ideal. Those numbers don't line up. Yeah, alright, So

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Speaker 1: let's get into the Western idea of the spoiled brat,

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Speaker 1: the the only child that is also a problem child.

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Speaker 1: It's it's fascinating when we start breaking this down to say,

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Speaker 1: where does this idea really come from? Because certainly, as

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Speaker 1: we discussed it in the Old days, you just always

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Speaker 1: choice wasn't really an option. You just had as many

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Speaker 1: children as what's going to happen for the most part.

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Speaker 1: So where does this idea that the choice to have

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Speaker 1: an only child is a bad idea? Turns out it's

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Speaker 1: one person. But we're gonna we can blame it all

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Speaker 1: and what well, now we can't blame it all in guy,

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Speaker 1: but one we can attribute a lot of this one

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Speaker 1: And he sort of had a following. And his name

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Speaker 1: was Granville Stanley Hall. Yeah, this was more than a

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Speaker 1: century ago. He is and he's he's he was a

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Speaker 1: rather big deal. He established one of the first American

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Speaker 1: psychology research labs, and he was a leader of the

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Speaker 1: uh you know, the child study movement. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: yet again like another like historical look at psychology's early days.

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Speaker 1: It's we did a lot of things the wrong way

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Speaker 1: with psychology is that discipline without any real methodology. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: well that's the problem here. So so Granville Stanley Hall,

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Speaker 1: he actually established a network of study groups around America

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Speaker 1: that we're called hall clubs. That sounds sounds funny. We

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Speaker 1: got hall club on Tuesday, uh, And it was where

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Speaker 1: his teachings about only children were spread. Now, keep in

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Speaker 1: mind Hall's research practices where nothing like ours are today.

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Speaker 1: So the instance, if he were to publish one of

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Speaker 1: these things as a paper, it wouldn't go through peer reviews,

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't not meet the criteria that we would expect

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Speaker 1: it to now. In particular, his eighteen nineties six study

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Speaker 1: came out titled A Study of Peculiar and Exceptional Children,

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Speaker 1: which sounds like a delightful young adult title. It sounds

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Speaker 1: like a tim if you like that Tim Burton movie there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So in this work he profiled a number of only

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Speaker 1: child misfits and without any credible research practices in place. Uh.

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Speaker 1: One of the quotes from it is quote, being an

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Speaker 1: only child is a disease in itself. Uh. And he's apparent.

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Speaker 1: Apparently he was drawing in like a lot of this

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Speaker 1: was this was a time when you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of movement into cities and the the the the

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Speaker 1: country lifestyle sort of fading away, and he was very

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Speaker 1: nostalgic about that and very opposed to change in urbanization.

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Speaker 1: And uh, but but here's the thing. This this idea

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Speaker 1: that the only child is a disease in itself, it

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Speaker 1: penetrated mainstream. It made it, it made the headlines. This

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Speaker 1: is one of those examples where it made its way

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Speaker 1: into the larger culture, into the atmosphere of culture. And

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Speaker 1: subsequent attempts to discredit Stanley's work in the decades to follow,

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Speaker 1: like none of none of these discrediting studies, UM exploded

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Speaker 1: quite as well as his did, and his remained at

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Speaker 1: the dominant narrative, and to a certain extent, remains the

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Speaker 1: dominant narrative despite all these studies that have come out

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Speaker 1: and and and continue to continue to get to discussed

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Speaker 1: and you know, in major podcasts, that get published in

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Speaker 1: major publications to say, actually, there's nothing to back this up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in fact, we're gonna look at it later. But there

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Speaker 1: were studies from nine until the eighties that were constantly

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Speaker 1: saying this wasn't true, and none of them could break

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Speaker 1: through the archetype. It was just too prevalent um. But

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Speaker 1: and for me, like, I go, surely it can't all

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Speaker 1: be this one guy, But it seems like according so

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Speaker 1: I looked around. Uh, there's a California State University at

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Speaker 1: Dominguez Hills researcher named Adrianne Mansilla's and she says, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's totally cross cultural. It's everywhere. It's from Estonia to Brazil.

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Speaker 1: And and why we'll think about it, It's exactly what

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Speaker 1: you tied it back to, right when you think about

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Speaker 1: people needing bigger families to farm their land or to

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Speaker 1: to work as part of the family unit and care

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Speaker 1: for the parents as they got old, exactly. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a big part of it too, and then industrialization threatens that.

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Speaker 1: So I can absolutely see why that became the prevalent narrative.

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Speaker 1: In fact, one of the lead researchers that we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about later in the episode said that the

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Speaker 1: only reasons why families used to stop at one child

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Speaker 1: was due to death, divorce, or medical reasons like they

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Speaker 1: physically couldn't have children. Yeah, basically active god. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: So why don't we take a quick break and then

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Speaker 1: we're gonna turn our site. It's over to China and

426
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 1: it's one child policy. Alright, we're back alright, So just

427
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 1: to refresh on the one child policy, um so, China's

428
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:20,639
Speaker 1: population increased by four million people between n and nineteen

429
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:24,879
Speaker 1: seventy six. As such, following the death of Malsatong, the

430
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: People's Republic of China instituted its one child policy in

431
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:31,439
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies in order to ensure that quote

432
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 1: the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth.

433
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: Population was swelling urban centers especially, and this is something

434
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 1: that's virtually never stopped. So it seemed like, you know,

435
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: in a way a reasonable solution, right, you just ask

436
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 1: everyone to or ask you tell everyone to have only

437
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 1: one child and it will keep the numbers. Yeah. So um,

438
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: this became the policy, the one child policy, and it

439
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 1: it ended in two following a relaxation of the rules

440
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: and previous years. So it didn't apply to ethnic minorities,

441
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,879
Speaker 1: and of course there are several ethnic numerous ethnic minorities

442
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: in the People's Republic of China. And also I believe

443
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: in recent years one child parents, parents who were themselves

444
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: Singleton's were permitted to have to it's right. Yeah, there

445
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: were exceptions, uh. And the way that this worked was

446
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy nine onward, it was enforced, especially in

447
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:31,160
Speaker 1: urban areas, mainly by using economic incentives. Right, So there

448
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 1: were benefits to your family if you if you stayed

449
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 1: with the only child policy. In twenty eleven, Chinese officials

450
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: actually excited data. And I don't know if this is

451
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,120
Speaker 1: accurate or not, but this is what came from the government,

452
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: and it said that this policy had prevented four hundred

453
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:54,200
Speaker 1: million birds. So you know there is some I mean,

454
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:55,800
Speaker 1: I guess if you look at it in a very

455
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: logical manner, you can say, okay, well, those are four

456
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 1: hundred million less mouths to feed. And of course it

457
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: it plays into the what was the quote up there,

458
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,639
Speaker 1: the fruits of economic growth or not devoured by population growth. Okay,

459
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 1: and I've seen that statu UH as low as two

460
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 1: d fifty million, but that's two fifty million people. So

461
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: that at a very like basic mathematical level, you can say,

462
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: all right, well that that was successful. Um, so obviously

463
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: we we could devote an entire episode to the fallout

464
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: of China's one child policy. The policy was was always controversial,

465
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,439
Speaker 1: and you can find arguments for it against it. I

466
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: mean really they're different, different pros and constant lineup on

467
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: both sides depending on who you talk to. UH. Fertility

468
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: certainly decline more rapidly than it otherwise would have. We

469
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 1: already talked about the stats two hundred million averted births,

470
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: but and it also resulted in an age demographic divide

471
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: that may have contributed to one quarter of its sizable

472
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: economic growth, But at the same time, it meant a

473
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: skewed sex ratio. You had ended up having more more

474
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: boys than girls, and it means that there's an aging

475
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: population with fewer young people to care for them. They

476
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,239
Speaker 1: were certainly there were certainly negative fallout, as one might

477
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: expect of any large scale social policy. There were fines,

478
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:19,120
Speaker 1: there were punishments. There are accounts of quote unquote forced abortions,

479
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: and all of this made the policy a source of

480
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: public discontent. Um. They're all additional um you know, accounts

481
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:31,679
Speaker 1: of female and fanticide, of abandonment, et cetera. Those are

482
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: the horror stories that I think we hear over hear

483
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,400
Speaker 1: them most often, which is like, uh, some poor young

484
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: woman has had a second child. What does she do?

485
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: She has to kill her own child because of this law.

486
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: That's the like the horror story version of it. Yeah,

487
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: I mean, and it kind of goes back to our

488
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: episode on Wicked Problems, right, because when you look at

489
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: any kind of attempt to change something, to alter some

490
00:26:56,400 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: sort of problem in society, um, such as population was

491
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:04,400
Speaker 1: like any like large scale solution, it's going to spiral

492
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: off additional problems. And I'm not I'm not I don't

493
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: want to come off as an apologist for for the

494
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 1: the one child policy here, but it um, I guess

495
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to see it at different levels, Like

496
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:18,919
Speaker 1: you can certainly see it at the individual level, but

497
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: then like trying to understand it. Is this some macro

498
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,640
Speaker 1: response to perceived threats. Yeah, it's certainly like an incredibly

499
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 1: complex thing. And and as we're going to discover from

500
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: the research that's been done in the last couple of years,

501
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: it's not as simple as just treating a community as

502
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 1: large as China's population as like a single organism where

503
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 1: you just prescribed like one uh policy that will fix

504
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: this whole thing right at any rate, though, the ultimate

505
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: outcome here was that you had more Chinese family centered

506
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: around than only child. And here's where we see the

507
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: so called Little Emperor syndrome, particularly Chinese version of the

508
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: only child syndrome. And it's based on the idea for

509
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: the ones that child policy resulted in an entire generation

510
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,199
Speaker 1: of Singleton's children doated on by parents and grandparents and

511
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: pampered by resources that might have typically gone to multiple children.

512
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 1: They lacked siblings and therefore they lack proper socialization. This

513
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: is big, right, Yeah, two is as well right that

514
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: they're they're going to be in a house. They're only

515
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: dealing with a bunch of grown ups that are just

516
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: pampering to their every need. Then they and they also

517
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 1: the idea here is they lack not only siblings but

518
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: also cousins, and this is gonna eventually spiral out into

519
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: aunts and uncles, um and and this becomes like a

520
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:38,479
Speaker 1: major this becomes an important idea. Like even here at

521
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works, there was a there's a there's a

522
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 1: Chinese version of how stuff Works dot com. And I

523
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: remember years ago when they were talking about like the

524
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: the advantage this is like previous owners of the company.

525
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: They were saying, oh, well, you know this is big

526
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: because since you have this situation where there's an only

527
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: child with all these resources going to them, that means

528
00:28:58,440 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: there's more educational money to mean made off of them.

529
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: There's more, you know, there's there's more of this focused

530
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: attention because you have kind of like all your eggs

531
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: in one basket. I didn't even know that. Yeah, I've

532
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: worked here for three years. Wow, Okay, yeah, it's out there.

533
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of the website offhand, but

534
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: you look forward. They just take the content from How

535
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 1: Stuff Works and translated into Chinese. They did at the time.

536
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know to what extent it's still cultivated,

537
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: if like new content is being translated. But I know

538
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: there there there are articles that I wrote for How

539
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: Stuff Works years and years ago that have like Mandarin

540
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: translations on this interesting website. And but it's not just

541
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: over here looking in. The notion of these little emperors

542
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: gained a lot of support in Chinese media. Chinese China Daily,

543
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: the popular publication there even dubbed the demographic as quote

544
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: the spoiled generation. But it was largely no empirical evidence

545
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: for this notion. So was it You have to ask,

546
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: is it was? It was? This? Is this any different

547
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: than any situation where an older generation judges the younger,

548
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: you know, the greatest genera ration versus the baby boomers,

549
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: versus Gen X, versus the millennials, versus whatever we're calling

550
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 1: the next group of young people that we don't understand

551
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 1: and think are horrible and destined to ruin the world. Right, Yeah, um,

552
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 1: this reminds me of my time when I was working

553
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: in academia. There was a lot of consternation about quote

554
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: unquote millennials, like we don't understand them, what do we do?

555
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: How do we how do we teach them? And Uh,

556
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: the university that I worked at had an expert who've

557
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: done a lot of millennial studies come in come and

558
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: give a huge presentation to like almost all the faculty

559
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: of the university and they're basically like, all the stereotypes

560
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: that you know are wrong. There are there is data

561
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: that shows that there are things about this generation that

562
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: we know that we can use toward uh coming up

563
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: with strategies for teaching plans or something like that. Right,

564
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: But it was like none of the stereotypes that people

565
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: think of when they say millennials. Yeah, it's not a

566
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: situation where you can imagine, like to scientists dissecting a

567
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: millennial and they're like, oh, this is where the millennials

568
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: digestive juices. You know, it's like there their people and

569
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 1: there's a there's a vast that there's a lot of

570
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: difference in personality and background. And the same can be

571
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: said of Singleton's in in any culture, like they're going

572
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: to see a lot of different personality types. However, there

573
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: are a few things we can say about personality UM here.

574
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: For instance, there's a lot of evidence to support the

575
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: idea that birth order plays a big role in the

576
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 1: manifestation of individual personality UH. For example, the paper Birth

577
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: Order effects on personality and Achievement within Families argues that quote,

578
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: across four diverse data sets, first borns were nominated as

579
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: most achieving and most conscientious. Later borns were nominated as

580
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: most rebellious, liberal, and agreeable. So we're talking about statistical

581
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,719
Speaker 1: generalities here, but it does raid the race the question

582
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: would would this mean that the vast social experiment of

583
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: China's one child policy may have helped to exclude certain

584
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: personality types from manifesting. That is interesting especially to think of,

585
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: like as that generation is now coming into power. So

586
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: this is one of those areas where we don't have

587
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: a lot of study to look to, and it's kind

588
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: of it's difficult to study because, on one hand, so

589
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,360
Speaker 1: many of these studies are dealing with Western UH one

590
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 1: child situations, and that's a little bit different from the

591
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: People's Republic of China, where we have essentially a one

592
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: child family culture that's been built out of this, again

593
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: taking into account to ethnic minorities and other circumstances that

594
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: are in play, but it makes it difficult to have

595
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: proper control groups for any kind of study. Yeah, that's

596
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: certainly true, I guess. Like so I'm just like immediately

597
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: popping back to my subjective experience of living in China

598
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: behind these and like trying to imagine like I was

599
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,719
Speaker 1: in Beijing and trying to imagine having a family with

600
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: more than one child in the homes like that we're

601
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: that we're common is just like it would be next

602
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: to impossible again, like as an economic disadvantage, like thinking

603
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: comparing it to the American thing where I was saying

604
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: earlier about how much money it costs to have like

605
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: just one child in the United States, and then like

606
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: just thinking about like the space considerations in Beijing stuff

607
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: like that. Indeed, now, the one study that we do

608
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 1: have that gets into this, uh, the one that certainly

609
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: I was able to come across, is a two thousand

610
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: thirteen study. Lead author is A Lisa Cameron of Monash

611
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: University of Melbourne, Australia, and she had co authors that

612
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: were also with the Australian National University and the University

613
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 1: of Melbourne, and they attempted to figure out to what

614
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: degree the one shot policy impacted the personalities of China's children.

615
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: And again this is like the pretty much the only

616
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: study out there, so take that into consideration. We don't

617
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: have a lot to compare this too. So that what

618
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: they did is they used games from experimental economics to

619
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: measure altruism, competitiveness, and other traits and individuals born just

620
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: before and just after the one child policy. After controlling

621
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 1: for gender, education and other factors, these researchers found that

622
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: those who became only children because of the one child

623
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 1: policy were supposedly less trusting, less trustworthy, less conscientious, and

624
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: more risk adverse. Yeah, so this is interesting to me

625
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 1: that these researchers chose economic based games for their measurement

626
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: system when they're looking for social and personality results. The

627
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: implication here is that the economics and the sociology are intertwined, right,

628
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: that they have to be connected somehow, hence socioeconomics. But

629
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying, It's that like I

630
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: would imagine that they would give them a different kind

631
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: of personality test. Yeah, one of the criticisms that has

632
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 1: come up with this is the this is kind of

633
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: a limiting way to look at them and trying to

634
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: analyze and understand you know, the whole generations of people,

635
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: um that the study does that they do They did

636
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: seem rather interested in the economic output here, uh. The

637
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: the idea of being that this would also mean that

638
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:19,320
Speaker 1: these individuals would be, um what would be uh less

639
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: likely to engage in risky occupations or go into business

640
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: for themselves, and that it would impact like the entrepreneurial

641
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: spirit of Chinese people. Again, you're kind of painting with

642
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: the broad brush here. Yeah, and you could also, you

643
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:40,360
Speaker 1: know whatever, like in any generalizable way, like uh, say

644
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: that there are multiple reasons for why they may be

645
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: less entrepreneurial, like maybe it's because of you know, political philosophy. Now,

646
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: when you start looking at these findings and how people

647
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: reacted to it, you'll find that that some were would

648
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: praise it and say, well, this is a great starting point,

649
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: and others would say, you know, it's just this is

650
00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: an incomplete attempt to understand the influence of confounding factors

651
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: in Chinese society. UM. Because again, how do you find

652
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 1: a control group. When you study the nature of Singleton's

653
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: in what is you know, essentially a one child society.

654
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 1: Other critics argue that age differences may have skewed subjects

655
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: decisions in the economic games. Yeah. I found that there

656
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: were some experts that chimed in on this analysis and

657
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: they just basically said, look, this requires more complex research.

658
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: It's such a difficult topic to just nail down with

659
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: one study and needs more research and it's far from complete.

660
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 1: They also said that age differences could have skewed the

661
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: decisions that were made in these economic games too, so

662
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: that you know, that could have been a factor. Yeah,

663
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: now specifically on that if just to give a little

664
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 1: more background, Camera and Company looked at four one subjects

665
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: born in eighty and eighty three, so definitely our generation plus.

666
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: You know, if we're to accept these findings, we have

667
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: to consider that the Singleton's lived up to their bad reputation,

668
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: right and perhaps too bad expectations. So we can just

669
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: can we discount the degree to which Spoiled Brad and

670
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: Little Emperor notions stigmatized and kind of code children that

671
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,319
Speaker 1: you know, we have to remember the labels and expectations

672
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: are powerful things. So how much of it is, oh, well,

673
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: they're gonna be little emperors and you keep telling them this.

674
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: I would be very interested to hear from any single child,

675
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 1: any singleton listeners out there, like did you find that

676
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 1: narrative influencing the way you behaved? Or you know, there's

677
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 1: so many factors and what what builds the personality of

678
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: the kind of self fulfilling After a while, if you're

679
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: told so many times, well, the reason why you act

680
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 1: like this is because you're an only child, then you

681
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: start thinking to yourself, Oh, I guess it's okay for

682
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: me to be whatever the stereotype is, a loner or

683
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: misanthrope or something. I'm both of those things and I

684
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: have brother and sister. Yeah, but it uh, you know,

685
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: I do agree with critics saying that more study is

686
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: needed here though, because it it's such a singular situation.

687
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 1: It's like so much of these other studies we're looking at,

688
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: they're dealing with generally, they're dealing with Western families where

689
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 1: there is one child by choice, and certainly in China,

690
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: we're dealing with a large scale situation where there is

691
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: one child due to government mandate. So uh, it's it's

692
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: it's its own thing. Yeah. I also wonder too, like

693
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: in the sense that we were talking about earlier that

694
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: the fear moving from like an agricultural society to an

695
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: industrial society in the United States probably influenced the stereotype.

696
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: What other like major um cultural shifts in China that

697
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:47,240
Speaker 1: we as Westerners are totally unaware of maybe influencing these stereotypes. Indeed,

698
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when

699
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: we come back, we're gonna look at what the science,

700
00:38:51,960 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: most of it Western science, has to say about single children. Okay,

701
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: so we're back. So let's get down to the nitty

702
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: gritty here. What does the science say. I mentioned earlier

703
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: there were studies from nine until now that have basically

704
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:15,720
Speaker 1: said this is a myth, right that the only child

705
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: syndrome is not real. Right, So let's go through some

706
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: of them at least and its spell it out. Yeah,

707
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: because ultimately it's kind of the situation where every few

708
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,319
Speaker 1: years there's a new study that says that the the

709
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: stereotype is complete bs and they'll be dated to back

710
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: that up and it's and then it'll be there'll be

711
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: individuals in the media who will write about it and

712
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: it's just to what degree does this actually breakthrough and

713
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: change the cultural perception? Right, it doesn't really penetrate the consciousness. Yeah,

714
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: that's sure. Generally speaking though that it seems like universally

715
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: across all these studies, there are no true negatives to

716
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:56,720
Speaker 1: being an only child. So you'll you'll find some studies

717
00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: to present data to support negative attributes, but for the

718
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: most part, you don't. So there's a we're going to

719
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: coverage some of the big ones, some of the more

720
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: recent ones generally, but in two thousands, there's a two

721
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 1: thousand ten study University of California. They found that having

722
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 1: more siblings means less chance of divorce as an adult.

723
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: So you could you can say, all right, here's one

724
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: study that you can interpret as saying the like the

725
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: negative being that if you're an only child, you're more likely. Yeah,

726
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: there's a two thousand twelve study from the University of

727
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: Gothenburg and they found that children who grow up without

728
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 1: siblings have a more than fifty percent higher risk of

729
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: being overweight or a beast than children with siblings. And

730
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,760
Speaker 1: this uh was gleaned from a study of twelve thousand,

731
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 1: seven hundred children in eight European countries. This is like

732
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: the last possible stereotype that I would think of regarding

733
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: only children as well. Well, there was in Wali Wanka,

734
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: wasn't there the Oh yeah, yeah, I assume, yeah, I

735
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: was he an only child? I can't remember. I don't know.

736
00:40:56,719 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah. And again I so if you

737
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: want to pull from that study and use that to

738
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 1: profit the idea that that only children are gonna are

739
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 1: more likely to be overweight, they're apparently. Yeah, somebody needs

740
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: to do we just passed Halloween. Somebody needs to just

741
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 1: study how much candy do only children eat on Halloween? Yeah?

742
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: I imagine, though, the reality is you're gonna find only

743
00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: children that are skinny, only children that are overweight going

744
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: to run the game. Now. There's a two thousand thirteen

745
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: New York Times article by Lauren Sandler that is really

746
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: good on the on the topic will often include a

747
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 1: link to it, but she summarized the scenario as follows. Quote.

748
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 1: Consider the data in hundreds of studies during the past decades,

749
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 1: exploring sixteen character to traits, including leadership, maturity, extroversion, social participation, popularity, generosity, cooperativeness, flexibility,

750
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: emotional stability, contentment. Only children scored just as well as

751
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: children with siblings, and endless research shows that only children

752
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: are in fact more self involved than anyone else. It

753
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 1: turns out brutal sibling rivalry isn't necessary to beat the

754
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: ego out of us. Peers and classmates do the job.

755
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: And this and this is another thing that comes up, right, Like,

756
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: it's not like you're going to have an only child.

757
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: I mean, some only children are probably gonna grow up

758
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: in scenarios where there are fewer children in their midst

759
00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: but other kids are going to they're playing with kids

760
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. They're playing there, maybe they have cousins,

761
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: they're going to pre k and schools. Yeah. Absolutely. One

762
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,240
Speaker 1: psychotherapist told Sandler in that piece that only children actually

763
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: have strong primary relationships, but they're with themselves instead of

764
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 1: with siblings, and that that tends to provide better armor

765
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: against actual loneliness. So they're better at being alone. They're

766
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 1: not lonely. That's not interesting. Like they know how to

767
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: engage with with personal time a little better maybe than

768
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: someone who constantly has another playmate around the course. I

769
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: know how having had a sibling playmate is rather a

770
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: director generous term, and so without somebody to argue with.

771
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: Now another question that comes up, or are you know,

772
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 1: obviously are they lonelier? Then? Um, we've discussed it a

773
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: little bit already. But Tony Falbo at the University of Texas,

774
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 1: who has studied only children syndrome, suppose you know that's

775
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 1: the term that's gone out, only child syndrome. She studied

776
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:26,280
Speaker 1: it quite a bit and looked into it and determined

777
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: solitude is not synonymous with loneliness, and indeed it often

778
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: strength and strengthens character. Yeah, I think we could probably

779
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: call Tony Falbo the m v P of only child studies. Uh,

780
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: she's been involved in this stuff since the nineteen seventies

781
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: and she's just all over every single article that I

782
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: read on the topic. She and she's done studies in

783
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:49,919
Speaker 1: both the US and China. It should be noticed she's

784
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:53,720
Speaker 1: studied tens of thousands of subjects in her time. After

785
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:57,760
Speaker 1: examining hundreds of studies that were done on only children

786
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: from nineteen twenty five until the Falbo and her colleague

787
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 1: Denise Pollitt found that only children have quote demonstrably higher

788
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: intelligence and actually have more self esteem than children with

789
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,920
Speaker 1: siblings then they did this. They performed a second review

790
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 1: of two hundred personalities studies, and they found that the

791
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: personalities of only children were totally indistinguishable from their peers

792
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: that had siblings. Uh so, I mean, she's really like

793
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: reviewed everything that's ever been done here. Yeah, and and

794
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:34,840
Speaker 1: certainly worked to um to to dispel some of the

795
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: previous um studies that were out there, including some from

796
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies that claimed that only children scored lower

797
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: on intelligence test. But it turns out these findings turned

798
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 1: out to be skewed by imbalances and socioeconomic and one

799
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: versus two parent household scaling. So again it comes down

800
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: to what what what? What are you judging here? What

801
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: are you looking at? Are you looking at just um,

802
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: you know, only child versus multi sibling house olds? And

803
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: are you taking into account all the various other reasons

804
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: socio economic and otherwise they influence the personality of an

805
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 1: individual um Sandler who wrote that New York Times piece.

806
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: She also cited a sociologist named Judith Blake as finding

807
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: the precocious quote qualities of only children come from the

808
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: parents being able to devote more time, money, and attention

809
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: to these children. Instead of having to divide them up

810
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 1: among other children. So the stereotype may come from the

811
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: fact that only children are often raised in quote richer

812
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: verbal environments. And what this means is they're sharing their

813
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: meals and other activities with more adults rather than like

814
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: they're not at the kiddie table. Yeah uh. And this

815
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:46,720
Speaker 1: subsequently leads to higher SAT scores and better self esteem.

816
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: So it seems like all the research is saying the

817
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: exact opposite about only children. Yeah, there's a quote that

818
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: came across this is from University of Texas researcher Dr

819
00:45:55,600 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: Harold D. Grodevant, and he said, quote whether child is

820
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 1: an only child doesn't matter as much as the kind

821
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: of relationships in the family. So so again you can't

822
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:08,919
Speaker 1: boil it down to just did they is there another

823
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: child in the house. There all these other relationships are

824
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,399
Speaker 1: having just as much of not more impact. So here's

825
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: some other key findings from Falbo's work in the nineteen eighties.

826
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: She found that socioeconomic status of the family, as well

827
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: as the presence of both parents in the home is

828
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,400
Speaker 1: is likely a far more important factor. Yeah, that just

829
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:31,879
Speaker 1: seems like a no brainer. Yeah, like that we would

830
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:35,320
Speaker 1: look at that far more than how many siblings you have. Yeah. Indeed,

831
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: also she found that only children are as popular with

832
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 1: their peers as children and as adults as anybody else.

833
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: So that's that the whole like loner or antisocial thing

834
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 1: doesn't hold water. And also on an Ohio state survey

835
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: of more than thirteen thousand children backed this up and

836
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: found that only children had as many friends as anyone else.

837
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: So she also found that only children are equally satisfied

838
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:04,479
Speaker 1: and happy, health and mental health are the same. Only

839
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: children scored higher and intelligent tests than non only child children,

840
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 1: and this is comparable sociogomic level and family situations. Yeah.

841
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 1: I found just a small bit of research tied into that.

842
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: A guy named Dr John G. Claude found that the

843
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: only children performed better on cognitive skill tests than children

844
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: from families with two or more child. Yeah, and you know,

845
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:30,400
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about homework in the scenaria.

846
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 1: I just listened to a really excellent Ideas episode about

847
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 1: homework bands and filled me with lots of anxiety about

848
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 1: coming homework my child. But yeah, they're talking about all

849
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: the homework parents end up having to help one child

850
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,720
Speaker 1: with and then if it's two, I mean, some something's

851
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: gotta get it's gonna fall through the I'll just help

852
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:54,320
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, well you had the second one, Robert. Alright.

853
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,520
Speaker 1: So Falbo also found that points out that only children

854
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: have higher academic aspirations, they retire levels of education, and

855
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: attain higher occupational prestige. Only children start dating at the

856
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:08,360
Speaker 1: same age as children with siblings. However, only children have

857
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 1: a slightly less active social life overall, dating somewhat less frequently.

858
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 1: So you know, in all of this too, of course,

859
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: we're also even statistics back all this up. I mean,

860
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 1: we're still talking about generality. There may be plenty of

861
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: examples that buck the trend on both sides. Now. Interestingly enough,

862
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,239
Speaker 1: in Falbo's worked in the nineteen eighties, she predicted that,

863
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: is more families chose to have only children, attitudes towards

864
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 1: both parents and child would change. So there'd be less

865
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 1: of this stigma against having just one child, and they'd

866
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: be less of this, uh, this this attitude and this

867
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: expectation of of say, spoiled behavior or or antisocialization in

868
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: the only child. Yeah. Sandler, who wrote the piece, her

869
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 1: own research indicates that only children experience more intense emotional

870
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 1: family lives where the love is more concentrated is how

871
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 1: she put it. Um And she says, well, while that

872
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:09,640
Speaker 1: can be enriching, it can also be suffocating. So she

873
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 1: interviewed a lot of adult only children. She found that

874
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,879
Speaker 1: they told her that they wanted to have more than

875
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,399
Speaker 1: one kid, specifically because the intensity of being in that

876
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,799
Speaker 1: like concentrated love scenario as a kid was too much

877
00:49:22,840 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 1: for them. Um. And there's also data she cites from

878
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:30,880
Speaker 1: the National Alliance for Caregiving that shows that the closest

879
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:34,279
Speaker 1: living sibling we brought this up earlier is usually the

880
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: one who is responsible for elderly caregiving. And only children

881
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:42,240
Speaker 1: reported to Sandler that this was the number one issue

882
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: that they felt strongest about regarding their sibling status, like

883
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: how many siblings they had, what their relationships with their

884
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: sibling was. It came down to who's going to take

885
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: care of mom and dad old age. Yeah, so that's

886
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 1: a big factor as well. And then Time Magazine spoke

887
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: to psychologist Carl Pickard, who wrote the book The Future

888
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: of Your Only Child, and he did this after four

889
00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,920
Speaker 1: decades of experience as a you know, therapist. He said, yeah,

890
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 1: they're indulged and they are protected by their parents, but

891
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: only children also are given more nurturing to develop themselves.

892
00:50:19,640 --> 00:50:22,839
Speaker 1: And he clarifies that this isn't the same thing as

893
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: being selfish. Now I've got a personal example here, and

894
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: maybe you experience this too, Okay. As a writer, I

895
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:33,959
Speaker 1: find that I am often guilty, although I really try

896
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: not to be of self comparing to the success of

897
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: other writers. Uh. And for instance, I think to myself,

898
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,320
Speaker 1: how did somebody like za D. Smith sell a novel

899
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 1: when they're only twenty two years old? And that's not

900
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:50,840
Speaker 1: me saying Zadie Smith is a bad writer. That's me

901
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 1: going how did she have the acumen at age twenty

902
00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 1: two to be able to do that? And as I've

903
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 1: gotten older, I realized, well, it's because I didn't necessarily

904
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: have of the nurturing that would lead to developing skills

905
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,839
Speaker 1: as quickly as maybe she did. Right. Uh And while

906
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 1: z D. Smith was hammering out novels, I was still

907
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who I was at age twenty two.

908
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:15,319
Speaker 1: By the way, she's not an only child. She has

909
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 1: a lot of siblings, so she's she's not an example

910
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:20,279
Speaker 1: of like an only child. But I guess when you

911
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:23,719
Speaker 1: look at it from an only child's perspective. They may

912
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:29,879
Speaker 1: succeed earlier, but they're they're experiencing this intense pressure from

913
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 1: both their parents and themselves to succeed. So that's interesting

914
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: to think about too, just from like an adult perspective

915
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 1: looking back, right, is that there's sort of like a toolbox,

916
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: and you're given a certain amount of tools to work

917
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 1: with in that toolbox. Uh. And though you have to

918
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: use those as you're getting older to sort of figure

919
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: out who you are, what your skills are, what you

920
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:56,280
Speaker 1: want to do with your life. Uh, and not everybody

921
00:51:56,320 --> 00:52:00,319
Speaker 1: like uses the tools in the same way. Yeah, And

922
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 1: I mean I can certainly see that where you would

923
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 1: have the parental expectations of hey, there's no plan B,

924
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 1: there's no mental child, right, there's no room for you

925
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: to be the screw up here. You've got to you've

926
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 1: got to be the success story. Yeah. Yeah, I think

927
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:14,719
Speaker 1: that that's the pressure that people feel, or than that,

928
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: like they put it on themselves too. Yeah. Um, So

929
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: you know, to close out here, I think first of all,

930
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:26,359
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from our listeners who are

931
00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 1: only children, uh, find out what their experience are how

932
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:33,040
Speaker 1: much Uh this gels with your personal experience or not

933
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:37,120
Speaker 1: the research or the stereotype per se um. And I'd

934
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:39,959
Speaker 1: also like to point out Sandler also says most people

935
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: say that they have their first child for themselves and

936
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: the second to benefit their first. But if children aren't

937
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: inherently worse off without siblings, as has been proven through

938
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,880
Speaker 1: these studies, who is best served by that kind of thinking?

939
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 1: So that's worth questioning as well. Um, it's probably not

940
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:04,480
Speaker 1: the parents. They're probably not best served, right Uh. Sociologist

941
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:07,400
Speaker 1: Hans Peter Koehler, who is at the University of Pennsylvania,

942
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 1: he analyzed thirty five thousand Danish twins who knew there

943
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: were that many Danish twins, and he found that women

944
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: with one child said that they were more satisfied with

945
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 1: their lives than either women with no children or women

946
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 1: with more than one. So that's an interesting point of

947
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: comparison to He's like, I'm assuming he's looking at twins

948
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 1: as a control group. Uh, and finds that the despite

949
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 1: what we heard earlier from that Pew study that the

950
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:40,839
Speaker 1: self reporting in America at least says that well, two

951
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 1: seems to be the ideal number of children these women

952
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: were reporting actually I was most satisfied when I only

953
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:53,720
Speaker 1: had one, uh, Regardless, According to a University of Pennsylvania demographer,

954
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:57,839
Speaker 1: projections show that in the United States, the number of

955
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,879
Speaker 1: larger families and the number of only children are going

956
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 1: to keep growing and in the rest a couple of years. Yeah,

957
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: so there's going to be a growth of both, and

958
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:13,920
Speaker 1: we'll see what kind of repercussions that has culturally for

959
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 1: our for our own socio economic climate. Yeah, and indeed,

960
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there who has

961
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 1: some input on this, if you're an only child, or

962
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: you're one of many siblings, if you're a parent of

963
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:27,400
Speaker 1: an only child, or if you have an entire brood

964
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: going on, and indeed, what your kind of outlook on

965
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 1: that is. And certainly if anyone out there has you know,

966
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: personal experience with the one child policy, we need to

967
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 1: hear your your thoughts on all of this as well.

968
00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:43,480
Speaker 1: Be very interested to hear a personal experience with that. Yeah. So, Okay,

969
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: we've just said a bunch of things that we want

970
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:48,839
Speaker 1: you to to to do for us, ways in which

971
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 1: you can interact with us, Right, but how do you

972
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: do that? Well? Stuff to blow your mind? Dot com

973
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,360
Speaker 1: is our home base on the Internet. It is where

974
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: you will find all of our articles, videos and podcasts,

975
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 1: as well as links to all of our social media accounts.

976
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, Tumbler, Facebook, and Instagram. I think I

977
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 1: got all of them right, I think those are the

978
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: big ones. Yeah, yeah, um, so you can reach out

979
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:16,880
Speaker 1: to us on any of those platforms. In fact, yesterday

980
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:18,919
Speaker 1: I spent like a good amount of time going through

981
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: the back catalog. There a bunch of topics suggestions that

982
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 1: we've received from listeners over the last couple of months.

983
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 1: Added them to our our master list of of suggestions

984
00:55:29,080 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: for the podcast. There's another way, right, there's another way

985
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:35,960
Speaker 1: that they could write to us, that automatic writing, Yeah,

986
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:39,439
Speaker 1: they could do that, um. And astral projection is another one.

987
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: Often forget to check our astro projection folder though, Yeah,

988
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 1: that's probably it's probably really but we never forget to

989
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 1: check our email though, And that's where you can reach us.

990
00:55:51,080 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 1: Blow the mind and how stuff works dot com for

991
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it

992
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:18,600
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. The differen