Carolyn Hax: Only child should be ambassador for one-child couples

HI, CAROLYN! I am an only child. A lot of my friends and family are having kids, and sometimes people will ask if they plan to have more than one. Their response is often, "We don't want an only child."

It is difficult to know what, if anything, I can say. I think it comes across insensitive. My husband thinks I am looking to be insulted. Any thoughts? — ONLY CHILD

ANSWER: I think comments like this put you at a crossroads, and you're choosing the "take offense" route.

There is another route available, where you forgive the speaker for bad phrasing; presumably you wouldn't take offense at, "We'd like our child to have a sibling," right? Since that would be a compliment to their experience with sibs versus a swipe at your experience without them? Or even, "We think it will be easier on us if we have two, so the kids can entertain each other"?

Another route you can chose is to stick up for yourself, lightly: "Hey, I was an only child. It wasn't that bad! It has its advantages."

In other words, you can choose to think like an ambassador instead of a victim.

By doing that, you might earn the gratitude of these (prospective) parents. Whether they plan to have more than one child is actually none of anyone's business and can touch some hidden nerves of a different sort — what if stopping at one makes sense for them but they feel pressured to produce a sibling? By shifting the topic to the joys of your childhood, you'll be offering relief to the friends being grilled.

RE: ONLY CHILD: As an only child in the same boat, I often use humor: "You definitely don't want an only child. Look how they turn out!" Everyone laughs, point gets made, subject gets changed. Easy. — ANONYMOUS

RE: ONLY CHILD: I also love the idea of being an ambassador because prospective parents may WANT more than one child, but sometimes life has other plans. You never know whether even a small comment might help them later in life if they find their expectations unfulfilled. — ANONYMOUS 2

TO: ONLY CHILD: It's not about you! It's not about you! They are expressing a preference. If they said, "We hope our kid has blue eyes," and yours are brown, they aren't casting a veiled insult your way. — ANONYMOUS 3

ANSWER: Yes, I see your point — but there is a fine line between expressing a preference for X and making a veiled assertion that Y is an inferior outcome.

While I maintain that it's best to opt out of taking offense in this and similar situations, I also think we'd all be doing each other a favor if we took a moment, in our hearts, to check our preferences for underlying, often unkind assumptions when we declare a particular outcome as unacceptable to us — say, "I don't want an only child" or "It's nonnegotiable, Junior will go to college." As if people who live that unwanted outcome are less worthy.

Since it might make this point for me better than I'm making it right now, here's a column about landing with both feet on the wrong side of that line: http://wapo.st/1L0Cs6H.

Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at noon Eastern time each Friday at washingtonpost.com.