It's time to face up to it. I'm John and I'm an only child. There you are, I've said it. I'm an only child. I'm reluctant to admit to my condition because I have always been aware of the extraordinary effect this piece of information can have on people. I've seen perfectly rational individuals spin off into a wild orbit of assumption and terror and I've also witnessed hard, cynical tickets dissolve into sympathy and pity. "I suppose you were ruined," people say on the minute, "spoilt rotten!" Then they squint at you suspiciously because they know you have the potential to be Macauley Culkin. Either it must be simply terrible to be an only child - or it's the only child that must be simply terrible.
Yes, I didn't have to fight over whatever toys came into the house and I didn't have to endure the usual indignity of wearing an older sister's hand-me-down jeans with David Cassidy patches on the bum, but I was never "spoilt rotten". In those days children, even only children, weren't allowed to "express themselves" the way are now. I knew for instance that painting on the kitchen wall was out, same went for kicking visitors, refusing to go to bed, tantrums and demanding chocolate bars and fizzy drinks for breakfast. I might have been an only child but I knew that I wasn't the only one in the house. I was obviously much younger than my parents, I was also smaller, more likely to fall and cut myself and I didn't know how to cook or go up the town on my own - and so I couldn't possibly be the head chief banana in the house. I was only a cub - and, not being high on chocolate, I accepted that easily enough.
I once made a radio documentary about only children. I spoke to as many as I could find and there were quite a few of them in my immediate sweep. None of them, I have to say, seemed particularly dysfunctional and they talked quite openly of their experiences of growing up. Some mentioned the fact that they had constantly sought the approval of their parents and this, as they now realised, had been a bad policy indeed, given that most parents feel obliged, for reasons of common sense and the greater good, to disapprove of most things that a child might want to do. Others talked about feeling particularly isolated when their parents had died, frustrated that there were no family memories left to be shared with brothers or sisters. Some of my subjects also remembered wishing there had been older brothers and sisters around to break the ice over girlfriends, boyfriends, puberty, discos, deserting from the Scouts and all the other traumas of the weird years. But none of them, funny enough, agreed that they had been spoiled. In fact, some said their parents had been so determined not to spoil them that the opposite was the case.
While making that programme I also talked to a child psychologist who was able to reassure me that I was not (necessarily) dysfunctional. According to her, the important thing is that children have other children to play with and, because I had a street full of them, I was probably alright. The vital factor is that there was an opportunity to get the edges knocked off you and learn those many skills acquired through early interaction and play - tightrope-walking on fences, wrestling, throwing things, shouting "Geronimo!" and jumping off the coalshed roof. And the great thing was that afterwards you could return to your quiet house and there would be no brother or sister to squeal on you - nobody to inform to the authorities that you had nearly put someone's eye out with a Spud Gun.
The other great advantage is that only children can pursue their hobbies unhindered by destructive siblings and can also develop particular solo skills. Mine was ball-juggling. I could potter about with a football for hours keeping it up for 200 or 300. Bicycle kicks were another speciality - in fact, in the privacy of my own back yard I was probably the most skilful player of my day. The problem, however, is that football is a team game and whenever I was on the pitch with 21 other people I was worse than useless. It was probably the noise and the screaming and the other players shouting "over here!" and "play it square" and "shoot! shoot! shoot!" that did it. All I remember is heart-thumping panic and terror as my unrecognised Brazilian skills deserted me. And so I gave up on the team thing and decided I would have to be either a crosschannel swimmer, a fell-runner or a hermit. No surprise then that I've spent the past 10 years presenting radio programmes from assorted dark rooms at the tops of buildings.
The biggest problem for only children, as I see it, is that they need more room than is generally available. Personally, I need more space than even the most expansionist elements in the Klingon High Command and this can lead to obvious difficulties. I like to watch a movie in silence; I need to watch a football match without having to talk about anything else until its over; I like to read the paper; actually listen to record; or maybe even just lie on the sofa and do nothing. Is that odd? Surely it's not too much to ask? People from crowded houses, however, seem to be able to watch the movie or the match, read the paper, hold five conversations, change nappies, iron clothes and generally make a racket all at the same time. Someone will invariably stand in front of the television. Someone will use a mobile phone. And then someone else will then arrive with five more demonic children who are allowed to "express themselves" with crayons and violence.
The movie or the match is finally abandoned and out comes the Teletubbies video. This will work for a minute or two but soon it will be back to the white noise again. This sort of bedlam is far too much for any only child to handle. We may be polite about it but deep inside, we are screaming.
And so I make an appeal for understanding. Most only children are certainly not spoiled. Most only children are certainly not tyrants. Most only children are easily pleased, quiet souls who just happen to need more space than the rest of you - and if we don't get it we'll jump up and down, we'll bawl our eyes out and we'll tell our mammies. And then you'll know all about it!
John Kelly is a writer and broadcaster