Four Clover Life- By Namrata Singh

WHAT SHOULDN'T GUIDE YOUR DECISION?

Your best friend decision- Best friends are truly ‘BEST’ but their choices and decision cannot and should not influence yours unless the best friend is ready to participate in bringing up your child.  Just because you best friend is pregnant with her second child does not mean you should too. She is not going to pay for your child upbringing nor will come to support you in raising the child. The ride is only yours and only you know what to do.

Family pressure- Much the same way, just because your aunt, your mother in law feel that you should have a second child, you should not jump into the breeding assignment. Exactly, it's not an assignment and you (along with your partner) has to raise the child. Ask them- are you ready to support me financially, emotionally and physically? If they say yes- get a contract agreement in place and get their signatures taken.  99% chances are there they will back off the end moment.

Spur of the moment craving- M…

You go around looking for examples and you will find them in abundant in all sorts of permutations and combinations. With changing lifestyles, the influence of television and media, the omnipresent mobile phone and other gadgets and a social media platform coupled with a consumerist society, life has taken on an altogether different meaning. We have the world in our fist(courtesy Apple and the like) and everything  'instant'(courtesy Amazon and the like). A single child, children who have siblings or parents who decide not to have a child...we have a wide variety available for our understanding.

Let's not get mean by glorifying a particular family set up and disapproving, condemning another kind which doesn't look like ours. It's not your job to judge somebody's else's journey...unless you are paying for the tickets. With parenting and raising children, generalizations should be made cautiously and best- not to make them at all.

There is a popular advice to p…

The question is - who are you raising? A child or a sibling? If you are raising a child, the ingredients remain the same irrespective of age or siblings around. One may have few add-ons or subtractions. The basic ingredient of raising any child remains the same. Does it change if you have two in your house? You still want them to be kind, sensitive, courageous and grateful. Don't you?

Haven't you heard of a spoiled younger child? You indulge any child; the child will get spoilt. Personality traits of stubborn vs flexible, sociable vs private, ambitious vs content are all influenced by a variety of factors and existence/influence of a sibling is a tiny part. The problem is not in the child but your behavior towards him.

Let's look at the variety of accusation handed over to the single child and see how the single child can emerge a winner here with support of parents, extended family and friends.

Undoubtedly, the single child gets the double dose of love. Having a single child…