The Rise of Only Child Dynasties

The longer I study only children and one-child families, the more unexpected findings turn up. After an in-depth investigation for my new book Just One: The New Science, Secrets & Joy of Parenting an Only Child, I’m convinced there’s an only child revolution happening quietly in the United States and worldwide in developed countries.

It wasn’t always that way.

Women used to face an unspoken expectation: You had kids—plural—two or three (or more), that’s just what you did. Many of the adult only child parents I interviewed for my research recalled that most of their friends had siblings when they were growing up. That was the norm.

Until the last decade or so, the widely embraced family consisted of two children. But the times have changed. This once-preferred family is not feasible for or desired by a large swath of the population today. Even when a larger family is desired or hoped for, the trend toward one-child families is driven by a changed society and influenced by financial concerns or infertility, and women wanting (or needing) to be in the workforce. Many females of childbearing age place a high bar on having an identity beyond being a parent.

Stella, a physician and mother of a 5-year-old, proclaims, “With one child, my dream life feels attainable. With two, I’m not so sure. I know that sounds selfish. I also know what’s best for my child is doing what is best for me.”

The New Normal

Parents and would-be parents are rapidly reconfiguring what used to be accepted as the traditional family—a boy, a girl, a mom, and a dad. That’s seen both in the growing number of single-parent households and in the number of singletons.

Based on the numbers, the one-child family is looking more like the new traditional family. The European Large Families Confederation reports that 49 percent of families with children in the European Union have one child, edging out families with two, at 39 percent, and only 12 percent of European households are made up of three or more children.

Family configurations are diverse, and the multi-child households of the 1950s and beyond no longer lead as the most popular family sizes. It turns out the popularity of the one-child family has been quietly happening, if not in your house, then all around you.

The Proliferation of Only Child Dynasties

One of the most surprising findings that emerged from the new research for Just One: Adult only children are increasingly choosing to have “just one” child themselves. The resulting only child dynasties underscore the trend. Count on seeing more of them, most noticeably without the spoiled, entitled “little emperors” we heard so much about for so long—despite a lack of evidence to support such misinformed stereotypes.

For more people of child-bearing age, the overriding conclusion is that the one-child family is ideal for the way we live now. When you ask your only child friends about their early years, you may be surprised at how pleased only children are and were with the family they grew up in. They are so happy and satisfied, in fact, that many make the same choice to have “only one” child when they start their own families.

There’s already a clear pattern of only children having only children, like Penny, 75, who boasts: “I’m an only who has an only child, and she has only one child.” She hopes her grandson will add to the family’s dynasty one day.

“Being an only child was what I knew. I never thought about having more than one,” Connie, 64, told me when I had asked her how many children she thought she wanted. “My mother is an only, my husband is an only, I’m an only, and my only son has an only child.” That’s four generations of only children . . . and counting.

The mother of a young teenager, Sheetal, observes that only child dynasties are blossoming in part because “people are more open to the idea of one child. It used to be tolerance and now it’s full-blown acceptance.”

Georgina described the altered attitude about only children that encourages the rise in only child dynasties: “I had my daughter 10 years ago, and people didn’t hesitate to ask me when I was having another. When people find out that you only have one child now, the gasping and disbelief have stopped.”

Copyright @2025 by Susan Newman, Ph.D.