By Jenni Murray
|
His name is David Robert and he’s my baby brother. He was born only last night. This was my boast to the school dinner ladies.
But the truth was that I didn’t have a baby brother â€" a lie that was humiliatingly revealed when my mother turned up to a school function that night and was teased for having a pregnancy that had never shown.
The next day I faced the full force of her fury. I was smacked for telling such a whopper, denied a month’s pocket money and grounded for two weeks (child psychology in Barnsley was, I fear, in its infancy in the Fifties).Â
Doted on: Toddler Jenni and her adoring parents
But the truth was, at the age of seven, I desperately wanted a brother (David Robert was the name I would have been given had I been a boy) or any sibling for that matter.
I was an only child. A very much loved and precious child, but an only child nonetheless. To this day I wish little David Robert had been real.
I was reminded of my status as a ‘lonely only’ this week when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that nearly half of families in Britain have just one child.
The number of one-child families has increased by almost 700,000 in 15 years and they are likely to be in the majority within a decade.
The reason? The ONS said larger families are under pressure because of ‘the greater challenge of combining work with childcare with three or more children compared with one or two’.
Some critics fear the decline of the traditional family with 2.4 children may lead to a generation of ‘little emperors’, a phrase coined in China, where the rule of one child for every couple has produced millions of spoilt youngster s
Lonely only: Jenni wishes she had a sibling
My concern runs deeper than that. I worry for this generation of children, who, like me, will grow up desperate for a sibling to share their joy and pain and with whom to have a good old scrap. I worry that, like me, they will watch alone and terrified as their parents grow old, with no one who has shared their childhood memories to comfort them in their loss.
My mother had always wanted two or three children, but her experience giving birth to me put paid to that.
In 1950, and married for just over a year, they opted for a hospital rather than home delivery for their first child. It almost proved a disaster.
Mum laboured, largely alone, flat on her back and with her legs in stirrups, for more than 24 hours. She often told me how close we both came to dying until, finally, her plight was spotted by a passing obstetrician.
I was dragged out by forceps and my poor moth er needed surgery to repair the damage done to her.
She may have been keen to have a son named David Robert, but she never wanted to go through such an experience again. I was consigned to life as a little princess, albeit a lonely one.
We lived with my maternal grandparents until I was three and I remember being content, though my social circle consisted entirely of adoring adults.
My every wish was granted. I was pampered and spoilt. But I always felt something was missing.
I longed to go to school and find other children to play with. My adoring grandparents listened to my pleas and scraped together the fees for the convent school, which would take me at four rather than five.
I can’t deny there were advantages to being an only child. When we moved into our first house, built by the council just around the corner from my grandparents, I had my own room, decor ated to my taste, with blue striped wallpaper, matching carpet and curtains, a desk, bookshelves and dressing table.
There was even an electric bed warmer to ensure the beloved Jen enjoyed a cosy bedtime.
'Throughout my childhood, I longed for a partner in crime. Someone to share the pressure of expectation'
Mum bought me a dog for company, sent me for elocution lessons, encouraged Dad to go to night school to qualify as an electrical engineer and saved the deposit for a semi within the catchment of Barnsley Girls’ High School.
Dad’s mantra was: ‘Must work hard for pennies for Jennifer!’
Though my parents did their best for me, there was a downside to being the focus of such undivided attention.
While I had all the books I could possibly desire and was never criticised for tucking myself away and reading them, I was conscious there were expectations of me that school friends who had brothers and sisters didn’t suffer.
If I came second in a test, I was asked why I hadn’t come top.
When I wanted to be scruffy, I was told to clean myself up and look ‘nice’. If I was naughty, I was always punished.
Children from bigger families seemed to get away with murder and never came under pressure to be perfect.
So, throughout my childhood, I longed for a partner in crime. Someone to share the pressure of expectation. Someone to cover up for me when I misbehaved.
Meanwhile, I strived in my mission for perfection. I passed the 11-plus and fulfilled expectation number one. I made it to the high school, looked the bees’ knees in my new uniform and was placed in the A-stream.
Precious relationship: Jenni's two sons Edward and Charlie when they were little
But then calamity struck. Dad was offered a contract in India and said he would only accept it if Mum agreed to join him in Calcutta. The company would pay for my education at a boarding school in Darjeeling. I had no intention of going anywhere but Barnsley Girls’ High School and couldn’t understand why Mum would agree to me attending a boarding school.
Hadn’t she always said she couldn’t see the point in having children if you sent them away?
She was a young woman in her early 30s in love with her husband. She wasn’t going to miss the chance of sharing his promotion.
We compromised: I’d stay with Grandma and Grandpa and Mum would spend half the year with Dad and the rest with me.
When she left, my world fell apart. I felt abandoned and jealous, and had no siblings with whom to share my grief.
< span>Little families
In 1996, there were 1.3 million families with three or more children. By 2012, there were just 1.1 million
Having parents who adore each other seems like a perfect world, but if you’re the piggy in the middle of their passion, it can make you feel excluded.
There was a strange pattern throughout my teenage years. Lax discipline during the time spent at my grandparents, followed by fierce control when my mother came back.
No short skirts, no long hair, no make-up, no late nights, she would decree. I know she only wanted to protect me and support my education, but I spent long years wishing she would just get off my case.
Still, I made my parents proud, doing well in my O-levels and A-levels and fulfilling ambition number two, a place at university.
And then a job at the BBC! They could not have been more thrilled as their daughter progressed from local radio to regional TV, to network TV on Newsnight and then to Radio 4’s Today and Woman’s Hour, my mother’s favourite p rogrammes.
However, Mum never ceased her devotion to my improvement. I don’t remember her ever paying me a compliment. By the time I was established at work, Dad’s sequence of foreign contracts had ended and they were back home, able to keep a beady eye on me.
After an appearance on Newsnight, the phone would ring very late at night.
‘Hello love. I watched you on TV tonight.’
‘Oh, what did you think of the interview with Norman Tebbit?’
Jenni had Charlie, pictured, because she was determined her first born wouldn't be an only child like her
‘Did you interview Norman Tebbit? I’m sorry, love, I didn’t notice what you said, but you know your eyes are your best feature, well, your fringe is a bit long so it hides them and that red top you had on, it’s a bit bright for someone of your colouring?.?.?.’ Night after night after night.
Yes, she wanted her only child to be perfect, but her only child was relieved to spend the rest of her career on the radio where she couldn’t see how long my fringe was.
The really tough times came when my parents grew older.
My husband David (yes, I married a man with my imaginary brother’s name!) and I moved to the Peak District to be closer to them.
I envied David his four brothers and sister because they had each other to share the difficulties associated with having ageing parents who need support. In the mid-Nineties, my mother, by then in her 70s, developed Parkinson’s disease. Dad needed me for company and as an articulate advocate as she became more and more needy.
Just about every weekend, with teenage boys to care for as well, I travelled to Barnsley to see my parents.
David proved a staunch supporter, but I longed for another adult who loved them as much as I did, who could share the responsibility and the sheer agony of watching my beloved parents struggle and fade.
In 2006, they died within six months of each other. Jealousy struck at me again. I’m sure that Dad, unable to envisage life without his beloved wife, died of a broken heart.
I still miss them more than I can say.
All the time, exacerbating my grief was the dreadful realisation that, with them gone, there is no one with whom to reminisce about my childhood. I feel like a lonely orphan.
I know how expensive it is to raise a child, but my experience made me determined not to inflict similar isolation on my own offspring.
So I made the decision that I would do my best to ensure my first-born, Ed, would have a sibling with whom to argue, fight, whinge about his parents and, one day, share the responsibility of illness, death and becoming the grown-ups in the family.
Ed loves his brother and the pair are the best of friends. Knowing the true worth of the gift I’ve given them, from never having had it myself, makes their relationship so much more precious to behold.
So I’d say to the parents of only children who are scared of the financial implications of bringing another baby into the world: think long and hard about the decision you’re making.
Life without a few of life’s luxuries does children no harm at all. But life as a lonely only is just that: lonely.
No comments:
Post a Comment