I am an only child. Thus, as you are probably aware, I am a selfish jerk. Thanks to some asshole named G. Stanley Hall, an early nineteenth American psychologist, peeps throw around the term “only child syndrome” like they’re all experts in someone’s biology and expect/assume me to be a spoiled, self-entitled brat. Hall even called our situation “a disease in itself.” Thanks! (But, I should also note his other main area of study was, um, tickling. So, yeah, dude’s all over the place!)

The thing is, being an only child is way more than just living life as some kind of misfit loner (which, by the way, I am totally fiiiinne with). Here are some hard truths about being a one-and-only.

1. I’m 31 years old and I am still referred to as an “only CHILD.” One day I will be an old lady, smacking my gums, looking for my teeth, and people will still refer to me as a child and it will still sound as patronizing—not cute—as ever. At least first-borns are the “eldest” and the youngest are called, well, the youngest (“middle children,” well, they’re the weird ones, aren’t they?).

2. “You’re too cool to be an only child” or “You’re totally an only child” get tossed at me equally, and I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to feel about either statement. Uh, thanks?

3. My parents, especially my mom, are my best friends. We’re exceptionally tight. I have a strange affinity for The Gilmore Girls and, well, there’s a perfectly acceptable reason for that (besides being a fan of its whip-smart dialogue). Growing up BFFs with your mom is a special and weird thing that none of my friends completely understood. Sure, we have some blurred boundaries a la Chinatown (“She’s my sister AND my daughter!”) but since my childhood, I have always preferred to spend my Saturday nights curled up on the couch with my mom watching TCM…

4. …Which leads me to my next point. Only children tend to act/talk way older than our actual age because we’re hanging out with adults so much. I’m not saying I was discussing RRSPs during recess, but I certainly was pondering the artistic integrity of Dances With Wolves while my friends were hopped up on Tiny Toons.

5. We don’t have anyone to back up the validity of our wild childhood stories the way most people do with their brothers and sisters. No one can verify whether I almost died the night I took my mom’s Jeep for a joyride at 16 and met a one-eyed gas jockey who-most-likely-was-totally-a-serial-killer and that’s something I’ll have to live with (and thankfully he did let me live!).

6. Friends are family. They’re fr-amily. I don’t take friendship lightly. Like most things in my life, when I’m friends with someone, I, a) take it very seriously and b) am all in forever (until further notice). Maybe my intense loyalty is due to my lack of siblings, but I don’t know any other way to be friends with someone, and I don’t want to.

7. More about this lack of sibling thing. Because I didn’t grow up with other people hogging the bathroom and borrowing my clothes without asking, it’s assumed I’m socially awkward. Well, there have been hundreds of studies that prove that only children are as adept with leadership, extroversion, maturity and flexibility as children with siblings. My aloof, “bossy” (sorry, Sheryl Sandberg) and quirky nature is mine and mine alone, and has nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t have some dumb brother giving me dutch ovens on the couch (OK, maybe, I don’t like to share, but who does?!)

8. So about this “dumb brother.” I’ve been asked many times the age-old question: if I could have any sibling (girl/boy, young/older), what would I want? Hands down: an older brother. Not only would he have protected me from mean bullies and douche boyfriends, but also he’d no doubt have hot friends coming over to the house all the time, and well, there’s nothin’ wrong with that.

9. Discussing whether only children grew up with imaginary friends (um, Fluffo the Cat was totes real) or that we have an insane need for personal space (Montana seems like the ideal spot sometimes) is all fun and games (until you seriously get all up in my grill), but the topic of only children gets serious when the topic of life and death is brought up. Life as an only child is pretty awesome. Of course, I don’t know any other way to live, but I do know having my parents’ resources—time, energy, attention—directed at me and only me helped shape me into the independent and well-rounded person I am today. My parents and I are very much intertwined because we’re a tripod unit; if one of the legs go missing, the whole ship will sink. And this is where it starts to get heavy.

As I age and think about my ever-shrinking pool of eggs and wrinkles and how gravity can be such a shit, I am faced not only with my own mortality but my parents’ as well. They’re getting older. They are older. And one day, they will need my resources—time, energy, attention—directed at them and only them as they get to that inevitable stage where the child and parent switch roles; the one who was always taken care of becomes the caretaker, and the caretaker becomes the one who needs care.

It’s scary shit to think about. I don’t have another sibling who can help out with doctors’ visits, who can be my shoulder to lean on when things get tough and gritty, who can help out with eventual, you know, arrangements…

I will be all alone in this.

Even now, as I write that and imagine what that will look like and feel like, it seems foreign to me because, despite my only child-ness, I never actually feel alone. Even when I am physically alone, like now at my computer, I don’t feel loneliness or an emptiness. Because I am an only child, I have this wonderfully unique relationship with my parents, the world, and most importantly, with myself, that I would not have if I had a brother or a sister. People often say they have the first kid for themselves and the second child to benefit their first, but, I mean, dutch ovens aren’t all what they’re cracked up to be, right? Besides…

10. Most superheroes are only children.