The youngest child of a rather large family can sometimes end up as the last child standing. By that I mean, all the older children have grown up and moved out and the last two or three years of high school, he ends up as effectively an only child. I've seen it happen with several friends of ours and generally, the kid doesn't like being an only child after a lifetime of noise and rowdiness surrounded by siblings.
When our youngest became aware of this likelihood, he didn't like it at all and we knew it would be hard when it happended. Especially because it would probably be at the beginning of his sophomore year in high school - leaving him an "only" for three full years before college. Except right around the time his brother headed out, his oldest brother got very sick and came home. Then the second oldest moved home to grad school. And then his sister graduated from college and she came home for a year before grad school. So, over the past 3 years (he's a senior now) he has always had at least 1 sibling, often 2 - 3. And life around here has been dynamic and interesting and fun for him. Sometimes he would choose to stay home on a weekend night, just to hang out with his brothers or his sister.
Our oldest son is now mostly recovered and getting back to work. Once he has steady income, he'll be moving out. He remarked on this whole "only" child threat yesterday, and said something about his illness being God's plan so that the youngest wouldn't have to go through that. And I said I'm not sure I believe God makes you sick. And his response: "Everything is gift, I believe everything is gift." And that's true.
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