Episode #2: One Child Left Behind

The only child can't seem to get a break. Call us spoiled, call us selfish, call us unwilling to share—we've heard it before. Why "we"? Because we is me, and a number of the students in the writing program here at Columbia. But see, the only child is no longer the odd one out; in New York city over thirty percent of children grow solo. Kids are expensive, women are working longer, having them later, and only children are no longer a statement, but a necessity. This month's show includes a discussion with Daphne Uviller and Deborah Siegel, editors of the anthology One Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Woes of Growing Up Solo, a reading by Daphne from her essay about her imaginary sibling, a story by only child Kristin Vukovic on the sudden illness of her father, as well as the disembodied voices of only children in the writing program who have achieved their biological destinies in perhaps the world's loneliest (and onliest?) profession. {ML}

(Photo: This is Ondine. She lives in New York City with her parents. She enjoys boxing and interior design. Her mother dosen't allow her to go outside alone because of potential serial killers.)