It's right up there with, when you've lost a child in a miscarriage, "It's ok you can try again". Uh no. It was a life! And a life that had a very personal connection made with you. It's not ok, and it's not like going out and buying a brand new car because your old one was totalled. Yes, it was devastating, but there is a compensation of sorts. No such luck when it's your baby.

I've always thought saying the one and only was meant as a note that the lineage has ended, you know, no way to get another "little John Smith", as a punctuation to the pain of how even more deeply the death touched. Not to diminish it, but the opposite. A worse kind of death. Is that even possible? I thought that was it, but I could be wrong. I hear ya though.

If you stop and think about it, it smacks of the mentality of another era. A century ago, children were the only form of social security aging parents had. If you lost an only child, and a spouse, you were in a dire situation. On top of that, great importance was put on perpetuating family lines and the lost of an only child who also happened to be male was probably considered an even more tragic event. I'm sure parents loved their children then as much as they do now, but children were also potential commodities.

In my own parent's day, an orphan or abandoned child was often released to the care of distant kin, or just as often non-related adults to help out on farms, or in wealthy households.

But yes, also like you are suggesting, it's a phrase used to render up a 'worse' tragedy than the death of a child who had siblings. And, it is insensitive to any parent of multiple children who has suffered losing one.

I have to admit when i read an obit of a young person im more saddened to see they were an only child and now the parents are left childless.

Well, I'm going to side with Pamven on this one.

I have three children, two of them living. I lost my daughter Gillian on Memorial Day, 2001. We were as close as a mother and daughter can be. We "got" each other, loved to be creative together and experience nature together, and just enjoyed each other so much. It astonishes me to think that I have lived almost eight years without her.

It's hard to imagine that the impact of this loss could be any worse. But if she'd been my only child, I think I would have given up. My husband, who has since died, was suffering from severe dementia at the time. My other children, and my granddaughter, gave me a reason to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. They suffered, too. They needed me, and I needed them. And for my part, at least, that will always be true.

So yes, when I learn of parents who are left childless, I do feel worse for them.

Susan