One-and-done families?

Reader question:

Why are a single-child families called “one and done families”?

My comments:

Literally, it means the parents of those families bear ONE child AND then decide they’re DONE with it.

Done with childbearing, period.

Done, as in, finished.

Game over.

Don’t believe me? Check how Cambridge Dictionary defines this idiom:

One and done: Done, or doing something, only once and never again.

See?

“One” and “done” are thus grouped because the two words rhyme.

It’s as simple as that.

And, remember, this phrase can be used to describe any one-time event, something that happens just once.

No repeat action, in other words, as is the case in our example.

In our example, families are called “one and done” because they have one child and no more.

No more babies for them, ever.

I’m sorry. I may have made this sound like one-and-done parents don’t like children. That’s not the case, of course. If they don’t like children, they may not have ventured into having a baby to begin with. I’m sure they have a good reason not to have more children. For instance, they want to dote on their only child with undivided attention. They don’t want their child to have any competition from siblings. They want their child to monopolize their affection and time.

Speaking of time, with one child, they might have some time left to keep pursuing their careers and such like.

Obviously, the more children they have, the less time parents can spare for themselves.

Like I said, one-and-done parents must have a good reason to do what they do, just as parents who have a bunch of kids must have a good reason to do so.

To each, as they say, their own.

I mean, let’s don’t be judgmental.

All right, let’s read a few media examples for greater clarity on “one and done”:

1. Just the one?

So, are you one and done?

Oh…he’s an only child?

I’ve been asked innumerable iterations of this question – typically by total strangers – since I had my son five years ago. But after experiencing postpartum depression not once, but twice, I’ve been ambivalent about having another baby, so my answer to this invasive, all-too-common inquiry is complicated.

Some days, the language we use to talk about “only” children makes me feel judged, or somehow less than mothers with multiple kids. Other days, I feel annoyed that questions about family planning have become as quotidian as discussing the weather. Either way, these conversations have made it clear just how many people still believe that when it comes to children, one is the loneliest number.

If we remove emotion from the equation and look solely at the data, it makes sense why more families are deciding to stop at one. A recent study showed that in 2025, the average cost of raising a child until the age of 18 in the US is $300,000. This figure doesn’t account for the cost of post-secondary education, which in Canada (where I am from) is expected to rise to over $100,000 for a four-year university education. In Canada, one-child families are already the most common type, representing 45% of households with kids, while the average American family downsized from 3.7 children in 1960 to 1.9 currently. With these economic pressures alone, it seems only logical that the one-child family trend will continue. But logic doesn’t seem to be the leading influence when we’re talking about adding more kids to the mix.

In her 2013 book One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One, Lauren Sandler writes that the reason the decision is so nuanced is because “children are a desire, not a calculation.” I’ve observed how my own desire to do the “right” thing for my child has made the age-old arguments for a second that much more persuasive. We all know them: A sibling is a lifelong friend for your child, they can keep each other busy, they’ll never be lonely! It helps with socialization and learning to share. More children can share the responsibility of caring for their aging parents. There’s just as much, if not more, rhetoric about the problematic nature of only children. In the late 1800s, two child psychologists coined the term only child syndrome to describe the negative traits that their research showed only children often possess, including being spoiled, selfish, maladjusted, and anti-social.

I want the world for my son, of course – and yet I’m still not sure if I am up for doing it all over again. It’s why I’ve found so much comfort in a viral TikTok video from a self-described “one & done mom,” who argues that being a mother of one allows women to choose motherhood as well as themselves. The comment section is filled with proud moms sharing what they’ve been able to do with their lives by deciding not to have a second child – from travelling to reaching career goals and having more time to do the things they love.

- In Motherhood, Can We Stop Using the Phrase ‘One and Done‘? By Liz Hammond, Vogue.com, June 11, 2025.

2. Kevin Durant has had an incredible NBA career. He is viewed by most basketball experts as one of the 15 greatest players to ever play. However, before he was drafted by the Seattle SuperSonics, Durant played one season with the Texas Longhorns. He had a stellar season, averaging 25.8 points, 11.1 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.9 blocks and 1.9 steals per game.

On Wednesday, Duke’s Cooper Flagg was selected first in the 2025 NBA draft by the Dallas Mavericks. Flagg also only played one season of college before declaring for the draft. In the hours before the draft, analyst Mike Greenberg listed his five best one-and-done players since 2006, only factoring in their success in college. He had Kevin Durant at the top of the list.

Durant has gone on to be one of the most successful players in NBA history. He started his career in Seattle before the franchise moved to Oklahoma City in 2008. He then stayed with the Thunder until he signed with Golden State in 2016. He won two championships with them in 2017 and 2018.

Mike Greenberg included some other big stars on his list of the five best one-and-done players since 2006. He included Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson, Michael Beasley, and Kevin Love.

Cooper Flagg will now be trying to replicate the success of some of the great one-and-done players who have come before him.

- Analyst Names Kevin Durant the Best One-and-Done College Player Since 2006, AthlonSports.com, June 26, 2025.

3. They feel, as one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims put it, like they’re “being erased.”

While a civil war rages in MAGA world over President Donald Trump’s decision to disavow conspiracies that his most ardent supporters stoked about Epstein being part of a deep state sex-trafficking cabal, the women who were victimized by the billionaire say their suffering is being sidelined by raw politics.

Four Epstein victims who spoke with NBC News say the Trump administration should be exposing any powerful men who shared Epstein’s penchant for vulnerable young women, not putting the brakes on any future prosecutions.

“You never really heal,” said Danielle Bensky, 38, who was a budding ballerina when she said Epstein abused her two decades ago. “And with what’s happening now, it feels like we’re being erased. All the brave women who came forward … all the work that we did to tell the world what happened to us, it’s all being erased.”

The victims spoke with NBC News recently as Trump tried to mollify supporters angered by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement that the “client list” she claimed to have on her desk did not exist, and that Epstein’s death in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges was a jailhouse suicide and not a murder to silence him, as many believe.

Faced with what critics and allies are calling a severe threat to his presidency, Trump has alternately dismissed the furor as a “hoax” ginned-up by Democrats and ordered Bondi to release “pertinent” grand jury transcripts and other documents that could shed more light on the scandal.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump wrote a bawdy birthday letter for Epstein more than two decades ago. NBC News has not seen the original letter, and Trump has called it “a fake thing.”

Bensky said her heart sank earlier this month when Bondi, who had amplified Trump’s campaign promises to “demolish the deep state,” released a two-page memo stating there was no evidence of an “incriminating client list” of men who had sex with young women procured by the financier and that her office would not prosecute anyone else in the case.

“I felt a wave of sadness,” Bensky said. “All those years of trying to gain justice just negated. It was just two pages saying they were done investigating with no details about what happened to all of us. It’s like we never existed.”

For other victims, Epstein’s reappearance in the news is like tearing the scab from a wound.

“The reality is, trauma is never a one and done,” Epstein victim Teresa J. Helm said by email to NBC News. “It’s complex. It can take a lifetime to repair oneself. Various things can initiate a trauma response, and that’s just daily life.”

Helm, who said she was hired to give Epstein massages and was sexually assaulted by him in the early 2000s, now works with sexual assault victims for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. She said whatever hope she had for getting a measure of justice is now gone.

“When a person’s abuser(s) are repeatedly flashed in view at any given moment, and especially when promises of justice, and promises of structures of power finally being held to account – to then essentially have the door shut in your face and no longer open for business – then what?” Helm wrote in her email.

- Epstein victims say the Trump administration’s handling of the case adds to their anguish, NBC News, July 19, 2025.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）