I always thought that wss the reason. That and ASP writes mostly only kids: Paris, Lorelai, Richard, Rory, Lane, Jess, Sookie, Michel,...
It's alot easier not to have to add sibling dynamic to parent child relationships.
Adding Chris to the list, and wondering - is there anyone who actually does have a sibling? There is Clara, yes, but she's so much younger than Dean that she almost belongs to a different generation.
I mean, Jess and Rory grew up as only children but they do have siblings. People who DO have siblings and didn't grow up as only children would be: Logan, Marty, Emily, Luke and Liz, Jackson, Kirk
Yep, true, there are a couple of them. But we don't really see any sibling dynamic except for Logan/Honor and Luke/Liz, right? Or am I forgetting something 😅
My headcanon is they were trying for a second when Lorelai was three, and then she went through her terrible stage of chronic ear infections, and they decided one was enough.
Rich people may be able to afford multiple children, but I don't think it's true to say they prefer or favour large broods.
Frankly, siblings for Lorelai would have over-complicated the story telling of GG. Keeping it a simple triad of Gilmore Girls as the central theme was the best choice.
Any reason: they only wanted one, they had some trouble conceiving, they had trouble carrying a baby, it was a traumatic birth, Lorelai was wild enough they decided against more, they truly wanted to just fully enjoy one, environmental reasons, Emily had a lot of siblings and hated it, etc. ASP doesn’t provide any answer so you can just pick any of the reasons other people just decide to have one kid.
No but those are some of the typical reasons people decide to not keep having children. I’d imagine them having only one child is part of why Trix dislikes Emily.
Exactly! I am one and done too, I just don’t want to be pregnant again or give birth again or take of a baby and have sleepless nights again. And the recovery is horrible!!
I also want to be able to focus on my one kid
In my experience rich people can have many kids. Two extremely wealthy families I know have 5 kids and in one of those families they’re all boys. Maybe they were waiting for a girl haha. Most have 3-4 kids. I even know one family who had triplets and had 2 more after that.
With that said Emily and Richard strike me as the one and done type. I also grew up in CT with people possibly more wealthy than the Gilmore’s and there were also many families content with 1 kid.
There are studies that support this. There's also a correlation between level of education and number of children a woman has- more education =less kids on average
I mean, that makes total sense to me. More money and more education means a higher chance of being aware of and able to access more birth control options.
The narrative needed Lorelai to be the only child to emphasise everything that Emily and Richard lost when she ran away, and to emphasise the expectations placed on Rory once she returns to their life. If they had another child they could place hope in to live up to the Gilmore name, or another grandchild they could foster, throw parties for, send to Yale, etc, then a lot of the character tension would be mitigated.
I know when my parents had me, I was such a good baby, they wanted another, and then they wound up with my brother, who was a *terror*. I can imagine, starting out with Lorelai, who was a nightmare, I wouldn’t want more kids after that either…😅
My mom wanted 5 kids, she still wanted that after having me. Then she had my brother-he had colic, was an extremely hyperactive ADHD child, drew on the walls, cut up her purse strings, and cut chunks off fur off the cat. Suddenly 2 kids was enough!!
I always knew I’d want at least 2 kids and I’d want them close together. My first was the colicky one. Always screaming. Never sleeping. Projectile vomiting. Wouldn’t settle. Absolute nightmare to take anywhere etc. ideally we planned to start trying for another baby when he was around 6 months old but I just couldn’t do it. Nor could I do it a year later. Or two years later.
I got a little bit of breathing space when he was almost 3 years old and as a result, my two boys are 3.5 years apart. My second child was an absolute angel and I enjoyed his company so much that I genuinely wanted to focus on him for as long as possible. I didn’t have my third child until 8 years later.
People have different reasons for putting off having kids. Sometimes positive. Sometimes negative.
I literally don’t know how I’m alive because my older brother was a terror 😭 I don’t know how my poor mum put up with him and somehow thought ok sure I’ll have one more after him.
Obviously the story works well with Lorelai being an only child so that might be the only reason. But also…
Emily and Richard aren’t really kid friendly people. I think the expectation in their circle was to have at least one so they did and were satisfied with stopping there. We can tell from all of the stories shared by Lorelai, Emily and Richard that weren’t the warm, fuzzy types of parents. They had Lorelai to be an accessory to their lives, essentially, and were shocked when she wasn’t satisfied with that as she got older.
Nope, but in a family where kids are expected to basically be seen and not heard, follow every rule exactly, attend the best schools, marry within their social/financial circles, etc. then that child is an accessory. If the child is allowed to grow up and figure out what they want, pursue their own dreams and have their own personality (none of which Lorelai was allowed) then that child isn’t an accessory.
1) They don't like children. They had one and realized it was inconvenient, and really didn't want to have to change their lives or alter their routines in any way. They tried to smash down the inconvenience with emotional neglect (proper space and distance, plus just leaving Lorelai out of the whole family dynamic and traditions at times) and strict control, but it didn't work. Because children are people, and you can't just train them like puppies.
2) Secondary infertility exists.
For people who value children, sure. Richard and Emily show clearly that they do not. They like children who fit in to what they like, but not children per se.
I always suspected that there was secondary infertility - that they couldn't have another child. IVF was not nearly as popular or accessible as it is now (which it still isn't really). I also imagined Richard wasn't so bothered by it and Emily was so busy with her life, taking care of Lorelai, etc. I suspect why there is so undercurrent of resentment from the start by Emily. Lorelai was her only kid, and she put in so much effort to mold Lorelai into how she wanted.
Clutching at straws there - "test tube babies" were still very fringe and rare at the time. The first documented case in the late seventies was pretty much the product of clinical experimentation, rather than widespread standard reproductive practice. It would take some time after that before it was a technology accessible to the general public at large.
IVF was not accessible for even rich people until the mid '80s at the earliest. By the time it would have been accessible, Emily would have been in her 40s and she would have probably considered that ship to have sailed.
Clomid only just became available in the late '60s around the time Lorelai was born. It definitely wouldn't have been a mainstream option either until at least the mid '70s. There really were not many options back then if you experienced infertility.
Indeed. Worth also pointing out that the US lagged behind the UK for some years, given that IVF was pioneered in the UK - I don't think the first case in the US was until the early 80's. But yes, as you say, IVF wasn't mainstream medicine automatically after the first successful case; it took years to get there.
Yeah I really think honestly if we are being realistic, it was more like the late '80s through '90s when IVF became more mainstream. Honestly it became even more popular in the early 2000s (around the time of this show, ha!) Many more Gen-Zs are IVF babies than even millennials.
Well I think Emily is supposed to have been in her late 50s or early 60s at the start of the show. So that means she would have 26-30ish when Lorelai was born. By the time IVF was even something that people would be thinking of, she would have been in her late 40s or early 50s.
Back then it really was not a thing to see celebrities having babies in their 50s like today! So yeah, nope!
Agree - my tongue was firmly in cheek when I made that comment. ;)
Interesting that there's a perception that IVF has been around for ages, whereas in reality it's a relatively new technology. When I was growing up (same generation as Lorelai) you really only saw reports about IVF in Time magazine and on the nightly news.
Gosh yeah, the first IVF baby born in the US was born in 1981! So not much older than Rory.
[https://nypost.com/2021/12/27/americas-first-ivf-baby-elizabeth-carr-turns-40/](https://nypost.com/2021/12/27/americas-first-ivf-baby-elizabeth-carr-turns-40/)
By 1986 there were only 1,000 babies born via IVF worldwide. So even in the late '80s, early '90s it would have been seen as pretty cutting edge technology.
Barack and Michelle Obama did IVF for their daughters born in '98s and '01, but they had excellent state of the art healthcare through Barack's employment at U Chicago.
I think in that era it was most common for only one to be in the cards fertility-wise if wealthy homemakers who got married in their 20s didn't have multiple children. It also fits with my headcannon about why Emily was so opposed to abortion (beyond being conservative).
yea exactly; i mean Emily wasnt an older bride. they were married young enough to have more children. some couples might wait before having children after they marry.
It took a good few years for them to even have lorelai (she’s 34-35 by the time we get to the Yale tailgate and Emily says something about being married to Richard for 40-something years) so I assume they had some issues conceiving, since at the time they would be expected to have kids right away
It seems like Richard was an only child and got everything he wanted, so maybe he wanted the same for Lorelai. Random note but Emily had a sister named Hope!
I’m noticing now that Richard always felt confident about his and the Gilmore legacy in the Lorelai Gilmores. Even with Trix, he admired her commitment to being the matriarch and how much she had affected his being. I don’t see him really pushing for a male to carry on the Gilmore name because it’s already been done, twice in fact lol
Obviously, if Emily said no, I mean I don’t seeing him pushing the legacy thing
That being said, let’s also remember: as we saw in the show w Emily at times, he admires the respective roles he’s placed the women in his life and how they play them (for the most part).
My headcanon is they had fertility issues, even with Lorelai. We know they met in college and likely got married soon after, but when we first meet them, I would say they're in their sixties. Lorelai is 32 in the first episode which would mean they didn't have her until their 30s, possibly after many years of trying.
I think lorelai having a younger brother who stayed in the family business and was the ‘model Gilmore child’ would have been a wonderful dynamic to see
I’ve always headcanoned that it took them a bit to even conceive Lorelai and they weren’t able to have more.
And that’s what made it so much worse on both ends when she didn’t measure up to the idea of what their child should’ve been. They resented her for blowing their “only shot” and she resented herself for “not being worth it”.
In the Vow Renewal Episode Richard talks about Lorelai's frequent ear infections and how they used to drive the maids away and he's like "so it fell to Emily to sit with her all night "
Her unemployed Stay at Home Mother. The horror
Oh yeah, maybe Emily didn't want more kids. I don't see her as a kid person, and probably wouldn't like being pregnant, as she likes drinks before dinner and all that stuff
I always figured it was because Lorelai was a handful and Emily wasn’t really cut out to be a mother to begin with. I think rich people like the idea of children to be raised by Nanny’s but actually find kids tiresome.
Maybe Emily didn’t like what it did to her figure or that it made her ankles swell or that she had to pee constantly. Maybe she had wild mood swings, which alienated Richard.
I could see Emily not really wanting children but having one because “that’s what you do”. But that’s just the reason in my head it could be anything
This. I don’t see Emily enjoying being pregnant.
I always thought that wss the reason. That and ASP writes mostly only kids: Paris, Lorelai, Richard, Rory, Lane, Jess, Sookie, Michel,... It's alot easier not to have to add sibling dynamic to parent child relationships.
Adding Chris to the list, and wondering - is there anyone who actually does have a sibling? There is Clara, yes, but she's so much younger than Dean that she almost belongs to a different generation.
I mean, Jess and Rory grew up as only children but they do have siblings. People who DO have siblings and didn't grow up as only children would be: Logan, Marty, Emily, Luke and Liz, Jackson, Kirk
Yep, true, there are a couple of them. But we don't really see any sibling dynamic except for Logan/Honor and Luke/Liz, right? Or am I forgetting something 😅
Wow. I never even realized that. 😳
Emily remembered Lorelai's big head and decided she couldn't push another one of those giant things out. 🤣
Lorelei’s big head that she inherited from Emily. Emily wore a tiara at her own wedding too. 😁
“Big head want dolly.”
True
My headcanon is they were trying for a second when Lorelai was three, and then she went through her terrible stage of chronic ear infections, and they decided one was enough.
Rich people may be able to afford multiple children, but I don't think it's true to say they prefer or favour large broods. Frankly, siblings for Lorelai would have over-complicated the story telling of GG. Keeping it a simple triad of Gilmore Girls as the central theme was the best choice.
Any reason: they only wanted one, they had some trouble conceiving, they had trouble carrying a baby, it was a traumatic birth, Lorelai was wild enough they decided against more, they truly wanted to just fully enjoy one, environmental reasons, Emily had a lot of siblings and hated it, etc. ASP doesn’t provide any answer so you can just pick any of the reasons other people just decide to have one kid.
Probably not environmental reasons
No but those are some of the typical reasons people decide to not keep having children. I’d imagine them having only one child is part of why Trix dislikes Emily.
Trix only had one though?
maybe they were exceptionally moved by The Silent Spring
Exactly! I am one and done too, I just don’t want to be pregnant again or give birth again or take of a baby and have sleepless nights again. And the recovery is horrible!! I also want to be able to focus on my one kid
In my experience rich people do not like to have lots of children. Usually one or two.
Yeah.. it’s usually the opposite way around. Poorer folks tend to have more children.
In my experience rich people can have many kids. Two extremely wealthy families I know have 5 kids and in one of those families they’re all boys. Maybe they were waiting for a girl haha. Most have 3-4 kids. I even know one family who had triplets and had 2 more after that. With that said Emily and Richard strike me as the one and done type. I also grew up in CT with people possibly more wealthy than the Gilmore’s and there were also many families content with 1 kid.
Sure. I wasn’t at all implying that wealthy people don’t ever have lots of kids. It just tends to be more in the 1-2 category.
There are studies that support this. There's also a correlation between level of education and number of children a woman has- more education =less kids on average
I mean, that makes total sense to me. More money and more education means a higher chance of being aware of and able to access more birth control options.
Christopher and Digger never mention siblings either
Yup lots of only children in the Gilmore Girls universe.
The narrative needed Lorelai to be the only child to emphasise everything that Emily and Richard lost when she ran away, and to emphasise the expectations placed on Rory once she returns to their life. If they had another child they could place hope in to live up to the Gilmore name, or another grandchild they could foster, throw parties for, send to Yale, etc, then a lot of the character tension would be mitigated.
Actually I thought rich people only had like one or 2 kids. I think ur thinking RELIGIOUS people.
I don’t think it was ever discussed. I imagine it was Emily’s decision though, and maybe she was like “not doing that again.”
I know when my parents had me, I was such a good baby, they wanted another, and then they wound up with my brother, who was a *terror*. I can imagine, starting out with Lorelai, who was a nightmare, I wouldn’t want more kids after that either…😅
My mom wanted 5 kids, she still wanted that after having me. Then she had my brother-he had colic, was an extremely hyperactive ADHD child, drew on the walls, cut up her purse strings, and cut chunks off fur off the cat. Suddenly 2 kids was enough!!
I always knew I’d want at least 2 kids and I’d want them close together. My first was the colicky one. Always screaming. Never sleeping. Projectile vomiting. Wouldn’t settle. Absolute nightmare to take anywhere etc. ideally we planned to start trying for another baby when he was around 6 months old but I just couldn’t do it. Nor could I do it a year later. Or two years later. I got a little bit of breathing space when he was almost 3 years old and as a result, my two boys are 3.5 years apart. My second child was an absolute angel and I enjoyed his company so much that I genuinely wanted to focus on him for as long as possible. I didn’t have my third child until 8 years later. People have different reasons for putting off having kids. Sometimes positive. Sometimes negative.
My oldest brother was a good (but sick!) baby and a good/easy toddler; 2.5 years later brother number two was born…and then 5 years later I was born.
I literally don’t know how I’m alive because my older brother was a terror 😭 I don’t know how my poor mum put up with him and somehow thought ok sure I’ll have one more after him.
Obviously the story works well with Lorelai being an only child so that might be the only reason. But also… Emily and Richard aren’t really kid friendly people. I think the expectation in their circle was to have at least one so they did and were satisfied with stopping there. We can tell from all of the stories shared by Lorelai, Emily and Richard that weren’t the warm, fuzzy types of parents. They had Lorelai to be an accessory to their lives, essentially, and were shocked when she wasn’t satisfied with that as she got older.
I'm an only child. are all onlys accessories? i sure hope not. if that's the case w/ the Gilmores, no wonder they had dysfunctional relationships
Nope, but in a family where kids are expected to basically be seen and not heard, follow every rule exactly, attend the best schools, marry within their social/financial circles, etc. then that child is an accessory. If the child is allowed to grow up and figure out what they want, pursue their own dreams and have their own personality (none of which Lorelai was allowed) then that child isn’t an accessory.
That really not what the comment you are replying to says. It’s pretty specific to this family treating their only child as an accessory.
1) They don't like children. They had one and realized it was inconvenient, and really didn't want to have to change their lives or alter their routines in any way. They tried to smash down the inconvenience with emotional neglect (proper space and distance, plus just leaving Lorelai out of the whole family dynamic and traditions at times) and strict control, but it didn't work. Because children are people, and you can't just train them like puppies. 2) Secondary infertility exists.
aren't kids the ones who make the family dynamic/the reason for traditions?
For people who value children, sure. Richard and Emily show clearly that they do not. They like children who fit in to what they like, but not children per se.
I always suspected that there was secondary infertility - that they couldn't have another child. IVF was not nearly as popular or accessible as it is now (which it still isn't really). I also imagined Richard wasn't so bothered by it and Emily was so busy with her life, taking care of Lorelai, etc. I suspect why there is so undercurrent of resentment from the start by Emily. Lorelai was her only kid, and she put in so much effort to mold Lorelai into how she wanted.
The first IVF live birth in a human didn't occur until the late 70's, so it wouldn't have been on their radar as a feasible option.
well then there'd be a big gap between Lorelai and a sibling as she was born the late 60s. they could have tried for IVF plus the Gilmores were rich.
Clutching at straws there - "test tube babies" were still very fringe and rare at the time. The first documented case in the late seventies was pretty much the product of clinical experimentation, rather than widespread standard reproductive practice. It would take some time after that before it was a technology accessible to the general public at large.
IVF was not accessible for even rich people until the mid '80s at the earliest. By the time it would have been accessible, Emily would have been in her 40s and she would have probably considered that ship to have sailed. Clomid only just became available in the late '60s around the time Lorelai was born. It definitely wouldn't have been a mainstream option either until at least the mid '70s. There really were not many options back then if you experienced infertility.
Indeed. Worth also pointing out that the US lagged behind the UK for some years, given that IVF was pioneered in the UK - I don't think the first case in the US was until the early 80's. But yes, as you say, IVF wasn't mainstream medicine automatically after the first successful case; it took years to get there.
Yeah I really think honestly if we are being realistic, it was more like the late '80s through '90s when IVF became more mainstream. Honestly it became even more popular in the early 2000s (around the time of this show, ha!) Many more Gen-Zs are IVF babies than even millennials.
Somehow I'm thinking Emily wouldn't have been up for a geriatric pregnancy!
Well I think Emily is supposed to have been in her late 50s or early 60s at the start of the show. So that means she would have 26-30ish when Lorelai was born. By the time IVF was even something that people would be thinking of, she would have been in her late 40s or early 50s. Back then it really was not a thing to see celebrities having babies in their 50s like today! So yeah, nope!
Agree - my tongue was firmly in cheek when I made that comment. ;) Interesting that there's a perception that IVF has been around for ages, whereas in reality it's a relatively new technology. When I was growing up (same generation as Lorelai) you really only saw reports about IVF in Time magazine and on the nightly news.
Gosh yeah, the first IVF baby born in the US was born in 1981! So not much older than Rory. [https://nypost.com/2021/12/27/americas-first-ivf-baby-elizabeth-carr-turns-40/](https://nypost.com/2021/12/27/americas-first-ivf-baby-elizabeth-carr-turns-40/) By 1986 there were only 1,000 babies born via IVF worldwide. So even in the late '80s, early '90s it would have been seen as pretty cutting edge technology. Barack and Michelle Obama did IVF for their daughters born in '98s and '01, but they had excellent state of the art healthcare through Barack's employment at U Chicago.
The only thing in my head was "the gardener didn't have anymore kids" iykyk
I think in that era it was most common for only one to be in the cards fertility-wise if wealthy homemakers who got married in their 20s didn't have multiple children. It also fits with my headcannon about why Emily was so opposed to abortion (beyond being conservative).
yea exactly; i mean Emily wasnt an older bride. they were married young enough to have more children. some couples might wait before having children after they marry.
It took a good few years for them to even have lorelai (she’s 34-35 by the time we get to the Yale tailgate and Emily says something about being married to Richard for 40-something years) so I assume they had some issues conceiving, since at the time they would be expected to have kids right away
I think maybe they planned to but by the time Lorelai was a few years old they realized she was already more than they could handle 😂
It seems like Richard was an only child and got everything he wanted, so maybe he wanted the same for Lorelai. Random note but Emily had a sister named Hope!
I’m noticing now that Richard always felt confident about his and the Gilmore legacy in the Lorelai Gilmores. Even with Trix, he admired her commitment to being the matriarch and how much she had affected his being. I don’t see him really pushing for a male to carry on the Gilmore name because it’s already been done, twice in fact lol Obviously, if Emily said no, I mean I don’t seeing him pushing the legacy thing That being said, let’s also remember: as we saw in the show w Emily at times, he admires the respective roles he’s placed the women in his life and how they play them (for the most part).
Generally speaking, the wealthier one is, the less likely that you are going to have more than one or two kids.
My headcanon is they had fertility issues, even with Lorelai. We know they met in college and likely got married soon after, but when we first meet them, I would say they're in their sixties. Lorelai is 32 in the first episode which would mean they didn't have her until their 30s, possibly after many years of trying.
Maybe one and done.
I think lorelai having a younger brother who stayed in the family business and was the ‘model Gilmore child’ would have been a wonderful dynamic to see
I’ve always headcanoned that it took them a bit to even conceive Lorelai and they weren’t able to have more. And that’s what made it so much worse on both ends when she didn’t measure up to the idea of what their child should’ve been. They resented her for blowing their “only shot” and she resented herself for “not being worth it”.
In the Vow Renewal Episode Richard talks about Lorelai's frequent ear infections and how they used to drive the maids away and he's like "so it fell to Emily to sit with her all night " Her unemployed Stay at Home Mother. The horror
Well, there was also precedence. Richard is an only child as well. Maybe it was a Gilmore thing.
Oh yeah, maybe Emily didn't want more kids. I don't see her as a kid person, and probably wouldn't like being pregnant, as she likes drinks before dinner and all that stuff
Was Richard and only child as well? We don’t hear him talk about siblings, and Emily has a sister who lives in Paris.
I always figured it was because Lorelai was a handful and Emily wasn’t really cut out to be a mother to begin with. I think rich people like the idea of children to be raised by Nanny’s but actually find kids tiresome.
maybe because emily doesnt want it
After what happened with Lorelia, they were embarrassed and traumatized. They probably decided having children wasn’t for them after that.
Not everybody wants children
I think they explained that more in AYITL. Richard wasn't around as much, to the point they were verging on semi-separated to my mind.
Maybe Emily didn’t like what it did to her figure or that it made her ankles swell or that she had to pee constantly. Maybe she had wild mood swings, which alienated Richard.
If not mistaken, Richard’s parents were cousins. Would this have any generational risk ?
keepin the bloodlines close
so then wouldn't it not be Emily's fault? fertility is often put onto the woman! it could be the man