Growing up with few cousins

[Anonymous]

I have 28 first cousins and am exceptionally close (as in texting, calling, or seeing regularly) to at least 3/4ths of them and/or their spouses. DH has 39 first cousins and social media has connected us much better. Strangely enough, our kids have no first cousins and never will though. We’ve plugged them in to their second and third cousins though. Now that they are all young adults, they manage their own relationships. It’s nice to watch!

[Anonymous]

My kids don’t have any cousins despite my husband being 1 of 4 kids and my being 1 of 3. It is what it is. I doubt we’d live near each other anyway so any hypothetical cousins would be seen once a year at the holidays probably.

[Anonymous]

Eh, I have about 20 first cousins on my fathers's side and we all grew up geographically close but everyone was at least two years younger/older and we still mostly saw each other at my grandparents' (a 10 minute walk for me) on holidays. Since my grandparents passed I don't see any of them really.

[Anonymous]

Your kids have 3 cousins OP? Mine have only 1.

[Anonymous]

I have lots of cousins who I saw a few x a year as a kid. None lived locally. We had fun together but the distance meant that we weren’t that close and we aren’t that close now as adults either. We see each other at weddings and funerals and every once in awhile in between if we happen to be passing through each other’s city or happen to be visiting another relative at the same time. We don’t have close enough relationships where we’d go on a trip just to see each other though.

My kids have 2 first cousins on my husband’s side who live in Europe and 2 first cousins on my side who are in Asia. So we hardly see them and I doubt our kids will be close w them sadly.

[Anonymous]

My kids have 2 close-age cousins but they live on the other side of the country. They are both boys while I have boy/girl. My girl wished to have a girl cousin her age and felt a bit left out of the boys relationship. Certainly a girl can be close with boy cousins but for not-frequent-visits they didn't really gel. However, she did enjoy spending time on those visits with my old friend who had girls about her age. A cousin-like relationship.

They also had cousins 10+ years older and now 10+ years younger and have come to enjoy those relationships when we see them a couple times a year. We don't live near any of them.

This is the same as my experience had been -- when I was 3 we moved away from any extended family and saw them only every few years. I still felt close to my same-age girl cousins and enjoy visiting them now. My kids actually see their cousins more often than I did because we make it a priority to visit at least once a year.

[Anonymous]

My DC has tons of cousins, but their parents are religious and tries to convert my child. So we keep them at arms length.

[Anonymous]

Two cousins. Never close to them. They lived multiple states away. I think I met them no more than four times in my childhood and two involved funerals. One died of an overdose in his 20s. The other is faking her way through life, her latest transformation is pretending to be male. We'll see what the next one is.

[Anonymous]

I have lots of first cousins and have wonderful memories of sleepovers and other family fun with them. I’m still close to many of them even though none live near me. So I hear you, OP. Cousins are special and I wish my kids had more. We have made it a point to get together as much as we can with the few they do have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My children have very few cousins (3, all adults) and it makes me sad because I had tons - boomer generation so kids of 10 siblings.

They somewhat know their first cousins once removed, but even in our generation very few chose to have kids (maybe 50% of us).

I keep wishing my SIL/BIL have kids but I think due to her health issues, him being against it and really poor they never will.

Anyone else feel like this?

Growing up with same age cousins is really awesome. My kids have this on DH’s side and it’s a big part of their life.

But there isn’t much you can do about it so why stress?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have four cousins who have been like siblings to me. My kids have two cousins who live in Asia. It is kind of heartbreaking but what can we do?
The harder part is that for whatever reason my kids' friends seem to have lots of local cousins, so they have a lot of cousin-only get togethers and my kids feel envy. They see their cousins once a year or so and it's a lot of pressure to make the most of that time.

[Anonymous]

My kids have 0 cousins, and like you, I had tons. We knew early on that they wouldn't have cousins; it's one of the reasons we chose to have a third child. So in that sense, I'm super glad because my third child is awesome!

[Anonymous]

My kid has no first cousins but a few second cousins who live close. We don't see them that often because we are all busy and we're cousins, not friends.

I figure they may have a nice adult relationship if they want to, but for now, it would be forced to vacation together and stuff.

I didn't have any close in age cousins and now as an adult I have several cousins I keep in touch with and could rely on if I needed to (and vice versa).

For my teen, who is mainly an introvert, I am thrilled he has a chosen "friend family" of guys that stay in touch even though they do to different schools and buy each other bday gifts. It's a pleasure to watch joyful boy friendships evolve and I hope he has a number of those to carry into adulthood. In the end memories are memories and shared experiences are shared experiences.

[Anonymous]

I lived near and grew up with my cousins and I had very different talents and followed a different path that took me away from the area.

I really don't think it matters as much as you think OP. It nice to know them and they are good people, we just don't have much in common aside from our childhoods.

[Anonymous]

I get it op. I have a lot of cousins, but I grew up away from them. I remember being envious of the kids who went to school with their cousins and always had someone to hang out with.

I had hoped when I had children they'd be able to experience growing up with cousins. Life didn't go as planned so the closest cousin in age is 5 years older.

Our world is different now too it's more important that kids have soccer practice and dance competitions and French club til 7pm than family dinners and get togethers and grandmas even if grandma lives closeby