Pet peeve, sister's kids call niece aunt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a cousin who is the same generation as my parents and I call her Aunt L, but she has informed my parents that she finds this highly insulting. So I try to remember to call her Cousin L.

Why not just call her L. Are you afraid you might forget she's your cousin if you on't add the cousin before the L? I don't get all these ridiculous honorifics. Just call people by their damn name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. On my side of the family, everyone that is an "adult' is an aunt or uncle (even if the technical relationship is cousin or second cousin once removed or whatever). So a 7 year old would definitely call a 30 year old cousin "aunt."
(We are Chinese, FWIW).

On my husband's side, they definitely don't do that. So he has adult cousins that I would prefer my kids call "aunt/uncle" but that doesn't appear to be what they do. It seems strange to call someone "Cousin Jane," though.

We are Irish-English and all adults are Aunt/Uncle, no matter what the actual relationship is. We've always done it that way. The kids just don't call adults by their first names without some sort of respectful title.

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I have my kids call all adults Auntie First Name, Uncle First name, Ms. First Name, Mr. First Name. Sometimes they call their friends' moms 'Friend's name's mom.'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. On my side of the family, everyone that is an "adult' is an aunt or uncle (even if the technical relationship is cousin or second cousin once removed or whatever). So a 7 year old would definitely call a 30 year old cousin "aunt."
(We are Chinese, FWIW).

On my husband's side, they definitely don't do that. So he has adult cousins that I would prefer my kids call "aunt/uncle" but that doesn't appear to be what they do. It seems strange to call someone "Cousin Jane," though.

We are Irish-English and all adults are Aunt/Uncle, no matter what the actual relationship is. We've always done it that way. The kids just don't call adults by their first names without some sort of respectful title.

We are Indians and as kids called all adults Aunt/Uncle - even friends of our parents. My kids do the same. Also if a cousin is older (or much older) - then they will be called by the title of "elder brother" or "elder sister".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My father was raised with his cousins. I call them Aunt/Uncle, and I call their parents (my great aunt and uncle) grandma and grandpa.

My dads family is the same way. All the 1st and 2nd cousins grew up together so if you're in the same generation as my dad, I call you aunt or uncle. It's a lot easier for discussion purposes, esp since we have a tendency to reuse names.

[Anonymous]

My daughter's first cousins on her father's side are close to 40. (She is 8 -- children in DH's family in a spread of 22 years). Their children are older than she is. Calling the cousins Aunt and Uncle is natural to her. Why would it bother others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a cousin who is the same generation as my parents and I call her Aunt L, but she has informed my parents that she finds this highly insulting. So I try to remember to call her Cousin L.

Why not just call her L. Are you afraid you might forget she's your cousin if you on't add the cousin before the L? I don't get all these ridiculous honorifics. Just call people by their damn name.

Lol I agree. I'm 15-25 years older than my younger cousins, and they've always just called me my name. Never would have dreamed that they call me aunt!

And my youngest uncle is only 10 years older than me, but I've always called him uncle. Never would have thought otherwise!

[Anonymous]

"everyone that is an "adult' is an aunt or uncle (even if the technical relationship is cousin or second cousin once removed or whatever). So a 7 year old would definitely call a 30 year old cousin "aunt." "

Yes, I know a few large families who do this based on age.

[Anonymous]

Our Dc call all our very close family friends "Aunt X" or "Uncle Y" Part cultural, part affection-bsaed.

[Anonymous]

My one and only cousin from my Dad's side is 25 years older than I am and I always called her by her first name. FWIW, my Dad is Italian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Niece is thirty, younger nieces and nephews are 7-11. I have a thirteen year old. It is just wierd. I think my sister wants to feel young.

At that age, I used to call several relatives "Aunt Firstname" or "Uncle Firstname" even tho they weren't real aunts or uncles. They all were my seniors by several decades and I felt weird addressing them just by their first name, and there wasn't an appropriate honorific in my culture to define our real blood tie (e.g. you wouldn't call someone "Cousin" or "Cousin Firstname"). So, even if I knew that they weren't technically aunts and uncles, that's what I called them. They were fine with it and so were my parents.

Only around 14-15 did I start feeling comfortable addressing these relatives by first name only, and there's one of them I refer to this day as "Uncle S.", maybe because I can count on one hand the times I've interacted with him in my life and I somehow feel that a honorific is more appropriate than just plain S.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are a good 15 to 20 years older than some of his little cousins. They used to refer to him as their uncle x or if corrected uncle cousin x when they were little because they couldn't fathom that he was their peer. We thought it was cute and endearing.