Do you take an interest in your spouse's nieces/nephews?
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Anonymous
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I was having this conversation with someone recently. They don't feel any desire/responsibility to take an interest in spouses nieces/nephews (sibling's kids), because they're not related to her, and were born before she and her DH got together. I found this incredibly weird.
I get that some people just aren't interested in kids, and no one should feel pressured to take on a role they did not choose, but the distinction of being related or not seems incredibly weird to me. She's friendly and asks her sister's kids about school, sports, etc. But doesn't interact with her DH's niece's nephews. I grew up thinking of aunts and uncles not just as my parents' siblings, but their spouses too. Am I in the minority? Is this weird? Do you only take an aunt/uncle role with the kids of *YOUR* siblings? |
Anonymous
| Given my brother seems unlikely to have a child, my only nieces/nephews are on my husband's side. I think I'm just as much an aunt to them as I would be to my brother's hypothetical children, just as my aunt was to me. My uncle passed, but I still call my aunt and send her cards. |
Anonymous
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DH's siblings have no kids, but DH is a super uncle to my nieces and nephews, all of whom were born before he and I got together. They get more excited about seeing him than about seeing me. Probably because he swings them around upside down.
I am close to my own uncles' wives, too. Even the one who married my uncle when I was already in my 20s. |
Anonymous
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Am I interested in my niece/nephew on my DH's side? Yes. Do I have much of a relationship with them? No.
But the same can be said about DH's brother and his wife towards my kids. Are they interested in my kids? Yes. Do they have much of a relationship with them? No. Even though we live 2 hours away, we never see each other. They few times we do see each other, the kids are playing with each other and not much time with the adults. I do have more of a relationship with my sister's kids. But that is also helped by the fact we work hard at trying to get together even though we live further away. |
Anonymous
| I take as much interest in DH's nieces/nephews as he does. |
Anonymous
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Oh wow. My parents had all brothers, so all my aunts are married into the family. I love them all and consider them 100% my family.
I adore my DH's niece. She was little when we started dating and now she's in middle school! I learned just how fast childhood can go by watching her grow up. My DH also adores the nieces and nephews on my side of the family. And like a PP, I am pretty sure they all like him more than me bc of all that wrestling. |
Anonymous
| These aren't HIS nieces and nephews, they are OUR nieces and nephews. We have a strained relationship with one of his siblings, and therefore very limited interactions with their young adults. His other sibling lives far away but we try to maintain relationships via emails, FB, and phone calls between DH and his brother and me and SIL. |
Anonymous
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Distance is the kicker for us. My sister lives 30 minutes from us. We see my nephew frequently and thus have a stronger relationship with them as opposed to my SIL who lives 12 hours away.
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Anonymous
+10000 I know when my SILs children were young, SIL was really, really into parading her children around: she would bring them into work, bring them to happy hour ("You have a baby - at a bar!" - yup, that's her)...you name it. It became really, really inappropriate and disruptive. But that is the epitome of SIL - self centered and inappropriate; everything is a double standard and great for her, but not anyone else. It turns out, she is kind of an attention whore (go figure). I know many people wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she never really proved anyone otherwise, and she was oblivious to her attention whore-ness. Everyone we knew mutually lost a ton of respect for her. There were some behaviors on her part that went along with this, so that did not help her cause. My DH could only do so much, in every way. SIL was really into trying got override DH, who was more than generous and more than accommodating. It depends on both of the parents: are you close to them? Do you have anything in common? Are they pleasant/agreeable/sociable/easy to get along with? Do they make the effort when their children are not at the forefront/before they had children? Are you only good when they need something? How close/how did they treat the sibling (aunt/uncle) growing up? Are they the inclusive type? Some of it has to do with the aunt/uncle: are they the youngest in their family/did they have younger people around them growing up/did they babysit more than most people? Are they accustomed to having little people around? If you are the youngest, usually you are not accustomed to having many, if any, younger people around. |
Anonymous
Same here. |
Anonymous
| Ha, considering my DH's nephew lives with us, yes. He's a good kid though and DH has always been very involved in his life. I honestly don't think DH would've married me if I was actively disinterested in him (the nephew). |
Anonymous
| yes, I adore them! |
Anonymous
| I don't have any on his side, but both of mine were born before DH came along, and he absolutely takes an interest in them. I probably do more of the little things like taking them out to eat or buying gifts, but he is just as active as I am in taking them out to play or on walks. We live further away now but when they visit he is as hands on with them as he is with our kids. |
Anonymous
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Very strange. Isn't that the objective of marriage - becoming one? No way would I distinguish nieces and nephews born to my siblings for those born to DH's brother.
??? Wtf. |
Anonymous
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I think it depends on your relationship with the adults.
My H brother and his wife are asses. We have no relationship with them or their kids, not really. We have very close relationships with his cousin's once removed who are like nieces/nephews. |