I'm super close to my sister and thus her kids.

Anonymous wrote:I do not love my nieces or nephews on either side. That sounds cold. I feel some degree of kinship, but love is way too strong a word, especially since I have my own children.

+1. Their parents like to spend time with the other side of the family when they visit our coast so there just isn't a close relationship. It used to bother me but you can't change people's preferences.

Anonymous wrote:I do not love my nieces or nephews on either side. That sounds cold. I feel some degree of kinship, but love is way too strong a word, especially since I have my own children.

Wow, that does seem cold. I have two kids and nearly 20 nieces and nephews. I love all of those kids, as well as my own. Love doesn't get used up, plenty to go around.

For me, my spouse's nieces and nephews are my nieces and nephews.

I do not love my nieces or nephews on either side. That sounds cold. I feel some degree of kinship, but love is way too strong a word, especially since I have my own children.

I do, because I see them more (DC and NYC instead of Florida) and because my sisters are a lot more like me than my husband's sister, so I can relate to them more.

My DH prefers his niece/nephew and i like them too, but I'm closer to my sister's children.

I feel closer to my brother's son whom I haven't seen in 3 years than to my husband's sister's daughter. Just more invested in blood ties I guess. I love dh's niece as well but it's a bit different.

I dearly love my sister's kids (even though they can be PITAs) and love to address them as my nieces. I don't feel any of that warmth for my husband's brother's kids, and only address them as my nephews and niece in a stilted way. In our wills we had to address who our estates would go to if we both and our kids died - in my case my estate then goes to my nieces via my sister, and I went so far as to ask my husband to do the same (leave his estate to my blood nieces) and he got offended - I assumed he felt the same way!

Anonymous wrote:Family by marriage is not family. Blood or adoption is family.

You are a lunatic.

Family by marriage is not family. Blood or adoption is family.

My sister is my identical twin, so her children are as genetically related to me as my own kids. My nieces and nephews on DH's side are great, but I feel a lot closer to my sister's kids.

My brother's kids are teenagers, and they were born when I was a teen. Big age gap there between bro and me. I saw them at least weekly, babysat them, went to their sports and school events until I moved away after grad school. Now we text often. I met DH's only nephew when he was 2 and they live a six hour drive away. He's a bright and sweet little boy, but I definitely don't love him the way I love mine.

I definitely like the children on my family's side more. I think my husband may as well, though. His niece/nephew live closer and we see them in person more often, but we don't have a close relationship with his brother and the kids are really annoying.

I love them all but do feel closer to my sister's two daughters than the niece and nephew on my DH's side. Maybe it's because we see them more and seem to make more of an effort to get the kids together.