Do extended families naturally drift apart?

[Archangelic]

Do extended families naturally drift apart as they get older? I feel like a common trend is for cousins to all play and grow up together, but as they become adults and have families of their own, a “new” extended family is created with the cousins parents being the patriarch and matriarch, with the new generation of kids being the focus. Meanwhile, the other branches of the family are relegated further and further until they are only seen maybe once a year, if anything.

Did that make sense? Is there truth to that? I love my extended family dearly and they have been an important part of my life growing up, but the cousins are getting older and starting to form families or independent lives of their own.

 

[nancymarie]

I find this to be true to a certain extent.

As my cousins have all gotten older, some have become sick, some have moved far away and some have just drifted away for other reasons. Actually, without Facebook, I wouldn’t have much contact with them at all.

I have one set of cousins who are like brothers and sisters, Thank God, and these good souls continue to call and I visit them frequently, but as for the rest…

I think it’s just a normal, but sad part of getting older.

 

[Joe_5859]

It’s very hard to generalize too much as family dynamics run the spectrum, but I can see how this can happen. That’s been my experience. My extended family was much closer growing up because we all lived near each other. Now we’re all spread out and have families of our own. I don’t see my siblings or my friends nearly as often either.

 

[3DOCTORS]

Yes, and there are a lot of variables that seem to affect whether you can stay close with them or not.

I’m an only child, so cousins were and are the closest I had to siblings - but my dad’s job took him and my mom to a different city before I was born. It was a 1-hour drive to paternal side of the family’s town and a 3-hour drive to maternal side’s. Still, we managed to go to the former about once a month and the latter about quarterly.

This became less as my parents aged. When I learned to drive, I could make visits on my own but there were work and college so it wasn’t frequent. Then I developed agoraphobia and it became harder to manage the 1-hour drive. I can’t do it anymore. The last time I visited the other side of the family was in 1995 and then I took the bus.

And it seems that unless there’s a big event such as a holiday or a funeral (five of my first cousins have passed away since I’ve been alive) the rest of them don’t keep me in the loop much. I’ve tried to foster the relationships but there’s just not that shared growing up together to draw on that they all have with each other. Facebook seemed promising for awhile but in recent months it seems the family hasn’t been on it much. I’m about to get rid of it anyway because I’m burned out on it for other reasons.

The fact that I never married or became a mom also did not help in the “having things in common to converse about” department.

The lack of a shared religious bond has had a profound effect on this too. As far as I know, I’m the only cousin of the Catholic side who has really remained practicing. There are one or two on the Protestant side who I can talk about spiritual stuff with a little, though some of our approaches are different - but I actually feel like at least they care about the morals and what’s going on in the world and they’re pro-life and such.

 

[cheezey]

Do extended families naturally drift apart as they get older? I feel like a common trend is for cousins to all play and grow up together, but as they become adults and have families of their own, a “new” extended family is created with the cousins parents being the patriarch and matriarch, with the new generation of kids being the focus. Meanwhile, the other branches of the family are relegated further and further until they are only seen maybe once a year, if anything.

Did that make sense? Is there truth to that? I love my extended family dearly and they have been an important part of my life growing up, but the cousins are getting older and starting to form families or independent lives of their own.

Yes, it makes sense; I always thought it to be weird that I never knew my cousins well while growing up. I have about 15 of them; don’t even remember all the names of Uncle Franklin’s kids. This is sad. And this is from a time when most made it a point to go visiting them, all somewhat nearby, on a Sunday. Now they are indeed all over the world; one lives in Germany. I never see any of them. Shame…

 

[3DOCTORS]

When I was grade school age and some of my older cousins were getting married and having children (in that order, back in the day! ), I used to daydream about when I would get married and have children and how we’d visit each other and our children play together while us adults sat around and talked. Sadly, that dream never came to be.

 

[JackieMom]

You grew up with your parents’ siblings kids. Let’s say there were 10.

Then they all marry and have two kids of ther own. Now that 10 is 40 people.

Your cousins also have in-laws to accomodate for holidays and vacations.

Your kids will likely also grow up with their parents’ siblings kids (their cousins.). The extended family is simply too big, spread out and complex to get together like the old days.

Of course your parents will become the patriarch and matriarch of their family! They deserve to be. You will still run into some of your cousins at weddings and so forth, but they will probably mostly do things with their parents and inlaws. Unless your family is teeny tiny, that’s kind of how it goes.

 

[3DOCTORS]

Another factor is how much of a tradition your family had before of having family reunions or not. Our family did have one that I attended and a couple others that I wasn’t able to attend. But some families make a point to have one every year or at least as often as they can. It takes a person who is a good organizer and who can get as many of the others on board with the idea as possible. :grouphug:

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

I was just pondering this same thing the other day. Ye I think that for most families the extended family that people had while they were kids does indeed go away as they age. For us it seemed to last a while longer but that was b/c of my grandma who was somewhat of the matriarch of the family (along with her 2 sisters). She passed away about 3 years ago and with her passing my mom and her brothers and sisters drifted apart slowly. I see my cousins maybe once a year and if it weren’t for facebook or the occasional email I would never talk to the, I don’t live on the same side of town as they do and don’t do the same things they do.

On my dad’s side I would say that they are all still fairly close but that’s b/c they all go to the same church and are the same religion (which I’m not). So I don’t see or talk to them that much either.

It’s sad and I do hope that my kids will stay close to each other growing up…they don’t have any 1st cousins and only see their 2nd cousins on my side once in a while. My mom lives an hour away and my brother lives in Germany.

 

[3DOCTORS]

My Grandma on my dad’s side was definitely the “glue” that held the family together - although there were beginning to be consequences of the 1960s and 70s societal drift from the traditional family structure. There were shotgun weddings and then divorces and remarriages. Still, we held together as best we could. Grandma’s passing in the early 80s was the end of an era, though.

 

[Joe_5859]

You grew up with your parents’ siblings kids. Let’s say there were 10.

Then they all marry and have two kids of ther own. Now that 10 is 40 people.

Your cousins also have in-laws to accomodate for holidays and vacations.

Your kids will likely also grow up with their parents’ siblings kids (their cousins.). The extended family is simply too big, spread out and complex to get together like the old days.

Of course your parents will become the patriarch and matriarch of their family! They deserve to be. You will still run into some of your cousins at weddings and so forth, but they will probably mostly do things with their parents and inlaws. Unless your family is teeny tiny, that’s kind of how it goes.

Very true. People have a way of multiplying. There’s no way we could just have a Thanksgiving dinner with all the extended family anymore without renting out a hall.

 

[3DOCTORS]

Very true. People have a way of multiplying. There’s no way we could just have a Thanksgiving dinner with all the extended family anymore without renting out a hall.

A summer reunion at a public park might be a cheap and fun option - depending on how far apart you all live.

 

[Joe_5859]

A summer reunion at a public park might be a cheap and fun option - depending on how far apart you all live.

Unfortunately, we’re all too spread apart now. Especially me. I’m hundreds of miles from anyone.

 

[cheezey]

I think it’s a new mindset, too, in addition to in-laws, traveling, spread apart families.
A dear friend’s mother, who I like to refer to as my mother-in law, thought it strange that I didn’t even know all my cousins. She’s also 85 and has more energy than three of me put together; she still lives with the must-see-family-often mentality and I love it. For this, I felt close to a family for a change; hers (one of my best friend’s). My family, small as it is, would never consider this and it’s a shame. It is interesting to note that she rarely excludes her son-in-law’s mother (THAT’S extended!) from her travels. Whenever this brood gets together, it is an event of about 100 - 150 people; 98% family. I think it’s great. But also rare…

 

[PatriceA]

You grew up with your parents’ siblings kids. Let’s say there were 10.

Then they all marry and have two kids of ther own. Now that 10 is 40 people.

Your cousins also have in-laws to accomodate for holidays and vacations.

Your kids will likely also grow up with their parents’ siblings kids (their cousins.). The extended family is simply too big, spread out and complex to get together like the old days.

Of course your parents will become the patriarch and matriarch of their family! They deserve to be. You will still run into some of your cousins at weddings and so forth, but they will probably mostly do things with their parents and inlaws. Unless your family is teeny tiny, that’s kind of how it goes.

I agree to a certain extent.

But my mom was talking about this subject herself just a few days ago and for the sake of the discussion my mom is 86 years old. She was talking about people don’t “visit” like they use to, there was a time when I was growing up, somebody either a friend or family was always stopping in to visit my parents or we were going to visit family. We spent a lot of time just getting together with family and friends, the coffee pot was always on and it wasn’t unheard of that an extra plate had to be set for dinner for an unexpected guest.

We were extremely close as an extended family, but I think things changed even before any of we cousins started to get married. People got “busy” but if you ask them what they are busying doing, they can’t really tell you, they’re just “busy.” Neighbors use to talk to each other, now its not uncommon that people don’t even know everyone that live on the same street. There was a time we’d be having this discussion face to face, not we’re all electronic and our relationships are formed through technology to a certain extent.

 

[JackieMom]

I agree to a certain extent.

But my mom was talking about this subject herself just a few days ago and for the sake of the discussion my mom is 86 years old. She was talking about people don’t “visit” like they use to, there was a time when I was growing up, somebody either a friend or family was always stopping in to visit my parents or we were going to visit family. We spent a lot of time just getting together with family and friends, the coffee pot was always on and it wasn’t unheard of that an extra plate had to be set for dinner for an unexpected guest.

We were extremely close as an extended family, but I think things changed even before any of we cousins started to get married. People got “busy” but if you ask them what they are busying doing, they can’t really tell you, they’re just “busy.” Neighbors use to talk to each other, now its not uncommon that people don’t even know everyone that live on the same street. There was a time we’d be having this discussion face to face, not we’re all electronic and our relationships are formed through technology to a certain extent.

True. We are all too tired and busy to visit, too set in our ways. I am probably a bit younger than you are, as my parents are still in their 50s. I was raised with the idea that it was almost rude to visit people, Heaven forbid drop in on short notice or expect to stay somewhere overnight. I’m the only woman on my small block that’s home during the daytime. Things are different.

 

[trustbank44]

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[cheezey]

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which I think roughly translates to
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How to report?

 

[Lochias]

I think the drift is felt a little more acutely by those of us who haven’t yet married and started families of our own.

There’s only one group of my cousins that I see regularly, and the oldest of them is what I would consider to be my best friend; but neither he nor I have started families of our own, and we’re both just into our 30s.

The rest of my cousins, by and large, have all gone on and started their own thing.

 

[3DOCTORS]

True. We are all too tired and busy to visit, too set in our ways. I am probably a bit younger than you are, as my parents are still in their 50s. I was raised with the idea that it was almost rude to visit people, Heaven forbid drop in on short notice or expect to stay somewhere overnight. I’m the only woman on my small block that’s home during the daytime. Things are different.

Yes, so true. Also, younger parents (for me that would be my first cousins’ children as they are the ones in the childrearing years now) often have their children involved in a lot of social and enrichment activities. They sometimes bond more with the other parents and children involved in those than with their own families, or their neighbors. The “front porch of a summer evening” dynamic is something nostalgic of a bygone era.

Many of my friends are other single or divorced women of my age bracket, some of whom did raise kids but now their kids have left the nest.