Do you dote on your nephews/nieces?

[teatree123]

I have a two-year old who is much loved by both sets of grandparents and my siblings. My husband's brother and his wife, on the other hand, are just not bothered with her at all. My husband isn't especially close with his brother, and I get some people don't like children, but is the following behaviour normal?

• a very basic birthday card (to x, from y), no presents
• never ask after her in messages
• no response to photos of her shared in family WhatsApp (we share one maybe once a month max)

My siblings love my daughter. My friends who have nephews and nieces also love them to bits. So this is really odd to me. I can't help but feel hurt, and let this colour my relationship with my brother in law, particularly as they seem very fond of my brother in law's wife's (older) nephew and niece, and spend time with them.

Can someone help me make sense of this?

Just depends on the relationship with the parents. My dbro has kids but we had a poor relationship and they live 5 hours away we give presents as a token but I'm not close with them. My other dbro who I am close is going to be a dad and hes close with my dc so I can imagine il be close with his dc also. One sil we give gifts but shes more interested in dniece bothering with her other halfs cousins who have dc are in closer age to her dd and dh other sis has never bothered with our dc no presents but had a baby I havent met and suddenly decided to do presents after the birth of her dd and not getting our dc any gifts. We just let people get on with it.

Not really.
They are adults now.
Used to love my nephew until he grew up. Lazy frigging cocklodger now - grrrr.....
My niece was a horror. She's lovely now and my great nephew and niece are gorgeous but don't spend nearly enough time with them!
I think if my younger (full sister) had ever had kids it would have been very different.

I haven't seen my niece or nephew for years. My brother engineered a falling out between he and I and then his marriage broke up. For years, his kids thought someone else was their dad. Contact lapsed and since the kids didn't really understand who I was, I didn't like to push it. My niece will be 17 this year and I'd probably know her, as she is her DM's double, but I would probably walk past my 15 year old nephew. Rather sad.

I know this sounds horrendously sexist and I apologise but in my own experience women tend to dote more on their nieces/nephews than men. My two sisters and DP's sister dote on our DD, my sisters in particular. My brothers aren't particularly bothered. DP doesn't bother as much with his nieces (his DSis's children) in comparison. If I didn't buy the girls presents and remember their milestones it just wouldn't get done. I am very fond of them, but wouldn't say I dote on them like I would if they were my sisters' children. I suppose I fear overstepping boundaries that just wouldn't exist with my own sisters.

If they havent got their own kids they might just not be very child orientated. Its fair enough but can see why you're a bit hurt.

Hmmm I dote on my niece. My sis dd. However we don't see my husbands nieces and nephews at all. Maybe it's a female thing? You're more likely to become close if they're already close to the mum of the baby. I dunno

No, I send Birthday and Christmas presents but I don’t really have a relationship with any of them and while I am pleased to see them on the rare occasions I do if I never saw them again I don’t think I would care much to be honest

Nope.

I've had Lord knows how many nephews and nieces produced since I was seven. The one that was produced when I was seven was the first grandchild. Given that was also the year that I was told how hard my mother had tried to abort me, and I was the been there, done that, kid, and my parents barely had any time for me given that we lived in a pub, and now they cared even less, because there was a graaaaandson don't you know, no, I didn't dote on him. Especially since I was supposed to babysit him from the word go, including nappy changes.

I think that coloured my attitude towards subsequent nieces and nephews! I have ones that I have a better relationship than others.

I dote on my niece but I suspect it’s because i don’t have dc of my own. If I had my own dc I might not so much? She is my baby clothes buying, experience and cuddles fix

I like my nephews but I font have much contact.
I never bothered with presents or cards and it wasn't an issue when mine didnt get any. My (ex) BIL and Sil luved 5 minutes from us.
We all got on. The kids are now adults and the cousins socialise together, I'm in FB with them all.
That is our normal. There's no issues.

Not really, mainly as not close to BIL / SIL and they've not made the effort with our Dcs (who are older than their. )
I know a couple of childless women who are very close to their nieces and nephews.

My sister has no children. However there are several nieces/nephews from DHs brothers.
We're just not close. And we don't really have any interest in the kids because there's no real relationship with the parents. No argument. No bad feeling but just no bond or interest.
His best friend has kids and he calls him chats and asks about the kids.
We all went up to meet her at her birth. But with his brothers kids we just saw them the next time we were around.

My siblings that I interact with don’t have children. Dh’s sibling has children I’m not fussed about them really. I organise cards and presents but I wouldn’t check in with their parents to ask about them. Every so often dh will get a text “in case you where wondering about...” but they never ask about a ours either so 🤷🏻‍♀️ We all live within a 20minute drive too. Some of our children don’t like their cousins so that adds an extra layer that meet ups are always having to keep the peace between them and the younger cousins parents don't tend to step then their child is clearly bugging the crap out of ours by poking/shoving and getting all up in their faces so nah I’m not bothered in the slightest about them.

I have a baby niece. She's the only child in the family so I'm very interested in what's going on with her even though she lives far away. I actually didn't get her a birthday card, but got her a present sent in the post. I put some thought into it as I did with her Christmas present. Luckily for me, her dm posts photos of her on Facebook all the time.
I really don't know what it will be like when she's growing up and I worry that I actually live too far away for her to get to know me properly.
I remember being quite close to one of my uncles when he was young and single and living with my grandparents, but much less so once he had a family of his own and was never close to any of the others. I have one uncle whom I've probably only seen a max of 4 times in my life so I don't find it that strange for people not to be close to their nephews and nieces.
If anything, I was closer to a maiden great aunt than I was to any of my direct aunts or uncles.

I've two sets of "official" nieces and nephews.

I couldn't tell you the last time I saw one set (DH's brother & SIL). DH & Brother aren't close, and its been almost 2 years since we've seen them, in spite of trying to arrange a date nothing really works for them. Niece and nephew are 12 & 13. I don't love them, I don't really know them having only met a handful of times.

My Dsis and BIL on the other hand... we live reasonably close (about 60 miles or so) and see them every couple of months normally. I do love them, but I don't feel any differently towards them than I do my unofficial nieces and nephews.

I'm probably sounding like a right cow, but I am a lovely Aunt, officially or otherwise.

I have 2 nieces and I adore them. Don't live locally so don't see them much but we keep in touch and I always know what's going on in their lives. Always make an effort to spend time with them and do fun things when we do see them and would never dream of not marking a birthday or Christmas.

Funny how you can see the general consensus seems to be the issue with the men-ie. don’t see
my husbands nephews / nieces. So the idea that females keeping a family together is true.

I don’t ‘dote’ on them no.
The siblings that I get along with I send them cards and presents on their birthdays, see them for days out and Christmas etc. Take an interest in their lives.
The siblings that I don’t get along with I do the very bare minimum I can to maintain the relationship. That still includes a card and gift on their birthday but I have no real interest in spending time with their parents and that has an unavoidable impact on my feelings towards their children.

We have too many to dote on. 15 soon to be 16 nieces / nephews (all barring one are aged 11 and under!)

Plus we have 3 of our own

We always do birthday cards and I'm closer to some family members than others so certain cousins are 'closer'. All 3 of mine are in or will be in the same class as a cousin

Um, we're actually possibly closer to DH's nephews and nieces, possibly because they had their children closer to when we had ours.

No niece is spoilt and demanding. DH and I were trying to get pregnant (struggled) and lost two babies. Then younger sis got pregnant with her no mark boyfriend so it was difficult. A week after one miscarriage which they knew about and without warning my mum thrust my niece in my arms and said i better get used to it as i would have to help her out with niece as sister was going back to work.
I got pregnant with DS about a year later and then just before he was due my sis kicked her boyfriend out so still had to take priority.
From the moment they were born my two (close together) never got a look in with GP’s as my niece (first GC) always had to be centre of attention and screamed or demanded attention if my parents even looked at my DC. When my DC got older niece would befriend one of them and be really nasty to the other and have them in tears. As she was the first my parents practically brought her up yet were reluctant to look after my two for an occasional two hours every now and again. So it kind of soured the relationship.
I enjoy my much younger nephews on DH’s side although they live further away so we don’t see them often they are good fun, cute, not spoilt and a pleasure to be around. But I wouldnt say i doted on them either. I think with having children later in life I doted more on good friends children who had children much before I did. I think it depends on circumstances, distance, how often you see them and the relationship with your niece or nephews parents and whether you have similar values etc.

I really don't , my nephew's are my brother's children. I see them rarely but when I do it's nice but I don't crave to see them more regularly. I have my own family and priorities.
I understand that my own children aren't the centre of the universe for my family either.

Both my DBro and BIL were early 30s when DC1 was born & live 3hrs away. If it makes any difference, DBro has been in a long term relationship throughout whilst BIL has been single. DC1 is now 10. Neither have any children of their own.
Neither of them saw either DC until they were about 4 or 5 months old or acknowledged them in anyway. I did get a text of DBro.
The DC's birthdays are never acknowledged by DBro. They occasionally get Christmas presents. When we were children, we had an uncle who gave us presents when he saw us so I thought that he might for for that model. No! Other aunts & uncles of ours would always turn up with a comic or some sweets or something. Nothing. I find it really odd as, when we grew up, aunts & uncles were a big part of our lives. If he ever has children, I wonder what my role would be. Slightly randomly, they do send postcards sometimes if they're on holiday.
BIL dutifully sends an Amazon voucher every birthday & Christmas but doesn't go above & beyond that. The DC have never even been to his house where I am beginning to think he might have a secret partner and/or children or something

I can see some posters didn't like the word 'dote'. I just mean 'be very fond of'.

I don't expect DD to be the centre of their or any other relative's universe, at all. They have their own lives. But I do think it's bad form sending just a basic card and not even a small token present on her birthday. And to not respond at all on the rare occasions we share a photo (the grandparents do respond in the family WhatsApp so it's not just tumbleweed btw). Reading some posts, sounds like many of even those who don't really care do still make token gestures.

I do like BIL, and my instinct is to be kind and thoughtful on his birthday and take an interest in his life. But have to say his lack of interest in DD makes me disinclined to do so.

No, not dote nor love. I find them sweet and entertaining for about an hour, a bit irritating after that. I do buy them decent presents, though.