Our son doesn't have any family locally, will that have an impact?

[Fressia123]

I've always wondered about it and saw people worrying that their children won't see grandparents/relatives due to Covid. This has always been a reality for us, I thought he'd just be close to us, but wondered if the lack of extended family and grandparents will affect him, especially when all of his half siblings do have more normal grandparent set ups.

Op, my dc is in the worse situation. He is an only child, no family nearby, not even in England. I think he is growing up fine.

We live away from all our extended family. Pre-COVID, my son would see my family roughly every month for a weekend visit and my in-laws a bit less frequently than that, but normally for a longer duration. From an early age, we’ve always done FaceTime calls - nothing formal, normally just checking in with each other at teatime - and we upped the frequency when COVID hit.

My son has a lovely bond with all his grandparents and so far, has not seemed to suffer for having such a long time apart from them. He doesn’t seem to miss them because we have so much phone contact - it’s far from ideal, but so far, it’s working well for us.

My newphew lives locally to his grandparents and sees them a lot/has a close relationship with them and they provide some of his childcare. I have noticed that when we visit, my nephew can be a bit territorial about my son having hugs and attention from his grandparents, but it doesn’t phase my son at all. I think it bothers me more than my son has to “share” his time with his grandparents on the occasions we visit, but hopefully the boys will become firm friends as they grow up so it’s swings and roundabouts.

In summary, I think the grandparents miss out on more and suffer the distance more than the children do. I had another child at the end of last year and neither my family or in-laws have been able to meet her yet - I feel very sad for what they have lost, although my daughter will be none the wiser of course.

We don't have much family around at all. My brother is local but his kids are all Uni age/have left home. I have two other brothers, one of whom lives in Scotland, the other is in New Zealand. That's the sum total of my family, local or otherwise! My husband is from the Home Counties (we're in Wales) so our son only sees his Grandmother once a year even in normal times. No issues so far!

My DD was ok with my DM until she was about 4-5... After that she lost any interest in talking to her and she has been at time outright rude yo her. It doesn't help that my mother is stubborn and will only talk to her in Spanish, something my DD has absolutely no interest in.

I've seen my DSC with their grandma they only see once a year, they're fairly distant too which is not really pleasant to see either. I'm hoping that this baby having no other option will bond a bit better with his grandparents.

We are the same. I find it really really sad, but what’s been interesting is my eldest has alined herself with another family. The friendship is more, shes part of the family. Days out, she goes too (not now obviously!), it’s weird as we are a very tight unit so letting go has been strange.
It will be interesting if the younger one will follow.
They seem to just accept family as what it is and not miss what they haven’t known.
Let’s face it families come in all sorts of sizes and shapes.

We live 5 hours away from my family and 9 hours away from in laws, absolutely not a whiff of family nearby. I honestly don't believe it has an impact on my children. We have a number of friends spanning generations in our village and my children are growing up to know and love the 'family' we have built and chosen to have around us.
PreCovid we'd have family visit every couple of months and the children enjoy seeing them, but I think it's the grandparents who miss out more than the children because they don't know how to interact with young ones.

I think it is hard for a lot of people at the moment because it is not what they are used to. If you are used to it, it's fine.

We don't have that many friends but we do have a lovely congregation, they're like family but we haven't seen them in a very long time.

I think families come in all different arrangements, and the relationships depend on the people involved as much as distance.

I grew up with our nearest extended family 200 miles away. No cousins until my late teens. To be honest, I mostly felt quite lucky not to have a lot of extended family obligations (that may have come from my parents, whose decision to move away was a deliberate one).

I have teenage children now. They have two sets of cousins, all around the same age. One set live across the road, go to the same school, see each other almost daily in normal circumstances; the others live 300 miles away and we usually see them 3-4 times a year. They get on well with all of them - different relationships and some individuals get on better with others, but I wouldn't actually say they are closer emotionally to the local cousins, or have more fun with them.
Same with grandparents - one set are 10 minute drive away, others live in France. Again, I wouldn't say there's a great deal of difference in how the kids feel/relate to any of them. We haven't seen the French set in over a year, and everyone is missing each other though.

My grandmother figure was my nanny (both my grandmothers were very sour, the paternal not so much but my DM didn't like her that much although she did passed away while I was in the room with her and that's always been very moving).

I guess I'm not very hopeful because I know that my DSs grandparents have never had a meaningful relationship with any of their grandchildren.

My parents lived abroad and the DCs saw them about once a year for holidays. PIL lived locally so we saw them regularly. However, PIL weren't that interested in children and DCs ended up having a way better relationship with my parents to the extent of going to visit them independently when they grew up, and not because I'd told them to make a duty visit. Similarly with us growing up, one set of grandparents lived very far away, the other in the same region, but it was the further away ones we had the relationship with. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the relationship isn't necessarily going to die because you're not seeing each other every other day. You don't need to be in each other's pockets for it to exist.

I guess what makes it worse is that neither of the grandmas are warm and there the language barrier with one..

I lived 7 hours drive from my grandparents growing up and saw them about 3 times a year but for a week or two at a time. I was still really close to them and loved visiting them. I probably enjoyed it more than my cousin who saw them every month to fortnight. I think a big part of it/most important is how much effort the grandparents put into the time they do have with their grandchildren.

No, we don't have any family locally, never have. In fact, we don't really have much family in our lives generally. MIL visits a few times a year. We are NC with her partner, so we aren't allowed to visit her. We also aren't usually invited to most family gatherings as a result (her partner is a paedophile, that's the reason dh and I will have nothing to do with him). I am NC with my own family for similar reasons now unfortunately (due to abuse). But they don't live in the UK anyway, so even when we did visit them, it was very sporadic. My dc have lovely relationships with uncles and aunts though, who they see a few times a year and with our friends who are like family to them. It's fine.

I actually wasn't particularly close to most of my family (except maternal grandparents, who basically raised me) growing up as my parents weren't close to them. But I did have lots of 'aunties' and 'uncles' who were family friends who were like family to me. I'm in my 40s now and still keep in touch with them. Family doesn't have to be biological.

Ir doesn't no, but we don't have a lot of friends (apart from the congregation) which again not complaining as they get a lot of aunties and uncles so to speak from there, especially once Covid is gone and we can get back to meet once every fortnight