How many cousins do you have/ your DC have?

[Allswellthatendswelll]

Inspired by this article in the Times:

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/why-cousins-are-dying-out-it-matters-more-than-you-think-d6vr0rgtx

It's behind a paywall sorry but basically it says due to declining birthrates children born now are much less likely to have lots of cousins. I think down from average 7 to 5 but falling quite a bit. The article argues that this means children have less peers their age in family gatherings to play with and smaller networks.

I find it very interesting as I have 13 cousins but I'm not very close to any of them as an adult. My DC have 4 for now but probably 7 or 8 once everyone is done. I'm quite glad they have quite a few cousins but perhaps we are becoming more unusual as all our siblings have kids or intend to.

I'm 33 and have no cousins. My 5 year old has 4 cousins

I have 8 cousins,
DH has none
DD has 4 - two of whom she has never met, but my cousins children are her cousins too so tells everyone she has more cousins than fingers 😊

DD has several "Aunts and Uncles" despite only having 2 actual aunts and uncles

I've got 13 who I never interact with, other than the occasional FB like of photos or whatever.

Kids have 0 and never will have.

I have 8 cousins, all but 1 of which we saw lots of growing up. My children have 4, two from each of my siblings.

I have a friend whose parents are both only children, so she had no aunts, uncles or cousins. My cousins were such a massive part of my childhood that I struggle to get my head around not having any.

I have a very fucked up family tree, I have somewhere in the region of 80-100 cousins.

My dc have 9 cousins.

I'm nc with my family though so don't see any of them.

I’ve got 5 or 6 cousins but wouldn’t recognise them if they walked past me in the street. I rarely saw them as a child.

My DS who is 4 has 2 cousins both are adults.

20 cousins. For me
3 from stepdad so 17 If you dont want to cou nt them
I also have 2 double cousins as my mothers brother married my fathers sister.

My children have 5
1 from my side 4 from dhs

I have 8, I only occasionally see 3 of them. 2 I have barely ever seen my entire life. My DH has 4, 2 of which I have never met in 25 years!
my children have 7 so seems pretty reasonable and they see them all regularly.

I have 4 who I barely know. My children have 5, 1 of whom they see regularly. 4 they barely know.

I have around 26, my parents both 1 of 6. My children have 2.

I cant count the amount of first and second cousins i have

My children have no first cousins they have loads of second cousins on one side but I was born with one sibling as was my children's father and only one of us had children

I have two - haven't seen them for 30 years. As I have contributed to the declining birthrate I have no children to have cousins; and my sister was infertile so no nieces or nephews.

Hmm we have 22 first cousins between us and my kids only have 2 first cousins. However the whole family is very close so they see all the children of our cousins = 44 plus a lot of extra more distant cousins

I have a lot...
25 on dad's side
8 on mums side
Dh has 16, but only really sees 2

At present our dc have none, unless you count cousins children, in which case they have 17

I have 11 cousins, one that I see fairly frequently as she lives near me, I keep in distant touch with all but two of the rest and we get on well if we meet up.

DC don't have any cousins on my side and they had four on DH's side. All of them more than a decade older than my DC and they grew up in the far east whereas my DC grew up in Europe. Two of them they get along with when they meet up, one of them died unexpectedly a few years ago and the fourth doesn't really take much to anyone in the family.

I have 11cousins, my children have 8.

Interesting so many people are saying they barely see their cousins. We all move about and family gatherings tend to be few and far between. whilst I think a falling birth rate had good/bad implications, I don’t think lack of cousins is something people tend to be concerned about.

Similar 60 are you Irish?

I have 2. My 3 DC have 2.

I have about 30 first cousins, and while I don’t see th often we get on really well when we do.

my kids have about 15 and have the same dynamic, particularly with the ones in my side of the family.

It's not true for us.

I have 2 first cousins, my DC have 20 first cousins aged between 15 and 2 (I'm one of 4 children and DP is one of 7 children)

I have 9 cousins but only see 2 of them as an adult and don’t see them as often as I would like. My boys have 3 cousins but only really see one of them often, there’s a big age gap (cousins are all mid-late teens whereas my boys are pre-school) so I don’t imagine they’ll be close growing up unfortunately.

Both DH and I have 4 each but he knows a lot of his second cousins and there are around 10. DS has 9 cousins and 4 second cousins. Due to age gaps he is closer in age to his second cousins.

I have three first cousins, my kids have none. DH is an only child and my siblings are all still in their teens so nowhere near thinking about having children yet

I don’t know how many I have as I never really grew up knowing my extended family. There are 4 siblings on my maternal side and probably 3/4 on my paternal, though not all had children. But I would guess I have 10 ish maybe? Could not tell you any names though! Dh’s mum is one of 5 sisters and all had 2-4 children, so Dh has like a million cousins and 2nd cousins.

My dc have no cousins. I have a half brother who never married or had children as far as I know (we are NC for 20+ years but best I can see from Facebook). BIL and his partner are childfree, so Dh and I are the only ones in our generation who had children.

I think we are unusual though. Certainly everyone I know has siblings with oodles of children. I think our families are just uniquely dysfunctional so have consciously opted out for that reason. 😂