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 have none
DH has 12
The DC have 3 but they are in the Antipodes

I have 21, all in my mother’s side. My children have 10, but they don’t know them well.

My children have 8 cousins
I have 11

I have 18 cousins. My children have 7

I had 30 cousins all from my Dad's side, now I only have 25. They all had 40 children between them. I know all of my first cousins and most of their children. We don't socialise but most are on Facebook but we usually only meet up for funerals. I am in contact on an occasional basis with 5. My oldest cousin I'm in touch with will be 80 in January and the youngest cousin just a bit older than myself will be 59 next month.

My niece doesn't have any cousins of her own, her Dad is an only child and I don't have children but she refers to my cousins as hers.

I have 5. 2 are close to my age, there’s a 13 year age gap with my middle cousin and over 20 years between me and the youngest. I’m not especially close to any of them as we grew up scattered across the country, plus the huge age gaps.

Husband has 2. All grew up within half a mile of each other but not close.

Kids have 3.

Thanks for all the responses- so interesting! It does seem like there is a huge variety in number but in general the number has declined over generations.

I don't have any, which seems to be quite unusual for my era (80s) whenever it's come up in conversation. My dc have two, who we see a few times a year. It wouldn't make much difference to my dc to have no cousins tbh - they get on, but there's quite an age gap and they live on the other side of the country.

DH has 5 and saw them weekly - I have 5 met them less than 5 times in my life and two literally other side of globe - the do have kids never met and barly aware of.

Only met my second cousins few times not entire sure who or where they are but they are gobally scattered around.

Our kids have 2 and that's likely it. They've only met one - though fair few times - not youngest despite best efforts to try to.

Our parents - kids DGP - way more - 6 I think least and two up to 20+ - they seem to seem more of them older they get. So in our families it's change that happened generation before - with DH and I being late 70s kids - just when UK birth rate did drop below replacement level and stayed there.

DD only has one cousin and they live overseas - she’s only seen them twice, for a couple of weeks at a time (plus they’re opposite sexes and have an age gap so not much in common).

It is what it is, but obviously not ideal. She’s an only child, DP and I both have tiny families and DP’s only sibling is child-free, so DD was always going to have a limited extended family network. Neither DP nor I were really close to cousins growing up either; because my parents had kids much later than their siblings my brother and I were a good 15 years younger than most of my cousins and occupied a sort of no man’s land at family gatherings between them and their kids (my second cousins) - we always ended up feeling like a bit of a spare part.

DD’s isolation in this regard is a big part of why we’re in the process of moving out of London to a smaller, much more settled and less transient community - as she gets older she is going to need a local support network of friends and neighbours as we can’t provide these connections through family.

8…..they only see two of them. I had well over thirty.

I have 9 cousins, not including their children. My kids have zero - both me and their dad are only children. My kids ask about it a lot - I think families crop up as a subject quite a bit at school.

I have 22 on my mum's side and 18 on my dad's side. So altogether 40 first cousins. I keep in contact with about 10 of them. Our kids have 4 so far, I reckon they might well end up with 8.

I have no DC. I have 8 first cousins. One of my GMs was one of 8 in a Catholic family, and those 8 only produced 5 children in the next generation!

I have 5.
My dc have 10.
Sorry to spoil the data.

I have 17 on my mother's side alone, at least a dozen more on my father's.

My DC have one cousin.

I think I've 28 first cousins, but some of them have passed away. There's a big age gap between the older cousins and the younger ones. I fall somewhere in the middle. When we were small, we sometimes met up at Granny's house (not all at the same time!), but as we became teenagers, that contact dropped off. There's been the odd family reunion, but we mainly meet up at funerals these days. I'm closer to the ones who are around my own age.

DD has 12.

I have 66 cousins and dc has 9

I have 16, my kids have 9. But most of my cousins I haven't met, or seen for decades (live all over the world and some estranged before I was even born).
My kids see most of their cousins occasionally.

66!! 😮

I had about 12 of varying ages but then due to mums brother remarrying technically I had another 4 cousins but the age gap is so vast I don’t see them as cousins.

My DC have 4 cousins.

I have 5. I grew up with them... They all lived within 2 miles from me/my parents. They have 15 children between them. My brother and I have 4 between us.

DH has 21 cousins on his mum's side alone - he has never met about half of them, and only knows 3 of them really. His mum was the youngest one of 7, and is Irish/was born in Ireland, but came across to live in England with her parents and her slightly older sister when they were 11 and 13. The other 5 siblings were 18 to 28 at the time and stayed in Ireland.

So DH only really knows the DC of the aunt who came over with his mum and their parents. He has met around 10 of the other cousins and several aunts and uncles 5 or 6 times in his lifetime, but he hasn't seen any of the cousins (apart from the 3 who live in England,) for 20 years or more to be honest. Some of them he hasn't seen/had any contact with for 25-30 years.

His dad had a brother who died in his 20s and never had children, so DH has no cousins on that side.

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I have 9 cousins, saw 5 of a few times a year the other 4 not very much at all.
DC have 7 cousins. Unfortunately they are either much older or much younger and also not local.
I think the key to being close to your cousins is that you are close in age, live locally and your parents get on and see each other regularly that's all more important than quantity.

I only have one cousin. Both my parents kept in touch with their cousins so I knew their children, my second cousins, as a child.
My late DH had around 100 cousins, with large families on both sides of his family.

My DC have 8 cousins. My DB's DC have 9 cousins so we are reversing the trend.

I have 10 first cousins.

My children have four first cousins, soon to be five, but they don't really get to see three of them because my SIL is a nut job.