To feel worried about no extended family for my kids?

[saltnpepa]

My father, fil and mil died last year all within a few months of eachother. My mother lives in France and shows no interest in our children at all. I have one narc sister who I have had to go nc with due to years of abuse and a brother who lives in New Zealand. On my dh side things are no better, his sister and brother both live in Canada. We see these overseas relatives maybe once every few years. My children literally have no family they see because they can't really remember year to year yet and only my db skypes, the others just live their own lives. To make matters worse my dh is not a hugely sociable person and only has a couple of friends who he makes zero effort with and they don't have kids anyway. I have lots of friends with the children but they're not family friends iyswim, more people we spend days out with rather than see on the weekends or go on holiday with.

We have a peaceful life just us and do lots of lovely things together but I worry about them not having a family around them and what that deprives them of. I have also never had any help of any sort, and that is wearing a little thin although I have got used to it.

I know where you're coming from. Our situation is better than yours but I lost my mum and dh his dad. We live in a different continent to any of our families and our surviving parents aren't healthy.

I do feel jealous when I see loving extended families but it's beyond my control. I cant invent family for them or have stopped their grandparents dying. All I can do is give my kids the best childhood within my control.It sounds crazy but one of my mmotivations for having a third child was to provide that bigger family feeling because we lack extended family.

I think yanbu but at the same time there's really nothing you can do about it so focus on the things you can change.

What about your auntie/uncle, cousins, 2nd cousins etc. We are in a similar position so rely on our son meeting more distant relatives.

YABU in a way but it won't feel like that for you. My DC have extended family and we're "meant" to be close but we only really see my Mother! My sisters make almost no effort and my brother does about twice a month but he's not "kid orientated" really.

You are their rock. As they grow and make more friends their world will enlarge. They will be fine.

I had no extended family growing up, just me, dm, df and dsis. It was all I knew and so was completely normal to me. Christmas was small but cosy and we had lots of friends so never bothered me at all. Dh has a huge family so have married into a big support network (bit of a shock at first!)

Because of DD's SN and my DS's energy, my mother has decided that she can't cope with both of my children at once (even if DH and I are there too ). This means that all of the lovely walks that our whole family used to go on... and Christmas Day, are for the rest of the family (and DD alone), not all of us.

I actually ended up thinking, well fuck her then... and I made my own extended family.

We've got brilliant friends with children of similar ages who we've only known for the past 3/4 years. We go camping, both here and on the continent, for walks, picnics, nights out (and in). All of us love the warmth and security we feel from this lovely group of families.

It wasn't instant, but we're all quite accepting of each other's quirks and we are enthusiastic about getting out and about.

I love them all like family .

YANBU and I'm really sorry for your losses

I do worry about this as I have no one other than my brother, and he has a disability ... Basically if I die, I don't like to think what would happen to dd (don't suggest friends, it just isn't possible for a myriad of reasons.)

I also think she will miss out in grandparents and so on.

It's sad.

Sorry for your losses.

How many dc do you have? One of the main reasons why I had 2 dc was so that as adults they will have each other as support, assuming that they do get on well. If I didn't have much in the way of close family myself I would almost certainly have had at least one more dc to widen their support network.

Hope no one shoots me down for that. But depending on your situation, having more dc may be worth thinking about?

I was brought up away from my extended family but grew up with a bunch of people who I regard as family. My parents also made an effort to keep in contact with yheir own cousins so I now keep in touch with my 2nd/3rd cousins. These distant cousins are closer to me than my own 1st cousins. I think family are who you make them, they are not always genetic. Not in my case anyway.

You sound a bit lonely... you've had a lot of loss recently :-( I bet this is all on your mind.

We emigrated to the US a few years ago. DH has a sister here but she's about to move to NZ and has displayed zero interest in the children anyway. He also has a cousin about 1000 miles away in the US, but again, not much interest.

OTOH my mum and stepdad visit twice a year, and next year they're paying for my sister/BIL/niece/nephew to come out to visit. I am hugely grateful that they are helping enable the cousins to maintain a relationship.

The lack of help I can live with - we hire help if we need it.

My parents both died too long ago for my dc to remember them.
I've realised you don't have to be a blood relative of the people that fill that role though - what do you belong to?.... a Church/temple/mosque ?.....a group to do with a hobby or interest?.... something you volunteer with?....

Any sort of community like that provide "family". My eldest has recently turned 18, and it's fab to know how many people are still part of his "wider family" from having known him from when he was little, and having watched him grow up - some have babysat or gone away with him, others through just 'being there' when he needed to go and tell someone something (simple things like a wobbly tooth falling out). We have a couple of elderly neighbours who we are all very close to, through just being neighbourly.

We are in a similar situation of living abroad with no extended family network although we have not experienced your bereavements. My parents are alive but well into their 70s and I have siblings but there is no close relationship and none of them are married with kids so no cousins on my side. On my DH's side, one of his brothers is long-term ill and lives back in the UK. His other brother lives in Australia and has DC but DH had to go no contact with him for a lot of reasons that go back to childhood.

It's something I worry about too, especially in terms of finding godparents for my DC and someone to take care of them in the event of anything happening to me or DH. I grew up with a network of extended family around me in an area where my parents had grown up so now that I live abroad and my family relationships are scattered I worry that I am depriving my DC of that experience.

It is true that you need to try to make your own family from friends though. I have built up a good network of friends with DC my DS's age while living here in the US. It is more tenuous than family ties of course but I like all of these friends a hell of a lot better than my own family .

It is hard to hear about friends getting help from grandparents or going on regular holidays with family and so on. It makes me feel like the need for friends to replace family is something only I need as they all do have more family ties than me. If I knew lots of people in our situation it wouldn't worry me so much but it does seem unusual not to have any extended family ties.

there will be tens of thousands of families like you with few family members close by. we are one of them. My family are overseas and Dh's family are all 4hrs + drive away. You just have to make sure we see friends for days out at least 2 or 3 weekends a month so we dont feel all on our own!