I will never be an aunt.

[Rubyred24]

I have two DD both planed. DB and DD both mid 30s and both married. Neither want children. To be honest all four baby understand why I would want them. They are quiet strict with mine and don't have a lot of patience but they all love them and have them stop over at theirs.

Growing up I didn't see my cousins so I know they aren't missing out however I am slightly envious when I see families meeting up or holidaying together. I only really socialise with family and I just feel a bit sad. There are multiple sets of sisters at my kids school who all share the school run and I'd assume it would bring them closer.

F*ck me...get over it!

There’s a huge age gap between me and my cousins, so I never had that when I was little.

My husbands sis doesn’t speak to us so we stopped seeing her 3 boys and to be honest they were never close anyway.

My sister will not have kids (long story) so it looks like my kids will also grow up without cousins.

I also feel sad about this occasionally.

I do have friends with similar age children though xxx

My children (4&7) have cousins. Two are 28 & 30 and the others live 250 miles away. They don’t really have a relationship with any of them, despite both DH and I getting on with our siblings. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always pan out how we would like it to and we have to look for the positives in what we do have.

How can family feel close is dependent on how we interact with each other? My MIL passed away long before I married my dh. But my MIL's sister always makes an effort to invite us to the events, send my ds presents, I feel really close to her. And their children aren't technically my ds's cousins, but I don't feel like that. Me and my Aunty aren't related by blood, but I do love her and appreciate her very much. Feel like she is my MIL I never had.

I'm an aunt to 2 but they live abroad so only see them every couple of years. I am close to some of my cousins though so kids have some second cousins they play with.

I understand you feel your guys will miss out but not all families get along anyway so don't just look at the rose tinted view. My mom very close to her family but we never holiday ed with them. I did love the big family gatherings and feel sad we don't have that but I think ours will only know what they know and they won't miss it xx

I'm an only child and a lone parent so I'll never be an aunt either. I do feel sad for my DS as he is an only children so has no siblings or cousins.

I love the idea of niblings growing up together but in my circles it is very, very rare. You say that you see it st school, but maybe you should count how many don't share the school run with cousins, it will be more.

Nobody will ask you to be a surrogate, it's too big a thing to ask, you can only offer. They might not want to though. A friend of mine offered to be my surrogate when I was going through ivf. I love her dearly for offering, but really only wanted children if I could carry them myself. Although I have a huge urge to have a child, part of that urge is growing it inside of my body.

I think you need to make some friends with kids of the same age. It's nice to have people who are dealing with the same things at the same time.

I’m an only child (have an older half sister who I never see and didn’t grow up with I suspect she’ll just turn up for some inheritance when our dad dies) and my parents don’t see their siblings (My Nan caused a huge fall out with dads side). My H is also an only child and his parents are now gone. Mil went NC with all her family because fil was controlling. Fil was an only. So our young dc have no one other than H, my parents (who are mid 70s), and me.

It gets to me at Xmas when I have no presents to buy for anyone. No cards to write. No one to celebrate anything with. People tell me about all their family traditions and how busy they are going to be with all the visits, but it’s something we know nothing about. It’s something we both felt quite keenly as children too.

This lockdown has highlighted it too as no one has spoken to us apart from my mum and dad. That’s why we had 3 close together as we wanted them to have each other.

I won’t either my only sibling doesn’t want children,I am an auntie through marriage

I'll never be an aunt either and I've only just thought about it because of this thread . I don't think I'm bothered if I'm honest as my sister shares my kids and I'm not sure I'd want to if it were the other way round .. sorry you are sad though .

I’m an “aunt” my dhs sisters has children. I don’t get what the big deal is. Apart from being expected to want to hold and look after them and apparently I’m meant to want to know every detail. My oldest doesn’t like said cousins, my middle child tolerates them. Only my youngest actually enjoys the company and even then only in small doses.

On the one hand, I know what you mean. I grew up in the same town as my mum’s sister and cousin and we spent so many wonderful times together with my cousins and second cousins. I’d love to replicate that with my children.

On the other hand, it depends so much on circumstances. I can’t see it as very likely that my sister or brother or sister in law will live in the same place as me (I’m in London, they all are living abroad for at least a year or two and unlikely to live in London when they return) or be ready to have children at a similar time. I’m already married and TTC whereas they are all younger than me and single. So I think the fantasy of super close cousins would be unlikely to happen in any case even if my sister or brother or sister in law do definitely have children, which might be helpful for you to consider.

On the flip side, my mum’s sister had her first three children 8-13 years before my mum’s first and we were still pretty close, although the fourth was born the same month as me which probably helped, so I guess an age gap doesn’t mean you won’t be close. But I’d accept that it’s unlikely to happen and try and also appreciate that even if they’d had kids, timing and circumstances might well have meant that they weren’t close to your children anyway.

I am an only child. I have three cousins, however we are not close (mum and her brother were estranged for many years).
My dad is an only child.
My husband is one of four but is not from the UK so all siblings live in home country.
I too have always wished for a bigger family. I have one child and another on the way. I would've had more had me and dh met when we were younger.
It is sad but nothing more can be done about it.

Nobody gets everything that they wish for in life
That's a fact

I'm an only child, so I'll never be a biological aunt. I have about 15 cousins but I've seen one of them in the last six years and that's it. Some I could pass on the street and I wouldn't know it.

They all live in other countries so we have pretty much no relationship. I can't say it's ever bothered me.

DH has four siblings and is technically an uncle multiple times over but he's not close to his family (aside from his parents) so he never really sees them. And even though we all live within about two miles of each other, I've never met most of them

He has 3 brothers. 1 has 5 kids we don't see any of them. 3 different mums. 2 in care. One is gay not interested in adoption etc.

I just can't get past this.

You post about being sad that your children won't have cousins - so far so reasonable - and then drop in, like it's nothing, that your kids do have cousins and your own DH's brother has let them go into care rather than parent them when their mother couldn't. He's let his own children be taken into care and that's just like nothing, an aside, it also means that your own kid's grandparents stood back and watched your childrens' cousins - you know, the ones you're so sad they won't get to play with - go into care as if they had no family.

That is so utterly shocking.

I hope to god you don't talk to this absolute piece of shit or have much to do with your kids' so-called 'grandparents'

Yeah OP your kids have cousins all right. Maybe best to let this thread die now?

FFS I am so disgusted.

I hope to god you don't talk to this absolute piece of shit or have much to do with your kids' so-called 'grandparents'

I think that is a bit harsh. You don’t know how old the grandparents are, and whether their circumstances would allow them to become parents to two children. It’s a horrible situation, but I imagine it was far from black and white.

My sister and I don’t have any cousins at all OP (we have 3 aunts and an uncle but none of them had any children) and we managed just fine. I loved not having to share my grandparents! My parents aren’t especially close to their siblings though, so maybe I’d have felt a bit differently if we’d seen them really frequently.

Their DH's siblings children aren't proper nieces/nephews? Is that a thing?

My boyfriend was married before, his ex wife has a biological niece and a nephew, and he has a biological niece and nephew. He hasn’t seen her niece and nephew since they divorced, and she hasn’t seen his niece and nephew either. I don’t think this is unusual (especially in families who aren’t local to each other), so I imagine that’s why people might feel differently about their spouse’s nieces and nephews?

I imagine a father choosing to not step in and prevent his own children going into care is quite black and white, really. To say no, I'm washing my hands of them. When for most parents, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what compromises or financial hits they would have to take, there is just no way on earth they'd see their children put into the care system. Yep, it's black and white, pretty much.

Grandparents taking on their grandchildren = not so black and white.

Grandparents and wider family then being ok with creating a narrative that sees a DIL just 'mention' the fact that the cousins went into care like it's nothing = black and white.

Short of forcing your siblings to have children, there's nothing you can do to change the situation. Accept and move on.

The children went straight to live with an an older cousin of the maternal grand parent. I met them once.

Neither we nor the grandparents were asked to have them. The mum has parents and siblings too.

I cannot understand why my mother in law would rather them be adopted than have them. My husband hasn't asked.

As above I have my own mental health issues so I'm not sure even if I wanted to have them I could.

Myself and my husband have very different thoughts on how families should be. He never one asked us to adopt as he had only met them once himself.

I imagine a father choosing to not step in and prevent his own children going into care is quite black and white, really. To say no, I'm washing my hands of them. When for most parents, no matter what the difficulties, no matter what compromises or financial hits they would have to take, there is just no way on earth they'd see their children put into the care system. Yep, it's black and white, pretty much.

You seem to be imagining that the father is a coherent, upstanding citizen to whom the children would have been given by SS after they had evaluated him. Isn't it just as likely from the available evidence five children by three different women, two children removed from their mother and given to a more distant relative by SS, not to him that he's the reverse? He could be a homeless heroin addict who has never met either of the children in question.

I will never be a proper auntie as my sister won't be having kids but my best mate's daughter fills that vacancy nicely and my cousin who we see regularly has two adorable daughters so l am a fake auntie which l love!!

My brother died so neither will I. It is a huge loss to me.

Well at least you have children.

Im childless not by choice and it seems that my sister has now decided doesn't want to have children.

I”’ll never be an aunt either

DH and I are only children. Just the other day my youngest DD asked me why she doesn’t have aunties and uncles.

That made me a little sad.