Cousin’s kids called nieces and nephews.

[ThatRubyMoose]

Over the last few years has anybody noticed this trend for calling your cousins’ kids nieces and nephews?

A further question can anybody tell me why I get irrationally angry about it?

There also seems to be a move away from calling your siblings’ partners aunt and uncle.

Do I live in a weird microcosm or have other people noticed this?

it really ticks me off.

Don't you watch The Bear? Everyone of your generation you grew up with is 'cousin', and everyone of your parents' generation is 'uncle'/'aunt'. I'm well into my forties, and I've been calling my DM's first cousin 'Auntie A' since I could speak. DH has cousins he considers like siblings, and you bet we consider their DC our nephews/nieces.

In many, many cultures, 'uncle'/'aunt' is the standard term of respect for an older adult and the aunties are a very important part of life.

In Greece you’re indeed an aunt for the relationship you’re describing. The grandchild of your mother’s sister (your mum’s nephew/your fist cousin) is your nephew from a first cousin.
So that makes this girl a nephew from a nephew from a cousin if you break it down.
and to your mother is a great aunt to them.
You can describe aunts and uncles till great aunt really and that gets shortened to aunt as well usually.

So strange that it annoys you. I don't think it's a new thing, I'm nearly 40 and always called my parents' cousins aunty or uncle.

Can I just say, I love your detailed posts TheSunnyRedHedgehog !
I feel like I know your full family dynamics now, and enjoy your enthusiasm in explaining them.

I call my friends kids, my nieces and nephews. But, I'm also a third culture child, and so have people in my life with whom I have a cousin relationship, yet no blood relationship at all.
Family is also the family you choose.

In Indian heritage and this is the norm for us as it is for a lot of other cultures across the world. I don't really understand why it would annoy you, I think it's reinforces family connection and community rather than distancing yourself.

There also seems to be a move away from calling your siblings’ partners aunt and uncle.

My parents have done this mostly to DH and we are married - it's really odd because growing up Aunty was used for non family members - but close friends of Mum as polite form of address.

I think cousin kids have always and still are refered to vaugley as cousins. Though IL family tend to say cousin children possibly with added name - so do longer refernce but don't seem to consider them cousins.

My elder daughter isn’t my husband’s she once said to one of the kids to pass something to Grandma that is not her grandma. They all started teasing her with Husband’s brother liking it to calling the teacher Mum. All she meant was pass it to your grandma. It was if it was a massive faux pas yet the cousins are all aunt and uncle.

That's why it's annoying you - rest of family uses wrong terms as short cuts your DD does similar but different way and they are all over her - basically they are twats.

I'd be annoyed in similar situation - and then act confused and correct their incorrect usage till they shut up teasing your DD.

1. Nothing new about it. I'm not in contact with my cousins' children, but I'd expect them to address me as Auntie Gwenhwyfar, so in a sense I would see them as nieces/nephews and that's quicker to say than cousin once-removed downwards. I call my parents' cousins (and their spouses) aunts and uncles.
2. Yes, you're being unreasonable complaining about it
3. I don't know about partners/spouses not being called aunt/uncle any more, but maybe it's to do with more divorces. I now have an 'aunt' who is no longer my aunt because she divorced my uncle.

'Distant cousins' is far closer to the actual relationship.

Nieces/ nephews is completely misleading.

"Because it's nicer than using the technically correct terms of "first cousin once removed" or "second cousin"."

You are not second cousin to your first cousin's children sot that's not technically correct. Any children you have would be their second cousins.

They are second cousins (a type of cousin).

"They'd actually be second cousins once removed"

No, first cousins once removed.

And I disagree with the poster who said this is a 'distant cousin'. A distant cousin, for me, is third cousin or further.

Well there you go, there’s the answer to your second question - it annoys you because it’s being used to bully and exclude you and your daughter.

I haven't noticed but is it any different from referring to someone an aunt who actually isn't? Like, I'm an aunt to my friends kids. So niece/nephew is just a familial name. People themselves know they are not siblings children. My african-american friends refers to their family friend children as cousins.
To me they're just my cousins kids. But I have also never referred to my aunt and uncles spouses as aunt and uncle.

Actually this day and age i rarely refer to the extended family as any title unless explaining something to someone else. And even thy is quite rare.

H

Well I know that but kids don’t really get that which is why I don’t bother referencing cousin beyond a first cousin

My mum's neighbours were Aunt and Uncle to me. I never got the presciousness about what people were called the more people who love and turn up for a child the better ❤️

Technically you are right, but I suppose it's just an easier way to explain the relationship than first cousins once removed?

Why is this a problem?

Why wouldn't they get it? You explain it, just like everything else.

It's not. But I think it reflects MNers snobbery about the use of aunts and uncles for parents' friends. I didn't understand why it was frowned upon for a long time, until someone explained it's seen as common by some people.

This is my field, so to those asking, the OP is asking about a relationship which is definitely “first cousin’s once removed.”

(your parent has a sibling, that sibling has children = your first cousin. The children of your first cousins are “first cousins once removed”.

YOUR OWN children are second cousins to your “first cousins once removed.”

In my family, when we meet up with my second cousins, her children are third cousins to my children. We just shorten it to “cousins” except if someone wants to know the true relationship, in which case all eyes turn to me (professional DNA genealogist).

I explain it better when I use my hands to indicate the different generations or whip out my relationship calculator 😃