Is your family shrinking?

[sunshine244]

I know there's a trend for people to have fewer kids currently, and am curious is others are finding similar patterns.

My kids only have one cousin despite them having 4 sets of aunts and uncles in their 40s. There's not likely to be any more children due to circumstances/age.

My own 6 cousins (40s-50s) have only had 4 children in total, and again it is unlikely there will be more.

Family gatherings are a lot quieter than when I was a child!

There's also a lot less connectivity between cousins than there used to be IME. My ILs cousins have a big get together three times a year, and a couple of us have kids now. They talk about the next generation continuing the tradition, and we nod politely, but really, the next generation have lives and friends that are very separate to family.

It's a deal enough getting together with our kids immediate cousins, let alone fannying around trying to fit in someone whose mum happened to be sibling to my mum.

Not yet, every generation of our family for a long time has had 2 kids. My Dad’s side is actually getting bigger because his only uncle was killed in the war before having children so of his parents’ generation on both sides there was only them and therefore he had no cousins.

my dad and his brother both had two kids, my brother and I both have two kids - my cousins are still teens (as are the 3 on my mum’s side from her brother) so remains to be seen how our generation pans out but we’ve always been a small family (cousins all live on the other side of the world and are basically a generation younger than us so we didn’t grow up with cousins)

on the other hand I think my mum is related to most of Stockton-On-Tees!

My mum is an only child due to her mum’s health problems. My dad died along time ago- he had a half sibling he found out about when he was a teenager but they have now also died. They had children but were much older than my brother and me growing up so we don’t know them. I have two children and my brother has none. My children don’t see their cousins on their dad’s side due to a petty childish family feud. I would have loved a bigger family but circumstances are what they are.

My great nan had 11 kids, my nan had 4, my mother 3. My uncle has 2 kids, the others have none. My brother's have none and I have 2. My 2 are the only actual children in the family at the moment so yes in our case the family is definitely shrinking.

Absolutely.

I'm Gen X - huge family gatherings, lots of cousins. Everyone had two or three children, less than their parents but still a decent number.

By now, there should be about 45 great grandchildren in my granny's side if the family was reproducing at the same rate. There are 3. My, my siblings and my cousins children are approaching their 30s with no sign of children, and its unlikely to change. So one more generation of big family gatherings for us, but my grandchildren won't experience the same

I have one child and my brother has one child. My husband’s siblings have no children and probably never will. I’ve tried to keep close with my cousins and their kids so my son has family when we’ve gone. I feel sad for him. My first pregnancy was horrendous so I didn’t want another and I really regret it now. For my son, not me.

I'm nearly 40. I'm a bit of an anomalie as both my parents were only children, but partly due to this I'm one of 4. We have 2 (done), and one my sister's has 4. My other 2 don't and are unlikely to (a combination of cost, choice & health). There are loads on DH's side though we don't really see them as they're in Scotland and we're in the SE. He's also one of 4 and they all have kids (4, 3 & 1). One of his nephews is already a dad too.

Yes, actually. Out of my sibling and cousins, 5 girls altogether, only 1 has a child so far and only one other likely to have children in the future /she is the youngest one/. And she doesnt have cousins on the other side of her family. None of this is by choice or preference as far as I know.

No. Even if my brother doesn't have children my sister and I have has enough to keep the family the same size.

I have 1 sibling and we seem to have bucked the trend in having 4 & 3 each. For a few years at the primary school we were the only family with more than 2 children in the whole school and in our eldest's class I noted that there were only 5 other families with either one older or younger sibling. A lot of only children (out of a class of 32)!

By the time our youngest was at school, there were a handful of families with 3, 4 & 5 children.

Our family has definitely got smaller. In the early 90s we would have birthday parties/christenings with nearly 100 family members in attendance. Now it would be more like 20. I have 7 cousins in their 30s/40s and 4 don't have children, and my siblings don't have children either.

My family line ends with my brother who isn’t married.
Ww2 lost many of the male side and those that had children had daughters except my grandparents. Besides myself and brother my father’s brother had daughters.

My husband’s parents were only child again WW2 taking away their parents from further siblings. He was one of five and there are only two grandsons carrying the family name. There are seven grandchildren.
Our son has a son. They want more children but so far it has been a roller coaster of disappointment and miscarriage for my darling daughter in law.
His cousin lives abroad and his son doesn’t carry the family name.

we were talking about this at Christmas.
We had 14 on Christmas day and 15 on Boxing Day. (not quite everyone was there)
Grandparents x 2
3 adult children and spouses (that's me and my brothers)
8 full grown grandchildren.
Just waiting for the great grandchildren generation to kick in.

When I was little I had just 2 cousins, so now it is much bigger.

But that is my side of the family. I realise that both my SIL have now either no family left or very tiny family and very few at the granchildren level, 0 cousins on one side and 2 cousins for the other.
It was quite a shock ot realise that.
On my dh side the family is also large, again 3 adult kids plus spouses and 8 grandchildren, almost all grown up. Sadly no more grandparents though

Yes. DH and I both have siblings and cousins all approaching or are in our 40s, but we are the only ones with kids. Poor DC have no cousins and are unlikely to in the near future.

Our parents plus their siblings (previous generation) = 11
Their children (my generation) = 6 (2 of them unlikely to have kids)
Our children (next generation, my DC) = 2

Quite depressed for my DC looking at that. No family. SEN too so they actually need family to look out for them. I hope it’ll happen for my sibling who is mid 40s but they just ended a long relationship.

I think on average people will have smaller families as birth rates are declining due to cost of living and childcare. More women work so have a career rather that stay home to have kids. A lot of my friends only had one child. There will be exceptions but looks like it’s going that way.

Depends how you look at it. My children have only one sibling each whereas I had four siblings but on the flip side, I had eight cousins, my children have eight cousins.
My husband’s side is similar, two siblings, whereas, again, our children have only one sibling each but he had eight cousins, same as our children again.
I suppose from my mother’s perspective, the family is getting larger. Both her parents were only children so no aunts, uncles or cousins, then my mum was one of four, but only her and one other had children.
Family occasions have the potential to get wildly out of control every time which makes me very happy. I love that our children are growing up with so many aunts, uncles and cousins. We’re also lucky enough to have reasonable circles of friends who may as well be family, so there’s that too.

We were part of a set of 13 cousins growing up. I have two siblings, one has three children, the other has four and I am soon have have eight children. I realise that we are very much the exception. So many of the people I grew up with socially have chosen not to have children. Those who have mostly stopped at one or two. Most of the people I work with only have one child, if they have any at all.

Yes ours is getting very small.

i have 5 cousins. My cousins do have a few children but we don't see them as we all live miles/countries apart.

my husband also has 5 cousins (he's the youngest) and none of them have gone on to have any children (mostly through choice, some because of circumstances) and they're all female in their mid 40s now so not likely to happen.

mine and my husbands siblings have also not had children and again don't think they will now either.

so our children are the only kids in the immediate family on both our sides. Makes me quite sad for our children that they won't have a large family around them growing up. I spent quite a bit of time with my cousins growing up. My husband thinks it's irrelevant and his cousins haven't added anything meaningful to his life so he doesn't really see it as a big deal 🤷🏼‍♀️

There was 28 of us at my family Christmas meal , a couplw more will be arriving this year and possibly a few more in the coming years but that's not a given. After that I imagine it may start shrinking

I have 2 first cousins and a sister, my daughter is an only with none.

My father had 1 first cousin, my mother 5.

Despite small families, we stay in touch. I was at a cousin in Australia's wedding - who I know reasonably well and probably see at 10 year intervals but is seen more often by other family members. We worked out that our actual relationship is that our great grandmothers were sisters! There have been lots of only children in the interim generations, and so cousins are more like sisters.

Yes.
I'm one of two, as is my partner.
We have two kids but our respective siblings have opted for one each.
I live on a street that used to be primarily young professionals, no kids.
They used to move on to the suburbs once first child on the way- to bigger, family sized houses- presumably to expand family further.
Over recent years, the young professionals have had their one baby and stayed. These houses are small but less of an issue with one kid.
None of them shows any sign of having more children or of leaving the street.
Certainly around here, one child is de rigueur- so we're a bit unfashionable with our two!

We never had really large family gatherings due to family drama (oh the joy), however our family is shrinking, as people are getting older and passing away, and neither my brother or I have had children, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I'm 35 so getting to be too old, and he's a little younger but has never shown any interest in being with anyone at all, or having kids etc. So I'm in for a very lonely old age, as my partner is quite a bit older than me too. Quite depressing really.

My dad was an only child, my mum one of six but she’s the only one who had children- my sister and I. My sister is single and doesn’t want kids. I have one, and he has my boyfriend’s surname. So my family name has fully ended now with me and my sister. My boyfriend is an only child, so our son will have no cousins. Very small family!

I totally disagree. I'm childfree. It's a very definite choice. And yes, I did regard having children as an affliction to be avoided. "Childless" conjures up a sad vision of someone wishing they could have had children. It's a very useful distinction.

oh, it's so interesting... Yes, my family is stabilising. There was such huge growth for several generations, and that growth has stopped - but it's bumpy.

My mother was one of 2, next generation is 2 children, then 5 children (expectation would be 4 and 8)
My father was one of 5, next generation 9, then 17

DH's mother was one of 2, next generation 4, then 13
DH's father was one of 2, next generation 4, then, 8

So it kind of depends on how you are counting. If there had been just 2 children per couple in the grandparental generation, then there should be 32 now (and there are 43). But given that there were 11 (one family of 5) you would expect 44.

No families of 5 children since the 1940s (two of 4, three of 3).