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Cousins are disappearing worldwide, according to new study
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- Title
- Cousins are disappearing. Is this reshaping the experience of childhood? | CBC News
- Published
- Feb 11 2024
- Word count
- 1311 words
This is one thing I am nostalgic for which feels, to me, like a product of a bygone age. I have one sibling and 5 cousins, all on my dad's side. His family though was massive, especially once you start counting cousins and aunts/uncles. I don't even know the finally tally — he has seven siblings alone, so the fact that I only have 9 cousins is a reflection of the fact that some of them didn't have kids.
Anyway, when I was young, his side (at least, the ones local to the area — most siblings had moved) put on a Christmas party every year and man, looking back on it, I miss those. They were always at a country club clubhouse that I guess they rented for the night. Full of people that I hardly know even to this day., like second cousins and cousins once removed, great aunts and uncles sitting around telling stories from back in the day. God it was fun. Feels like a link to a swiftly passing era.
My extended family had weekly gatherings as well and I missed those: even if not all uncles and aunties are cool.
I think the most disruptive thing to families about modern life isn't "selfish young people having 0 or 1", it's that we're forced to be economic migrants away from families.
My many many cousins still live, but are scattered across four continents. The "highest concentration" is down to four in the same city. Even if I have 20 kids there's going to be a financially necessitated sscattering and effectively dwindle "meet-able" relatives to near 0.
It makes sense given how expensive having children is in general worldwide. Most people aren't having kids, and if they are, it's only one and that's been somewhat of a norm for a while in my circle.
Those who choose to not have children at all have a variety of reasons for doing so, but I think a lot of people who have one kid would prefer to at least have two, but can’t justify it due to the cost and increased financial fragility associated. Many expenses get multiplied for each child, especially if they’re close in age (e.g. needing daycare for multiple kids) which quickly becomes difficult to manage on typical working class salaries, and even if a couple can budget that they’ll be walking on a tightrope which is not a particularly desirable situation. Most would opt for better stability and a single kid if faced with the choice.
There's probably a lot of couples who planned on 0 and "slipped" into 1, and are thoroughly done after that.
Folks I know who have multiples planned on it from the very beginning, costs be darned, because "kid needs siblings to turn out normal." That's what they say, and they would have delayed the first until ready for 2+: stayed at 0 and worked hard towards two close in age together. It's rarer for me to see one-baby people still on the fence for a second or not: they tend to have mapped it all out before starting on the first.
I was one of those "one and done, planned, and then reluctantly went to two." I blame Bluey for selling me on the sibling dynamic.
Yes, I concur that children need siblings. Single children think themselves the center of the universe because they have two parents whom can devote damn near all their time, and still have time to get things done. 150% love and attention if you will.
Post sibling, Each kid gets 75% attention....at best.
Anybody whom chooses to have more than 2 kids, I question their judgement. Being outnumbered never turns out well. I say this as the eldest of 4 siblings. Even now having 2 kids is overwhelming when solo parenting.
Why is 75% at best better than 150%...?
Because it checks the ego that forms from constantly being the most important person in the world.
The love is not less, but the sheer amount of 1 on 1 time is. As I tell my eldest:
"Just remember, when life feels unfair, remember that you had two parents giving undivided attention with infinite patience for 4 years to foster your emotional awareness and intellect. This is a priceless gift that your sibling can never have."
Kicking them down a peg from a parental attention standpoint introduces much-needed perspective.
This bit hits home.
As a second born, I always knew I never had something priceless that my older sibling had. trivial example, she has a whole adorable photo album of baby pictures. In contrast, there isn't a single just-me picture in existence until the kindergarten took one for my ID badge.
I know you don't mean it and the bitterness is only mine, but how does your second born feel about being generated as educational material slash playmate for the child who actually matters?
Better than being told the best part of them ran down their mother's leg? (ahh the 80's).
Lol my wife is a second child and she feels that too sometimes. She feels better because at least it wasn't "oh having another kid will fix the doomed marriage" the way she was. And many children just get to get told by a drunk parent one day that they were an accident.
I was being a touch snarky, and while mid-pandemic-insanity held its grip and having another playmate for 'oh god what if this happens again,' there was a lot more planning and debate about it. The Bluey thing really did resonate, about how you really can build a bond with your sibling in a very different way than with friends, and that those shared experiences will be stronger. We both have strained relationships with our siblings courtesy of substantial family trauma, and one consistent theme of my marriage is "break the cycle." Even more seriously about how they can build and support each other through life long after we're dead.
Or you know, hate each other and never speak again (see my antivaxxer idiot little brother....just kidding love you man but seriously pull your head out your ass).
We do take active measures to insure that we do actually get good time in with each kid 1 on 1, as a whole family, 1 parent with both kids, and the two kids left to their own devices.
And if its any comfort, my psychiatrist says he's noticed that he sees a lot fewer second children than first children. I suspect having that older sibling clear those paths of parent neurosis, giving you support and advise, and chasing bullies helps counteract at least a touch of what the parents were unable to give.
This could also be a sampling bias. As you say, 2nd children get less attention from their parents. For the exact same struggles, a 2nd child might just be less likely to be brought to therapy than an only child - whether that’s from decreased awareness by the parents, less time available so the threshold changes, or a change in parental perspective about what’s serious enough to seek help.
Or, 2nd+ children might have just been brought up feeling more of a “deal with your own problems” attitude since the 1:1 or 2:1 parent:child attention wasn’t there, and so they’re less likely to seek therapy as adults.
Just pointing out that, even if your therapist is right about broad trends based on their anecdotal experience, there are many more possible explanations than “later children are better adjusted”.
:) thanks for the assurances, and sorry for being all 8 year old and neurotic on you. In my culture, back in the day, women were pushed to keep having babies as quickly as possible until they achieve at least one boy, or several to be safe. Siblings, especially female ones, were self evident disappointments. My mother's OB said as much; it was probably one of the first things my ears picked up: "oh, well, next time for sure." This story would be told frequently as a very funny joke.
I think the right number of children for each couple is the number they want to have, whether that's 0 or 2 or 10: they know best what they want out of life, and when the parents are happy and believe they have made a good decision, then the children can be happy with their lives whether they're Only's or Middle child.
I've only ever watched a single episode of Bluey. I'm not sure why. I liked it and thought it was very sweet and endearing and genuine, but neither my spouse nor I somehow wanted to watch another episode.
I do agree with you fundamentally. Just every mom (and for some strange reason I never see dad), I've met with >2 definitely has that vacant stare of someone who is broken and at least a little dead inside...even the ones with an au pair doing some heavy lifting.
I get the Bluey thing...especially if you don't happen to have a young kid. If you watched only the first episode, I will say that Seasons 2 and 3 have an even heavier bent towards twisting adult heartstrings, much like Pixar was able to for awhile.
There's one darling family I know, darn near perfection level adorable and parents are doing nearly everything right possible for their three kids. I knew the oldest child the best, and ....it was heart breaking hearing her cry one time and shout she wishes she were an only. Her parents confided that it was an oft repeated wish, not always spoken out of anger either. This little lady, she loves her younger siblings fiercely and she's the fatherst you can possibly go from being spoiled, and she doesn't mean that she wishes her siblings gone, and yet..... The palpable pain is there. There was no chance of the eldest being spoiled even as an only: she was always joyful and well composed and fair and loving and generous like her parents. It's a pain she will and is living well with, just one more of those multitudes of things we didn't choose in life. But it's still an ache. Paradise Lost, with no sin commited on her part.
You guys went on to have a second and that's exactly right for your family, so don't take it personally, but for some families I think one is the perfect number. Just as nowadays it is taught you can't spoil a baby by holding it, I don't believe that by virtue of being an only or having lots more attention means a child will be spoiled. I've met plenty of multi-siblings who are spoiled bullying backstabbing jealous arses, and many more of my generation who are dealing with trauma stemming from their multi-siblings households now. I've also met plenty of confident, well liked and well adjusted only children, who had wonderful parents always involved with our school extra curriculars and had some spare time for us poor neglected sibling'd kids.
Bad parenting will be bad parenting: dren divided by X is still dren. Good parenting spread thin is far better than bad focused on one.
We watched Steven Universe with our kid, and Avatar the Last Air Bender. Quality quality shows these days....not like the "buy my cereal!" stuff I grew up with :) the rich values shown and how we deal with difficult emotions and how love can take many many forms....I have high high hopes for gen alpha. When yours are a wee bit bigger I highly recommend these series.
I think my husband and I couldn't bear to watch Bluey because of our own family of origin traumas.
Oh yea, we definitely suffer a bit of that "is this a normal thing that normal families do, or is this TV idealism?" Our household is more like a 3-decade-social-improvement Malcom in the Middle than Bluey FWIW....just with only 2 kids instead of 4.
Our family trama is like a yin and yang. Overbearing parentification on my side, neglect on my wife's ....but with really weird injections of support in random areas on one end or the other. It has worked well for us being able to check each other's worst tendencies.
And I do agree...I think the need is almost out of self-admission that our parenting style is better suited to two children, otherwise we'd probably end up on that overbearing side of things. Random people tell us in the grocery store how well behaved our kids are....and we find that strange.
Hilda has also been a fantastic show.
My culture isn't especially known for this but one of my grandmothers was fixated on having a boy. As far as I can tell, my first born aunt was not penalized or punished for her gender. Her younger sister however, the second born aunt was disregarded, disrespected, knew from a young age that her mother had wanted a boy instead of her. My father was born third, and he was the one who was wanted, the culmination of his mother's hopes and dreams, the golden child.
I'm interested to know how the golden boy turned out. Decent man? Takes care of his mum?
Oh it's awful in my culture, back in the day. (Much better now that families count themselves lucky to have any grandchildren at all.)
Eldest daughters are usually fine: built in servant for the coming emperor. Second daughters are redundancy and disappointment incarnate.
There was this popular comedy trilogy in the 80s that follow the hilarious adventures of "a typical grass root family". The couple has three daughters, named 帶弟 招弟 來弟 : "bring younger brother", "recruit younger brother", and "welcome younger brother". It was a "funny" running gag, because while that style of name wasn't common, it wasn't unheard of either, and certainly the sentiments were extremely common.
There was even an industry of full colour posters of fat naked baby boys for people to buy and stick all over the bedroom and under the bed.
Girl in my high school has a name like that too, 亞男, "Second/Next Boy".
Just more things that I'm glad have gone underground if not totally gone away.
He and my mother married young and eventually split because he wouldn't listen or compromise about any issue where he had an opinion. To be clear, she left and I don't blame her.
He quickly remarried to a woman who has many flaws but who believes in a sharp separation of men's and women's spheres of authority within a household. She defers except in areas where she believes she should take command. If they disagree about who is in charge of an issue, she tends to win. Compromise and cooperation are rarely an issue. I wouldn't enjoy such a marriage but they are still together.
He had a successful career as a professional and after retirement still did free lance work in his field. He is passionate about his hobbies and very hardworking regarding maintaining their house and land. They have friends. He was close to his parents while they were alive. He was something of a hands off parent. I am much closer to my mother and don't see him often.
I'm going to be blunt here because you were blunt first, so try to bear that in mind and not just get outraged by my reply. You seem to have a pretty ignorant stance. Your statements are no more valid than it would be for me to claim that having 2 children is lazy, as you expect them to raise each other for a good portion of it.
Good parenting (and being humble enough to admit when you need to learn) is enough to make almost any number of kids work.
No offense taken, I acknowledge that I was being at least a little bit snarky and more than a bit judgy. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread with @chocobean that this was more or less an assessment with my own parenting style than any kid "needing" a sibling or parents being unable to parent more than 2.
My reasoning is mostly anecdotal evidence from my own life, and that's rife with trauma. Of all the people I know (self included) whom came from families with 3 or more kids...at least 1 of those children despised it in a way that none of the singleton or 2-kid households did. Most of them a combo of accidents and refusal to have abortions despite not wanting the 3rd/4th child....2 of my siblings inclusive. And there was greater incidence of expecting children to do parental duties that shouldn't be expected of them....the 10 year old shouldn't be forced to make school lunches for themselves and their two younger siblings, or comfort the three younger siblings and feed them dinner while mom and dad scream at each other for 4 hours.
And yea, I wouldn't judge you for considering me lazy. I can't see over that wall any better than a childless adult can see over the first-parent wall and the first-parent can't see over the second-parent wall.
If we are speaking anecdotally, I came from a family of 2 children, and I was bullied my entire childhood until I was ~13 by my older brother and his friends. My father was almost never around and my mother either wasn't aware of what was going on or chose to let us "figure it out" for some reason. In a fairly typical abused fashion I would not speak up for myself, and I am only now unlearning these behaviors. It took me decades to even admit or acknowledge to myself that what happened in my childhood was abusive. I was drawn to people who had it worse than I did so I could feel like it wasn't so bad in my childhood. I wasn't taught any form of emotional regulation other than to hide them, to the point where I would hold in everything until I had an anxiety attack. If I had been an only child than that abuse would never have happened to me. But being honest, the real issue was with parenting and social norms at play, not with the number of children they had.
I'd just like to offer a counterpoint -- I'm one of four siblings and now that we're adults I don't think any of us have any qualms about growing up with that many siblings. Of course during our childhoods there was conflict as there was with any kids, but those conflicts would have existed with any number of siblings >0 -- most childhood conflict between us was 1-on-1. My parents weren't perfect but as a whole they were generally pretty fair about us -- there's the usual weakening of rules over time meaning they're easier on the younger siblings, but that had more to do with my parents improving and loosening up over time than on any sort of preferential treatment. And as the oldest, I never was subjected to parental duties -- I definitely know of families where that is a problem, but it's a parenting decision rather than a given for number of kids. It can happen with 2 kids too.
Now there are definitely some differences I notice between my environment and yours -- having 4 kids was very culturally common in our peer groups, so having fewer siblings was less common. We were also all deliberately planned pregnancies, rather than being accidents (my parents were very open on this), which ofc is a huge factor in how parents feel about and treat their kids. I think there are a ton of contextual factors like that which matter way more than the quantity of kids -- especially when we're talking about numbers like 3-4 kids rather than, like 10.
From the article:
…
3.6! This is surprising to me, that there would still be ANY cousins at all for the average 15 year old girl in 2095.
In order to have cousins, one needs:
parents who have siblings
and these siblings need to have their own children
Seems like we're already nearly beneath replacement (2.1) rates aren't we? For every woman who has none, we need one woman to have 4.2 kids just to hit replacement.
Nearly all of my peers are near the fertility cut off already, and nearly all of them have either 0 or 1 children. I know 3 families with 3, but only one who has more than 3. Are there really as many reverse social networks where the mast majority have 4+ and only a handful with 0?
I would have imagined we'd be closer to China from the same linked study:
what happened was that most people had 0 or 1, and then those kids went on to have 0 or 1.
a whole separate question: what is "family" if we must scatter across the globe for work/housing and never really meet, let alone be there to foster meaningful kinship, and in hard times, support each other? What's the point of having 50 cousins we never see or talk to?
15 to 3 is a wild reduction. I wonder why the study chose to focus on a 15 year old girl though haha, wouldn't it be the around the same for any teen?
The whole article is about comparing Noelene's experience growing up to how things are now. Why wouldn't they use a teenage girl for their example?
I didn't read the article sorry, just saw the context in the comments. That makes a lot of sense though
Yeah, that pretty much tracks. My wife is one of 10, so my two kids have about 9 cousins, but that's because 4 of the siblings chose not to have any kids and a few won't be having more than one. My own sibling doesn't and won't be having any children either.
Even still, they're pretty much scattered to the four winds; only one cousin lives near enough that we see then regularly, two that are closer are only seen on school breaks, as they're still several hours away. The rest in different states or countries.
I do recall growing up, I had (still do, actually) a friend and wherever we'd bum around town it was always, "Yeah, that's my cousin.", "He's my cousin.", "She's my cousin." Was always kind of amusing.
This article made a lot of sense and I'm seeing that trend of fewer cousins and just fewer kids in general. I'm nearly 30 and in one of my friend groups I'm the only one married and who has kids and in my other high school friend group one of two couples who have kids. I know a lot of my friends talk about wanting to have kids eventually but I also don't see many of them trying to pursue a relationship and the ones that are don't seem to have much luck in finding a girlfriend.
We have two young boys and I'd love to have more, I've always liked the idea of having a bigger family and doing things together with them, but we're waiting to have more kids until at least now until I can get settled back into my career after an international move. Having kids is expensive and us wanting to provide things like a college education fund, a wedding fund, extra curriculars, and fun family experiences has really made me rethink how many kids I want to have. I see stuff all the time about their being the below replacement birth rate and other things in the news. It just feels like until steps are taken to make the cost of having children lower things are going to continue on that trend.
I had a lot of cousins, I only found out how many I have when my grandpa on my dad's side passed away: 34 first cousins, 55 first cousins once removed, and 4 first cousins twice removed (I had to look up how that works), my dad was the 2nd youngest of 9 children. Then another 8 cousins on my mom's side. Family reunions were a lot of fun even though a majority of those cousins I wouldn't see since they were spread across the country.
Now that I've moved to live near my wife's family my sons don't have any cousins near them, they only have 2 first cousins and those would have lived far away in the states anyway and they would have seen them maybe once a year. Until my brother-in-law and sister-in-law get married and have kids it'll just be my two boys as the only kids in the extended family here.