Truthfully, I think my kid's will hardly know my side of the family.

When I was growing up my grandparents lived in Florida and we lived in NY. So we only saw them for one week out of the year and that probably only went on till I was in middle school. After college, I went to school and work in GA, so I drove down a few times a year to visit them. I honestly did not feel as if I knew them well till I was an adult. I think the time I lived in GA really helped. They also weren't the most kid friendly people. They really preferred the company of teens and adults to young children. But we wrote (snail mail) to each other and talked a few times on the phone. As an adult, I can appreciate their effort to maintain contact in a long distance relationship.

Overall, we have two sets of friends that have become like family. They take the place of aunts/uncles and cousisns. We depend on each other, watch each other's kids as the grow up, and support one another. I am not sure these relationships have to be blood related or legally bound. As long as you find people that you want to have that relationship with, it can work.

Brian, I think eventually you will broaden your social network and you will find friends that may fill the same void for you. Besides some friends are better than some family members. Blood doesn't always imply close connection.

Blood doesn't always imply close connection.

Posted by: foamgnome | March 12, 2009 7:09 AM | Report abuse

Yup.

Never live next door to your mother. :-)

My brother has this pleasure. He's a single father of two daughters. So after she retired, our mother bought the house next door to his so that she could help him out with the girls.

She did help a lot with the girls, and they still eat dinner at her house most nights (especially the 22-year old :-).

But imagine the delight in being a 40 year old whose mother watches your comings and goings and always wants to "help out" in your life.

It takes time and effort to build relationships and a connection to the community, regardless of whether your family is close by. Some people know how to reach out and make those connections, others don't, or won't.

We have quite a bit of family in the area so we have never wanted for a babysitter or someone to call in an emergency. Birthdays and Holidays are full of friends and family.

We are bleseed to be in the situation we are, but we have also taken the time to get to know our neighbors, be involved in our children's schools, taught Sunday school, become scout leaders and coached sports, all of which has opened up a network of friends that we can rely on for the day to day help.

My parents moved to DC in the 1950's without knowing a sole. My dad was in the service and they quickly made friends with people that were in the same boat, friends they have to this day. As they moved out to the suburburbs they joined the Jaycees, Optimists, Women's Club and coached and toted kids around. They didn't have the family safety net I do so they made one, and as kids we grew up with lots of adults that were willing to help and a real sense of community. You have to want it though, you can't sit on your rump and complain that you don't have friends or connection if your family is not around.

As for extended family, we were lucky that my parents took the time to travel to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They visited us as well. My kids see their grandparents every week and have grown up with several aunts, uncles and cousins in the area and I am realize how incredibly lucky they are.

I think the sense of community is lost to some degree. It's a shame because I hear people complain about having no family and no one to rely on, but I see example after example of friends and neighbors that have no family in the area that have built up their network and reached out. It's all what you make of it.

We moved back to the area in large part because my mom and his sisters are here. I had the "see cousins once a year, see grandma a few time on visits" family growing up; my husband's family comes from Brooklyn, and his parents' Brooklyn friends still travel in a pack of about 25 to all of the weddings, bris(es? what's the plural of bris?), funerals, etc. I pretty much decided that that way was better.

With the family that is elsewhere, it's harder. We e-mail a lot. Skype has been great for the kids -- they are fascinated to see their new baby cousin and such. We try to plan some vacations together or visits. Whenever I have business near family, I'll try to stay overnight for a short visit -- for a while, my dad was in Houston, and I had a bunch of clients that I was visiting down there pretty regularly, so I got to see them at least once a month. Basically, you have to decide that this is important and find ways to plan regular contact into your life.

I grew up very close (both geographically and emotionally) to my mom's family, and I treasured that connection. So when we made the decision to start a family, DH and I also made the decision to relocate from DC to within 60 miles of his parents. We've never regretted the move -- my in-laws are wonderful people who always help out in a pinch. Even more important, my daughter knows them well and is very close to her grandparents.

As for my side of the family, I'll admit we're not close. My dad died long before we had kids, and my mom and I have a rocky relationship. She wants to be a good grandparent and when I've brought DD to see her, she's been lovely. However, she makes no effort to see her grandkids -- aside from one visit right after my first daughter was born, the onus has been on me to maintain the connection. I make sure to show my daughter photos of grandma, I call about once a week so they can chat, and we make the 9-hour trek to my mom's house about three times a year.

I don't know when my mom will meet her newest granddaughter (who's a month old now). DH burned all of his vacation time (the whole week) when the baby was born, so he can't visit with us, and I have less than no desire to drive 9 hours with an infant and a peschooler.

I'm the "black sheep" - meaning I'm the only one who moved away. Both of my siblings and both of my parents all live within 30 minutes of each other, while I'm 350 miles away. My siblings and I have remained close - there is, after all, the telephone and internet. And we take a family vacation together every summer (at a state park, very inexpensive).

We're all just starting our families, and I know I'll continue doing more traveling than they will. After all, if I travel I get to see everyone, if they travel, they only get to see me. So I'll figure that out. But my mother has already purchased a webcam (and I pity my brother, who will have to help her learn how to use it) so she can "visit" with my soon to be child regularly. My siblings and I will continue our family trips to the state park, although we've had to expand to 2 cabins this year, as our families are growing. And as the kids get older, I can totally see bringing my kids up to spend a week with grandma or grandpa, a week with her aunt and cousins, etc. And of course, taking any nieces and nephews down to my house for a week of frolic as well. It may give all of the adults some time without kids, and will help the cousins maintain relationships. And I'm sure, by the time the kids are 6 or 7, they will be more than capable of dialing each other up on the webcams to talk about the excitement of the class pet, or whatever gets them excited.

In the end, it takes effort. But technology definitely helps.

I didn't mind being far from my family until I had kids. My brother and his family live 2,000 miles away and I would love it if we lived close because our kids are around the same age. We manage to see them about once a year. It's the same with my wife's sister and her family. Neither my wife nor I have big families to begin with and it would be great if we lived closer to them.

I agree you do build other support networks, but (assuming you like your family) it's just not the same. These days it's easier to keep in touch long-distance - my nephews and I play Rockband online and do stuff like that - but it's not the same as living nearby. Due to a number of factors, moving isn't an option right now, so we are where we are.

My wife and I have a combined total of 18 nieces and nephews from our 6 siblings, all under 17 years old, all living a few miles apart in Northern Virginia. My wife has so many aunts and uncles, most of whom married, had kids, remarried, adopted and still live in the area, that the most common question at her family's reunion is "Who's your Daddy?"

I never know when that quick trip to Walmart will take an extra 45 minutes because we meet one of her aunts/cousin/step whatever and have to "catch up" on things. Lately, it's been funeral after funeral, but no wedding or baby shower for 5 years, that's if you don't count my FIL's 3rd wife's son by her 1st marriage. Not that all deaths in the family are terrible occasions. For instance, the one a few years ago let us scratch a family Christmas party expectation off the list. Now we're down to only 4 of them.

for my family, With all the birthdays, graduations, funerals, 1st communions, concerts, confirmations, etc., life has morphed into one. big. party. I love my family, though somewhere along the way, I lost my apetite for cake if you know what I mean.

Honestly, our family is going in the other direction.

both wife and i grew up around a lot of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandmas, grandpas. Weekends, holidays, birthdays were spent together. Brother, sister and i spent countless hours with our cousins.

but at the end of the day, even if we didn't live 3,000 miles away from them, i don't think we'd be friends with any of them.

don't get me wrong, they're all very nice and kind people, and it's good to see them once in a while, but i have no desire to hang out with them or have our kids all know each other.

so with that filter, i just roll my eyes when my mom laments that my daughter and my sister's son won't grow up knowing each other very well.

i'd be nice if my brother and sister and parents were a little closer, but as far as the big fat extended family? no thanks. to us it's just an endless bunch of obligations that we would rather not attend.

to us, the friends we choose are far more important relationships than the extended relatives that we get stuck with.

My parents each grew up near lots of family. We grew up near ish to family - my cousins were within 45 minutes of us, my grandmother regularly stayed with us for a week or two at a time (and her sisters would sometimes visit too).
Now, I moved away - so I don't see them so much - but my cousin and aunt and uncle live in FL - and I go there to see my grandmother (99). In fact, next week I'll be taking the youngest with me for a visit (the oldest and I went last year).
My husband's whole family lives near us (his mom's side, at least). We just about never see his parents. They're too busy, I suppose. His sister and he do not get along, so we rarely see them. we more see his extended family (his mom's cousin and his wife babysit for us all the time - or just come over and hang out, or whatever).
So, even if you are near to the family, they may not care that much (or, you could be my sister, who says: well, what would we *do* if we visited you? - um, visit me? sorry, I don't know...).

Oh, and my dad sort of makes an effort, he calls every once in a while, but has nothing to say.

We have been away from our families for most of the past 20 years. So we've always managed to find some kind of substitute... especially in the grandparent dept. My mom and MIL passed away in '03 and '05 respectively and I do feel sad that my kids are missing out on that relationship. Grandpas just aren't the same.
My kids (ages 15 and 11) have no relatives their own age at all, so at holidays we tend to invite friends instead.

We were never near family when I was growing up - the Army saw to that. We lived near my mother's parents twice, for a year each, when my father went to Korea and then to Vietnam. Other than that, once a year was doing good. We went from October 1967 to June 1972 without seeing or talking to the Denver-based grandparents, so we didn't know them all that well.

Because of that, my mother makes a concerted effort to see my kids at least once a year, usually more. We usually go to NC to see her, my brother and nieces at least twice a year, and she comes up here for all big occasions. (Since she lives next door to my brother, she sees his kids a lot.)

DW grew up in MoCo and has never left the area except for a couple of times. Her parents are a 30-minute drive away, and we see them a lot. Her siblings are scattered, though - the Navy saw to that. One's in Georgia, one in California and the other recently returned from Guam to Pax River.

I grew up knowing lots of our family as nobody on either side of the family had moved further than 30 to 45 minutes away.

Having said that... I now live 600miles away in a different country. I see my family maybe once a year or less. We wanted to go at Christmas but simply didn't have the money to do so. And it is more than just the money to go... it is giving up my husband's income for that length of time. He doesn't go to work, he doesn't get paid.

His family lives in South America along with the majority of his ex's family. This means that the kids will know absolutely none of their family. It could be years before they see their family. I would love to take the kids with us to Canada to visit my family. This of course depends on us having the time/money and his ex signing the necessary paperwork to allow the children out of the country. They talk on the phone at big events to my Mom. I assume they talk to her mother too. I suspect they don't talk to their father's mother.

At 30, it didn't bother me to be far away from my family. At 40, it bothers me much more especially since my brother has a son my step-daughters age. All of my family still lives relatively close together so I see their closeness and miss it for myself and my nuclear family.

We live smack in the middle of about 60 members of our immediate and extended family, and we quickly found that it's pretty much what you make of it. The family we want to see, my BIL and his family, my mom, my MIL, we see all the time, and the rest we see about as much as we did when we were 2000 miles away. For us it's worth it to live in the boring Midwest to near the family that wants to be involved. Our son has relationships with his grandmothers, aunt and uncle, and cousins I never had growing up and that I wouldn't endanger by moving. We're close with our neighbors and friends as well, but it's not the same.

I grew up here in the US while all the rest of my extended family was back in India so having aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents near by has never been my experience and so I can't imagine being bothered by this should I ever have children of my own.