Family Ties- unraveling thereof

So I’m the product of immigrants (although maternal grandfather got to SF in 1904) and it was instilled in me very early on that family was first; so I’m very close to my parents, sister’s family, and first cousins. Not easy always but we keep together.

Someone very close to me who is a descendent of the daughters of the American revolution, has uncles who haven’t spoken in 30 yrs and their family never gets together or talks or even stays in touch.

Easy factor is that it’s cultural and as more generations grow people spread out and lose touch and the family ties break down.

Thoughts?

 

My wife is extremely close with her entire extended family. I talk to my family occasionally on social media or something, but I don't even text my mom but 2-3 times a month. It would have happened for me regardless of culture or technology.

 

My grandma was instramental in deepening my extended family ties. She and my grandpa would fly my cousins out from Salt Lake City to meet us since we were the same generations. Years later, after she and my aunts have passed on - my cousins and I still get together every few years or so for a reunion and we had a Zoom get together over the holidays. And I'm in regular Facebook contact with my dad's side of his family. Oddly - my generation of cousins is probably tighter than my parents generation of cousins.

 

My dad’s family is all in Mexico and we’ve never met them (his parents and only sibling are all dead. Only met my grandmother). My mom’s family were scattered between Virginia, Oklahoma and California and they were all very close. Even as kids, my sister and I all knew my uncles and spent a lot of time with them growing up. Then my cousins were born and we spent good time with them even with a 10 to 15 year gap up until they were teenagers. Now haven’t spent much time with any of them with a few exceptions.

Can’t really explain why (well I can for a couple of them but that’sa different story)

 

That’s sad.

 

I'm in the same situation. My dad is passed away, Mom can be a handful to deal with, and me and my sisters are scattered around the country. Scattered as in, it would take a flight and a week of vacation for any of us to go see any of the others. We don't hate each other or anything, but we just don't talk much and very rarely visit.

 

We're scattered. And I'm even more scared from my dad's family because he was estranged from them through most of my teens.

 

My parents live a relatively short distance away, and I call them a couple of times a week and we’ll have times when we won’t see each other for a few weeks, then see each other every day for a week.

On my Mom’s side, she was very close to her sister, and we were quite close with her and her cousins, but we’ve kinda grown more distant as myself and my cousins grew up and had families. My aunt became kinda snobby about certain things, including how my kids were being raised, and my Mom, my wife and I kinda got pissed at her for a few things she said. We still talk now and then, but there’s more of a coldness now.

My dad and his brother and my cousins never really were close. We’d visit for a day a couple of times a year, have a decent time, and that would be it. My uncle and his wife live in Florida for part of the year now, and my Dad and Mom visited them a couple of times when they would take a trip, but that was all. I’m Facebook friends with my cousins, and we’ll like each others’ posts, but that’s about it. One cousin, who I think has some mental health issues, I haven’t seen in 15 years since his brother’s wedding. We’re just not close.

My wife grew up in an abusive home, was in and out of foster care with her siblings, and hasn’t seen or spoken to any of them for more than 30 years, as she doesn’t want anything to do with them, both for safety reasons, as her father and two of her brothers have a history of violence, and because she feels she’s moved on with her life. We found out her mother was dying in a hospital, but my wife didn’t want to see her. My wife did reunite with one of her grandmothers and one of her aunts before they died, and keeps in contact with a couple of her cousins. One of her sister’s kids tried to contact my wife on Facebook and my wife said she wasn’t the person her sister was looking for, because again, she doesn’t want anything to do with them.

My wife also had some foster families,’and, long story short, one of the foster moms found her 25 years later and called. They’re friends on Facebook, and my wife has visited her a couple of times. Another foster mother and my wife had a falling out (another long story), but they’re Facebook friends now.

It’s sad in a way, but my wife has moved on with her life. She’s close with my Mom, and civil with my Dad (personality clash).

 

Being nomadic has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to family gatherings. Gwen and I have lived in Florida, California, North Carolina and Georgia since 1987. My brother Duane was in San Antonio until recently, when he and his wife moved in Murfreesboro and are now building a house only 40 miles from us. My brother Scott and his wife have been in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Savannah and now live 10 miles from Mom and Dad. My sister Lisa married a Navy Squid, wound up in Charleston and then Arkansas and Missouri.

So we're scattered, smothered, covered and chunked. It's not that we don't like each other. We just have been in different places at different times. We're also of the age where texting and e-mailing each other wasn't particularly important. Until the weekly Zoom chat this year, we would get together sporadically for Christmases, sometimes in Florida with Mom and Dad, and Mom usually told us what the other sibs were up to when we'd call.

Odd situation in that my father's an only child and mom had an older sister, plus two adult step-brothers from my grandfather's first marriage, AND we left Detroit in 1960 for Florida and lived thousands of miles away the remainder of my younger life. So I have/had just one true aunt and uncle, and three female cousins (all of whom live within each other 15 miles of Frederick, Md.). Plus my two younger brothers and adopted sister means my full blood relatives right now could sit at a table for eight.

Plus, there's this elongated generational tree on one side of the family. My grandfather was born in 1889 (and died in 1976), so he was 46 when my mother was born, 69 when I was born and 80 when my sister was born. And my sister's youngest child was born when Lisa was 44! So I very easily be the grandson of someone who lived in the 19th and uncle of someone in the 22nd century, if Peyton makes it to 2100.

If Gwen doesn't poison me first, we'll be the fourth consecutive generation to reach a silver anniversary (17 years to go). There's a large photo in the hallway of my parents' house taken in 1937 of my great-grandfather and mother's 50th anniversary celebration at the stone house in Durham, Ontario, with all eight children and their spouses in attendance. Mom is barely 2 and one of only three people in that photo who are still living (she has two cousins who will also turn 86 this year -- they got together last month in Florida). My grandfather and second wife made it to 50 years in 1975. My mom and dad are now 63 years and counting.

However, I have/had an extended group of relatives at one time. My maternal grandfather had seven siblings, my maternal grandmother two, my paternal grandfather six and my paternal grandmother four. So there were huge swaths of "great aunts" and "great uncles" living in and around Detroit, Jefferson, Wis., or across the Canadian border any time we came back to visit, which was usually annually until the mid-70s. My grandfather's youngest sister turned 100 in 2008 (again, crazy generational range), so that's the last time we've been all together with the Canadian side of the family.

Will the four of us remain close when my parents pass? I think we will, but the others have children (and soon-to-be grandchildren) that are a higher priority. I think it'll probably be my responsibility as the eldest to keep the family connection alive.

 

I've always had a really limited sense of family. I'm an only child. So is my dad. My mom is one of six but her siblings were mostly on the east coast -- I only had one aunt I was close to growing up.

Haven't seen my folks in more than a year thanks to COVID. I think the last time I saw my aunt was probably at least three years ago if not more.

Other than that, I probably haven't seen anyone I'm related to since my cousin got married about 20 years ago.

(My wife: also an only child. My kids kind of struck out in the whole aunt/uncle department.)

 

Lived far away from my immediate family for 22 years until moving closer for a new job in September. Now I'm 2.5 hours from Mom and four from my only brother and his family. Beyond that, only person left on Dad's side is his sister who I haven't spoken to in 20 plus years. A lot of mental issues with her.

On my Mom's side, only cousins remain. We are on Facebook, but not sure when I saw any of them.

 

I was an only child whose Mom died when I was 10. I am not close to my Dad and Step Mother who I talked to once a week on the phone. My wife has 2 great sisters and all of the in laws get along as do all the cousins. We make an effort to make sure the cousins see each other, everyone lives within 40 minutes and this past Christmas was the first time in over 40 years the sisters weren't together as we respected the Covid rules here.

The one twist is that a couple years ago I found out that my Mom had given up 2 babies for adoption before she met my Dad. My half sister had heard about me and had been searching for years but a name change by my Dad when I was 16 had killed the paper trail. She would google her birth name every now and ended up finding me thru my Mom's twin sister who died a few years ago. She saw an obituary and reached out to my cousin who I hadn't seen in 20+ years thru the small town paper that the obit ran in. I asked my Dad about it and he said "yeah I heard a rumor that might have happened" and it caused more tension as I was pretty pissed that he knew I might have a sibling out there and didn't say anything, neither did my Aunt for that matter, feel like I've missed out a bit.

We had a great meeting as she still lives in my home city and is a super successful real estate broker/investor. Her main neighborhood of work is where I grew up. My kids adore her and my 13 year old daughter looks more like her than she does my wife or I. Covid put a kibosh on seeing each other more but we are talking about a big trip together to Mexico or Hawaii.