Cousins

i have six cousins from my father's side of the family and, i think, two maybe three from my mother's side. we used to socialise at family weddings and funerals but not for a long time now.

I agree with Trisha. You have raised your kids. Instilled in them your values. After that it is up to them. Just think about it Lori some siblings do not get along with each other much less cousins. Try and have some faith in the family values you have taught them. But bottom line is it is outside your control. Just love them all the same and hope it rubs off!!! It has with mine!

I am the mother of four adult children, all brought up the same way. I have 3 daughters and 1 son. They now all have children of their own and I am amazed at their different parenting of their children. I would say that my son appears to be the one with the no nonsense approach; his son is 1yr old and my son has started as he means to go on. I agree with a previous comment that you are overthinking things. Just take a step back and view your children with pride.

This is not your concern so why not, as hard as it might be for you, step back as I am sure if they want your advice they will ask.

It's not always cousins that don't get on!

I have one sister and we've never been close.

Chalk and cheese.

Sometimes we just have to let things ride.

Don't worry too much about this.

It’s sad when relationships in families flounder or never develop, so I can understand your distress. Whatever happens in the future, you will be the keystone that holds them together.

My sister and I did different things with our adult lives even tho we remained close. Our children, the cousins, will not keep in touch. They are all grown now and have made their own life choices.
Count your blessings- it’s the best way to look at it

All families are different, and so long as they are all happy and law abiding I don’t see any problems. They DO have contact with each other, and children generally overcome differences far better than adults. Just rejoice in that you see them all.

I have 6 cousins but due to geographic distance and the fact dad and his siblings were never close nor mum and her sister. We only met a handful of times growing up.
I'm pleased to say that a female cousin who emigrated to Oz after her wedding in 1966 when I was 12 is now back in my area and after a chance meeting we are getting to know each other.

We also have geographic reasons why the cousins are unlikely to be close. The ones that do live nearby have very different personalities and I don't think they would get on as friends so probably they won't get together much as cousins. I only have male cousins and they cause me enough headaches without living in each others pockets, however, we have all kept in touch down the years. As for the class aspect, well families nowadays seem to be mixed in every way, I know ours is don't overthink it all.

My Ad is quite close to her cousins even though they live in different parts of the country and my grandchildren are very close to their cousins I wouldn’t worry about it my Ad sees her cousins once a year

Cousins are not brothers and sisters as you seem to expect them to be acting.
As long as they get on - you don't say how often they see each other- when they meet up, that's the main thing.
Maybe your son's children are a little more reserved than your daughter's, so they appear to be stand offish. Maybe they just haven't found a common ground, such as a shared interest to tie them together.
You will probably find that as they grow into adults, that they get on well. But as long as they are all polite to each other as well as to you, I wouldn't worry.
Younger generations spend less time with each other than we probably did, so possibly may never be that close.

My father died when I was three and a half years old.My mother cut herself off from his family totally,so I never met any of my cousins as she was an only child.I could walk past them in the street and wouldn't know them. I don't feel deprived or unloved by not knowing my cousins,my father was one of thirteen children. I sometimes wish I knew them but it never bothered me. All families are different and my children know all their cousins from both sides of the family.

I have 22 grandchildren ranging in age from 36 to 18months old and brought up by six sets of parents who are very different. I have never thought about whether they will get on together because, I suppose, of the wide age range. They are spread over the country and are not close. This is shown by the fact that I now have two GGC with the same name.
I had 6 cousins 3 who were 8 years plus older than me and 3 of a similar age to my brother and I. We were close to 2 of them as young children but as teenagers my girl cousin and I were like chalk and cheese. She went to the local secondary school with no school uniform and I went to the local girls grammar with a strict uniform policy. She had to come to our house for her lunch and she used to take the Mickey out of me dreadfully mocking my uniform and the way I spoke. Yet as adults we were good friends and she was more like a sister. I was heartbroken when she died suddenly.
I really think OP should stop overthinking about whether her grandchildren will be close or even friends when they grow up and just enjoy them as they are. She may find that despite their difference in upbringing, like my cousin and I, they may enjoy each others company as adults.

I think it's a bit sad. My brothers children, my kids cousins, have only met them once. To be honest I've only met the older one once before that. They lived the opposite end of the country and their mother felt we, and our boys, were a 'bad influence'. She always presented herself as being from a higher social class than us, and for some reason the rest of the family accepted it, probably because they felt socially intimidated, although their backgrounds were not at all dissimilar. When she left my brother, because he didn't have enough money and she wanted a bigger house she told him, he really struggled to see the children at all as ex-wife did everything she could to make impossible (courts recognise this sort of behavious now but they didn't back then). Their children tried to keep in touch by phoning us, we weren't allowed to call them, but they were too young to keep it up in the face of mothers disapproval and we have had no contact for over 20 years. Personally, I think it's going to be their loss as my kids get on with everyone and are very confident and sociable. It is sad though, we don't hold out much hope of seeing them again. OP, I do think that your role is just keeping the two families in contact, the lines of communication open, it will allow them to make choices about if, or how, they interact as they get older and start to look outward to their peers and are no longer so much in thrall to the familiarity of their parents ways.

We were really close to our cousins when we were young. They were more like brothers and sisters but as we got older, something changed and now we are not particularly comfortable in each other's company although I think of them fondly. We are just such different people. It doesn't blight their life or mine so if I were the OP, I'd stop worrying about it.

IMEx, everyday proximity boosts the familiarity & rapport in any family relationships.

If they are the within the age range & you have the space, could you offer the children ‘Granny summer camp’ starting out as a daytime, treat, then overnight (sleeping bags/air mattresses on sitting room floor) at a time, maybe working up to weekends/few days in the school holidays.

If they are all together, in doors & in the garden, going to the park watching movies, baking, building, watching movies etc.

Once the children have relaxed away from their loving parents’s gaze, some natural rapport will grow between them.

As has been said, they will work it out for themselves later. OK, so your son's children may be getting fed a line about your daughter's children, but they have brains of their own and they will use them when they're older. Then it will be up to them to make their own minds up, and their parents will have much diminished influence. My girls and their cousins 'discovered' each other as adults. Now they are really good friends with their spouses and children. They're in a WhatsApp group together and Zoom each other all the time. When they were growing up we were geographically distant from my brother and there were very different parenting styles. Added to that, my husband could not stand my brother's wife, although nothing was ever said, but we saw each other infrequently because of that. As my nephews grew up, my SIL and brother would try always to make sure all communication was via them. I feared the cousins would not have a meaningful relationship each other, but as adults they are very close, which I'm delighted about, and I think my late husband would have been pleased too. After my first husband died and I remarried, relations thawed somewhat. My second husband was more relaxed about SIL's attitude, which he thought was hilarious. He described her as 'deeply shallow', but he was always charming to her, and being shallow, she completely fell for it! Try not to worry too much about the cousins, just concentrate on being a lovely grandma.

You didn't say how old the children are, but it sounds to me as if they are still in the junior school age group and that mummy is very much in command in your son's household.

This will change, teenagers rebel and no doubt your son's children will too. This may bring them closer to their cousins.

As teenagers and as adults these children will all decide who they want to be friends with.

Whether or not they see each other will depend on that rather than on being family.

I have never been close to my cousins. As a child I envied school-friends who talked about theirs, but now I am happy to be on relatively formal terms with my cousins.

I have two cousins in England. Haven't heard from them since I was a child. One cousin here who I get a Christmas card from. I dont care a jot. My family are my husband, children and grandchildren. Whether your grandchildren are close in the future is in the lap of the gods.

I think that my grandchildren get along famously is simply due to the fact that their parents are good friends with each other. Most of us (sadly not the daughter/granddaughter in NZ) go on holiday together at least once a year and we have regular family celebrations so the grandchildren mix a lot. My children's values and lifestyles are not the same, but not wildly different either. There is a disparity in income with one of my children, but the others ensure this is never a barrier - they are very generous with each other. The one who is less financially well off is very gifted at designing and making things so for birthdays etc. will make something creative that is, literally, priceless.

During a FaceTime call a couple of days ago my two sons had a FaceTime call where their children (aged 1½ and 2½) were bathed, dried, put to bed and one son read both children a bed time story. These two children live an hour's drive away from each other but their parents make sure they see each other often. It's lovely for now, but I'm also conscious that they may grow up and grow apart in the future.

If it doesn't happen naturally I'm afraid I don't think there is anything that can be done to force a close relationship between cousins (or siblings either if it comes to that).

I'm willing to bet that left to their own devices together, with no tense adults watching they would be absolutely fine

Life is so different now with families spread far and wide and society on a 24/7 rota and working hours are rarely 9-5 Monday-Friday.

Once they are old enough a lot of the young keep in touch via social media. Occasionally my children will make a comment about a young family member or old school friend perhaps changing jobs or being on holiday. It’s a looser kind of contact but possibly wider than we would have been able to maintain with one party landline for the whole family. We didn’t even have a phone til I was about 12.

I am not close to any of my cousins My stepchildren don't know their cousins my grandchildren know and like each other but aren't close Just because people are family doesn't mean they will have common interests or even get on Trynot to dwell

Both my parents came from large families. We were ‘bombed out’ during the war, and moved to the other side of the city. Communications were difficult, and my dad was in the army for five years. After the war there was little communication between the families, and they drifted apart. I know that I have dozens of cousins, many of whom have probably died by now. I am only in touch with one, who had no children. We meet up a few times a year for a meal and a catch-up, but we have little in common. She lost touch with our other cousins too.
As for the next generation, I have two GC, sister and brother, aged 21 and 18 who both normally live near me. The GS is stuck in Australia, right now, living with his father until the virus is gone. In Australia I have a GD of 3, and a new baby cousin due shortly. I hope that they will be friends. Their parents are, but they live 50 miles apart. There’s not much chance of the older and younger groups of cousins becoming friends right now.
Families make their own dynamics, and there’s not much that we can do about it. I certainly wouldn’t let it worry me.