Closeness to relatives ?

[Ganbare!]

I failed at finding a similar thread, if there is one, please feel free to redirect me and delete this topic.

I rarely got to see the relatives on my mother's side since for ideological reasons they wage war against one another and I really have met my Chinese family 3 to 4 times in my entire life and that was during my early childhood, so I can't really say that I have a deeply rooted relationship with them either.

Anyways, so I'd like to hear your input concerning your family, obviously I'm referring to the extended family on both sides.

Do you value them substantially or do they not play a big part in your life? How often do you see them? Is being EA led you to this situation?

[Groink]

I have practically no contact with any of my relatives. I've met a few of them on both sides of the family, but not in recent times (over 10+ years). Last relative I met was my uncle and a few cousins from Taiwan. He kicked ass.

[admin]

I trade emails with 1 cousin from my dad's side. That it for that branch of the family. On my mom's side, we hear from someone every five years or so. Last year we found out we had an aunt (and 4 cousins) we didn't know existed. This year I found out my uncle I thought died 20 years ago was still alive. We're not close to either side, but that was their choice to ostracize us.

[Paddy]

I've always had more contact with my mother's side (Chinese). She was the last of 13 kids and I have 43 cousins just on that side alone. The Chinese side is very fragmented; the aunties form one pact, and the uncles keep to themselves, not even talking amongst themselves (inheritance feuds, gambling, triads all form a dark picture of the Chinese side). My mother is just about the only one of the 13 who maintains a relationship with most of her siblings. As a result, despite me being cousin #40, I have the rare privilege of having met and being on good terms with more cousins than any other - even more than my sisters because they haven't lived in Asia like me. I love the Chinese side. They may be fractious, but they are all friendly with a bawdy sense of humour meaning that you don't need to be on your best behaviour. They appreciate a bit of spice in a persons' character. And the politics is all for my mother's generation. She has been good at helping us not let that affect my generation to much.

Despite having grown up in the UK, I have had almost no contact with my Irish family (dad's side). It is ironic that this thread comes up as I have just been invited to a wedding in Ireland next month and a fairly large number of the extended Irish family whom I've never met will be there. I'm kind of dreading it to be honest, but I feel it's a good opportunity to make inroads with relatives that I've had little chance to get to know. My father and his parents never made an effort to get us all together, and as a result, the Chinese side has always been so much more compelling and accessible.

[Yingy]

not really on either side.

Mom is the black sheep of the family so was never close to my asian side of the family. Have been disowned for some silly reason... I forgot they disown everyone so many times for various reasons, I think it's funny.
I used to be really close to my mom but she's the typical crazy "asian mom" so we have had major ups and downs. She travels a lot so we don't speak to each other much anymore

I used to be really close to my dad's side but it's hard with distance. I was very close to my grandmother, uncles and aunts but 3 have passed now not close to my dad but we are booth horrible phone people and live far away from each other .

I try to keep them in the loop at least ;D

[helles]

We are super close with my Chinese family. my mum makes a lot of effort on the whole 'we are family' thing and gets upset when we aren't tight-knit and do our own thing and not put 'family first'. we usually see each other once a week. my grandma, uncle, aunt+family live opposite each other, and my mum and a couple more aunts live in the same residential complex 5 mins walk from my grandma's house... its -that- close.

With my cousins, we are a bit spread out age wise, some are in their 30's and some early 20's. I get on pretty good with one set of cousins, and we hang out regularly.

For the English side, there is pretty much no family there - lots of family rifts etc breaking it up, tho some random distant cousins have popped up in recent years, but they are like in their 50/60's so barely keep any contact.. some woman kept trying to add me on fb, turned out she was my dad's cousins daughter. no clue how she found me!

[mingzayni88]

Bermudian families are really close, I am close to my dad's side, but i'm extremely close to my mum's side of the family. we see eachother all the time and are always over eachother's houses for no good reason.

[buffyuna]

^ Cool i never noticed your from Bermuda. My last roommate/friend was from Bermuda, She put me on alot of the music from there.

Both sides of my family are weird and secluded. I dont know about anyone on my mom's side besides my grandma and my uncle. Hell I dont even know my grandfathers name or if he is dead/alive.
I can name a lot more people on my dad's side, but I haven't had contact with them in years.

[Jonas]

I see most of the relatives on my father's side fairly often because we all live in the same area but I'm not really that close with them as most of my cousins are almost twice my age.
And the only ones that I somewhat frequently see on my mother's side is my uncle and his wife, that come over here every other summer or so. Other than that I've only met the rest of my Thai family the one time I've actually been in Thailand.

There's never been any tension between any of us or anything like that though, mostly just a matter of distance and money.

[Groink]

General question to everyone:

Has your parents' interracial marriages caused any rifts on either side of the family? I don't know of any overt indignation on either of my sides of the family, but I get the feeling it was kind of there.

[mingzayni88]

Jul 6, 2009 23:57:03 GMT -5 buffyuna said:

^ Cool i never noticed your from Bermuda. My last roommate/friend was from Bermuda, She put me on alot of the music from there.

Both sides of my family are weird and secluded. I dont know about anyone on my mom's side besides my grandma and my uncle. Hell I dont even know my grandfathers name or if he is dead/alive.
I can name a lot more people on my dad's side, but I haven't had contact with them in years.

Cool, ur roomy was form Bermuda! Glad to see ppl representing the island properly! Unfortunately instead of spending my summer back home, i'm forced to spend most of it in depressing iffy weathered England.

[TeeHee]

Jul 7, 2009 15:31:43 GMT -5 Groink said:

General question to everyone:

Has your parents' interracial marriages caused any rifts on either side of the family? I don't know of any overt indignation on either of my sides of the family, but I get the feeling it was kind of there.

Most definitely. My paternal Asian grandma wanted my dad to marry your stereotypical "nice Asian girl." My dad disappointed her by marrying my mom who wasn't full Asian; not to mention she didn't brown-nose up grandma's ass the way the other daughter-in-laws did. So save for a few exceptions, that side didn't accept my mom/me. My grandma regularly made fun of me for my looks/hair. Even though I was the first grandchild on that side to graduate from highschool(my older paternal-side cousins had dropped out), none of them attended my graduation even though they were in town. I don't have much of a heart for them, but I tolerate them for the times that I do see them, which isn't often at all. On the contrary, I'm very close with my mom's side, always have been.

[Yingy]

Jul 7, 2009 15:31:43 GMT -5 Groink said:

General question to everyone:

Has your parents' interracial marriages caused any rifts on either side of the family? I don't know of any overt indignation on either of my sides of the family, but I get the feeling it was kind of there.

Hard to say for me because there was already a huge rift between my mom and her parents since she was a teenager so I don't know if they were always distant with me because of that or because she married a white dude They have never said anything bad about me or anything in to regards of being half white but they did treat me differently compared to my cousins that were full asian but not sure if that was because I was mixed or because I was my moms daughter
Can't ask them now because I'm disowned, moms fault

[cm]

Jul 6, 2009 23:57:03 GMT -5 buffyuna said:

^ Cool i never noticed your from Bermuda. My last roommate/friend was from Bermuda, She put me on alot of the music from there.

Both sides of my family are weird and secluded. I dont know about anyone on my mom's side besides my grandma and my uncle. Hell I dont even know my grandfathers name or if he is dead/alive.
I can name a lot more people on my dad's side, but I haven't had contact with them in years.

I have a very similar story.

[Ganbare!]

Well who would've guessed that there were SO MANY estranged families in mixed race households? I think the growing individualism and multiplication of relationships (lower time spend with family, more friends/colleagues/acquaintances) throughout the life of one individual has a major influence on this issue.