Cousin crews are the best -- but they’re shrinking: Our Best Life

CLEVELAND, Ohio – I grew up with two dozen first cousins.

My mom had more than 100.

My kids have six.

And plenty of kids have zero.

Obviously we know why. The U.S. birth rate, like birth rates in Europe and Canada, has fallen -- to an historic low of 1.7 children per woman, below the 2.1 level considered necessary for population replacement and nearly a 23% decline since 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Taking in worldwide numbers, a 65-year-old woman on average in 1950 could expect to have 41 living family members, according to research published in 2023 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A 65-year-old woman in 2095 is projected to have just 25 relatives.

Those living relatives will generally be older, and the living family tree will be much taller than it is wide.

“Horizontal kin will be in relatively low supply,” the researchers write.

How sad.

Family, whether they’re far flung or a mile down the road, help lighten the burden of life. They may babysit your kids, check in on your parents, offer financial help.

Aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews also make life more fun. When you gather, it’s an instant party.

And because you share background, your relationships are naturally meaningful -- for your entire life.

Cousins connect you to your familial heritage and your childhood self. They understand the terroir that gives your family its particular taste. And they share your memories, with a fascinating twist of perspective.

My mom has books to keep track of her parents’ families, in which my Opa was the middle of 17 children in the Netherlands and my Oma was the oldest of 11.

My mom grew up with none of these cousins nearby, since her parents emigrated to Ontario. But she got to know some of them when she visited the Netherlands at 17. They still keep in touch, and last year my daughter and I whirled around their villages, meeting second and third cousins. My mom even ran into a cousin she‘d never met in the grocery store.

Growing up, I saw my cousins only a few times a year because we lived in Ohio and they lived in Ontario. But we were similar ages and so, automatic playmates. We had our own traditions, while our parents gabbed or made dinner or played cards.

That might be the key to cousin magic: kids left to their own devices, for extended amounts of time. The kids table was always giddy.

“We were our own entertainment directors,” Barbara Bush wrote about the Bush cousin escapades at their grandparents’ home in Kennebunkport, Maine. They conjured ghosts in the attic and jumped in the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

With my paternal cousins, we played softball in my grandparents’ backyard. We haggled over the game Sorry!, ran laps in the basement and made up commercial jingles.

With my maternal cousins, we made up a game called accountant, took turns braiding hair and hung out at the beach of Lake Huron. When they visited us, we took them to Geauga Lake and Sea World.

Decades later, we see each other less frequently, but we keep up through texts and social media, with a shorthand only cousins understand. (My cousin just messaged me a clip of Jason Kelce’s podcast, with the note: “He’s wearing a Geauga Lake T-shirt.”)

We remember the horse-and-buggy rides with Opa. We still own the matching beach towels we got from Grandma for Christmas.

You can be as close to your cousins as you wish. As adults, their perspective is fascinating, as you compare versions of the same sepia-toned reminisces. They understand your family’s idiosyncrasies and personalities.

“Despite being related by blood and commonly in the same generation, cousins can end up with completely different upbringings, class backgrounds, values, and interests,” writes the Atlantic. “And yet, they share something rare and invaluable: They know what it’s like to be part of the same particular family.”

It never matters how long it’s been since you talked; it’s like it’s been no time at all.

“A friend you haven’t spoken to in 20 years is no longer a friend,” WorldCrunch writes. “A cousin is still a cousin.”

Even if you don’t have blood-related cousins, though, you can still create the same kind of chosen family with friends.

When your good friends have kids of similar ages, it’s a treat for the entire family to gather. You can create your own traditions and let them run wild with wiffle ball while you gab over margaritas. When they’ve known each other since birth, kids create the same kind of lifelong bonds.

Said one mom who has such close family friends, “I don’t think our kids will ever lose touch with these ‘cousins,’ in the same way others feel forever tethered to their blood relatives.”

For Mother’s Day, I went to see a play of the beloved classic “Anne of Green Gables” in Stratford, Ontario, with three generations of cousins.

This month, we‘re staying with my mom’s cousins on vacation in the Canadian Maritimes.

I feel so lucky to have these relationships, and to share them with my kids, who get the gift of oodles of family.

And I feel like my kids are so lucky to have a set of first cousins who live 40 minutes away.

The kids ski together winter weekends at Boston Mills. They play soccer and football together and cheer each other on at tournaments. My daughter has practiced with their swim team. One day maybe their high school teams will face each other?

Meanwhile, they share family dinners and sleepovers, handmedowns and a group text chat. They know each other’s friends. They know each other at their core.

And they understand each other’s parents!

I love watching the cousins now, and I love knowing they’re forming their own bonds for the future.