Relatively speaking

Now that Thanksgiving's gatherings are over, many of us are looking forward to other gatherings of friends and relatives in the Christmas season. As the family spreads to two, three, four and even five generations it is sometimes hard to remember which generation a certain child belongs in. Sometimes the youngest of one generation is only a few years older, or maybe even younger than the first of the next generation.

The aunts and uncles that the child sees regularly may seem more like a big brother or sister. A relative with the same relationship that isn't seen too often may seem much older to a child and might be put in the memory bank as less important or much older than those they see often.

Unfortunately sometimes that person is a very important relative to the child. He or she possibly is a grandparent who lives far away. The grandparent may try to compensate for the absence by being too lavish with gifts to get some recognition from the child. However the ones nearby are frequently gifting their little relative with an ice cream cone, a cookie, the prize from a Happy Meal, or admission to the movies. The child doesn't keep score but some of the older relatives probably do. To clarify the relationships we sometimes try to explain to a youngster that the visiting family has the same type of relatives as the ones here in town.

OK. Try to explain cousins to a small child. First you explain that the child's mother and the visiting child's father are sister and brother, just like you and John are sister and brother. That makes you cousins. Whoops, one of the visiting children is the result of a second marriage. But that doesn't matter, you are still cousins. But what about the older child who was the result of that first marriage? Well, they are still cousins and we won't worry about the details.

When I am talking to people in Lester's family, or to my daughter-in-law, I always get in a discussion between 'first cousins once removed' and second cousins. I was taught (And if you look it up you will find that I am right!) that cousins are from the same generation regardless of their age. Their offspring are second cousins to each other, but their offspring, to you, are firsts cousins once removed. Then the child of that first cousin once removed is your first cousin twice removed. But the children of the first cousin twice removed and your grandchildren are second cousins. My in-laws would call them third cousins. Is everyone confused? Trying to explain it is tricky but it is simple to understand if you remember to keep the same generation on the same level of relationship.

When I was growing up we didn't have visiting relatives any farther away in relationship than grandparents and Aunts and uncles. But now that we all keep in closer contacts we will have up to five generations at annual gatherings and when you multiply four or five generations by eight (the original number of siblings in my family) you have a relatively large group of nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents at our quadrennial family reunions here at The Wayside.

Be prepared, it is coming this summer and if anyone asks me how they are related to each other, I think I will just evade the question and say that we are all kissing cousins.

The scary thing about this reunion is that my sister, Ellen and Lester and I are the only ones old enough to remember some things. What makes it more scary is we can't always remember what we know. It's rough to be the matriarchs and patriarch of a family this large. For one thing they will want pictures of us with each new child. That's fine but in a few minutes I will have to ask, "Now, whose baby was that?" They will surely know that we are more than middle age plus.

I hope they label all the pictures before they send them out or put them on Facebook.