How Close Are You To Your Cousins?

Interesting question that is difficult to answer.

Would you ask the same about siblings, or parents? Is the closeness in relation to who?

How would you even measure degrees of closeness?

It ranges from between a few miles away to several thousand.

I keep in touch with some of my cousins via Facebook. Others, I call every once in a while to catch up. Some other of my cousins are simply not interested in keeping in touch at all, so I don’t bother.

There is an underlying reason why this question . Please be a bit more specific.

Akuperma, if we were descended from apes, we would have even more cousins.

@Joseph
I am the youngest child in my family, my parents were the youngest in their families as well.
I have no first cousins left alive at this point
There are a few second cousins surviving, the youngest of whom is more than 20 years older than I am and we were never close due to the age gap. I am close with some of their children.
I have about a dozen third cousins on my paternal side who are within 5 years of my age and all live within a 90 minute drive. We are very close, talk every week and see each other many times each year.

We make it a point to have a cousins reunion every year (15-18 adults, plus our kids).

Every few years we have a full family reunion- my mother and her cousins down to their great grandchildren.

@Uncle Ben
In the morning the older boys/girls learn with the younger ones for a while. We have a built in swimming pool, tennis and basketball court and baseball/soccer layout for sports. We do arts and crafts, Mrs. CTL has taught most of them to play piano and I play and can teach clarinet and saxophone. We take them to area parks and attractions and sailing on Long Island Sound. The kids spend time learning to cook and I teach home repair skills.
They each are given a small patch in our vegetable gardens to plant and care for. They go for hikes and bike rides on our 4 town trail.
Mostly they use their imagination to keep busy with each other, they don’t need the over-programming of school and camp. Nothing wrong with hanging out under a tree and reading a book, jumping rope, playing with a toy or doll, shooting baskets, playing with the dogs and just being a kid.

@Uncle Ben
Mrs. CTL is mostly retired (due to medical reasons) but was a realtor/designer/builder. Her office is in an outbuilding on our property. If she has a construction project going on the grandchildren (as our kids) love to be on the building site helping and learning. Last summer our eldest grandson learned to drive small excavators and pickup trucks at a senior housing development we were doing.
I own my law firm, my children and some spouses are associates and taking over much of the workload as I near retirement. I have an office in the home as well. Unless I have to be in court, I can work remotely and take off lots of time in the summer.
Not only are all our grandchildren here for the summer, but many of my siblings grandchildren are also in the compound for the summer. Mrs. CTL’s sisters live within a block distance and tend to be here most days.
It’s almost like having our own bungalow colony without having to drive to the country.

Mrs. CTL and I made this decision many decades ago, to keep adding on to the house and amenities to keep the family together. We don’t go away on vacations, the kids and grandchildren are not shipped off to camp and we don’t pay dues to a swim or beach club. In all it has been much cheaper and we feel the children have been much safer than if in the care of strangers.