When cousins play the role of siblings

BarcelonaThis weekend, Mada is looking after her nephews Vera and Ibai, aged nine and six, respectively. Her sister-in-law, the children's mother, is preparing for competitive exams, so she's using Saturday morning to study at the Ignasi Iglesias-Can Fabra library in Sant Andreu, while Mada takes the two children and her seven-year-old daughter, Ona, for a walk around the neighborhood. At midday, the children and their parents will all gather at Mada's house for lunch. Although they live in different neighborhoods and each cousin has a different circle of friends, both families try to see each other often. "We alternate Saturday lunches between our house and theirs," explains Mada, who emphasizes how the three children enjoy the evening the most. They also occasionally babysit for the children. "That way, the parents can enjoy some free time when we need it or when we feel like getting away without the kids," she notes. These are moments that Mada considers ideal for enriching their relationship and doing different things, "but also for learning about other routines and ways of doing things, and for them to understand that every family can have different customs and rules." In the summer, Mada's family spends the season with their caravan at the campsite, and sometimes Ona receives visits from her cousins. "All of us being there, sleeping together and playing and running around the campsite in semi-freedom is quite an adventure!" she emphasizes. Mada and her brother—Vera and Ibai's father—are from Cantabria, so during the summer they also take the opportunity to visit family. "Our other brother and our nephews David and Regina live there, and although we don't see each other as much as they'd like, when all five cousins ​​get together it's fantastic," she explains.

A genuine bond

Cousins ​​are often the first peers outside the immediate family with whom a child regularly interacts. Psychologist Silvia Guillamón points out that "they share a common cultural and familial environment—norms, values, rituals, and humor—and are often linked to safe spaces, supervised by trusted adults, such as shared grandparents." This context, continues Guillamón, who is also the director of the El Árbol psychology center, "generates a bond based on proximity and the implicit trust of the family clan, making the relationship very similar to an early friendship."

For Guillamón, what makes this bond genuine, compared to others like siblings or friends, is precisely its intermediate position. Unlike siblings, he points out, "there isn't constant cohabitation or such clearly defined roles, which reduces rivalry and emotional intensity." And, unlike friends, he emphasizes, they share a common family and value system: "Thus, cousins ​​combine the intimacy of family ties with the freedom of chosen relationships, resulting in bonds that are less hierarchical than fraternal ones and more stable than many childhood friendships."

Safe emotional support

The relationship with cousins ​​can be very enriching for a child. First, because they offer secure emotional support. Then, Guillamón adds, because they "create rich and varied play spaces," where playing together "helps develop creativity, language, and the ability to manage emotions." Furthermore, they become "a first stage for socialization," where children learn to negotiate, share, and resolve minor conflicts within a safe family environment. And, she points out, older cousins ​​often "serve as accessible role models." In any case, the psychologist notes that having cousins ​​or not is not a determining factor in a child's life, but it can have an influence. The relationship with cousins, she notes, "can shape social, emotional, and identity development." However, she clarifies, a child "can grow up happy and fully developed without cousins, as long as they have other figures of belonging and support."

As they grow older, cousins ​​can become an essential support system. According to the director of El Árbol, "cousins ​​aren't bound by the rigid roles of siblings, they understand the family context but from a different perspective, and they can offer advice less influenced by the dynamics of the nuclear family." They are relatives who, in adolescence and adulthood, often act as confidants on matters of relationships, studies, work, or delicate life moments. "Many adults," Guillamón emphasizes, "explain that cousins ​​serve as a bridge, helping to keep the connection and family identity alive."

Less frequent relationship, but not weakened

Despite the benefits of cousin relationships during childhood, these relationships have undergone a profound transformation in recent decades. Xavier Roigé, professor of social anthropology at the University of Barcelona, ​​explains that, for much of the 20th century, especially in Mediterranean societies, weekends and family celebrations brought together the entire extended family in an almost ritualistic way. "Places like grandparents' houses, Sunday lunches, and religious or popular celebrations," Roigé continues, "functioned as a natural meeting point where children spent hours with their cousins." For this reason, he emphasizes, many adults remember cousins ​​"as their first friends, playmates, partners in adventure, and confidants of secrets." It was a relationship, he points out, "that arose from everyday life and physical proximity, not from a conscious decision."

Today, however, the social context has changed: families are smaller and geographical mobility has increased, so it is common for siblings to live in different cities, or even different countries. Added to this is the intensification of extracurricular activities, which occupy a good part of children's free time and reduce spontaneous encounters. All of this, Roigé points out, means that the relationship between cousins ​​"is less frequent and, in many cases, less central to children's daily lives." This does not mean that the bond has weakened, emphasizes the professor of social anthropology, for whom, in some cases, the bond has taken on new forms and has even intensified. "Social networks and digital communication allow contact to be maintained despite the distance, and many teenagers and young adults recover or strengthen their relationship with cousins ​​through these channels," Roigé states. It is also common, she adds, that during important life events—breakups, illnesses, births, or family losses—cousins ​​"reappear as figures of emotional support, because they share a family history that no one else can replace."

Patterns that are inherited

When Ona spends the weekend at her cousins ​​Vera and Ibai's house, or vice versa, they sometimes go to the theater or the movies together. However, what they enjoy most by far, says Mada, is playing together. "On those days we make something special to eat, watch a movie, and have a sleepover—it's all so much fun," she confesses. It's a close relationship that, as Mada recalls, both she and her brother also experienced as children with their own cousins, and which they now want to foster among the younger members of the family. Specifically, she remembers spending weekends at her maternal grandparents' house with all her cousins. "We have very fond memories of that time, and we really like seeing that, in a way, we're repeating the pattern," Mada points out, also emphasizing that the setting is different ("a village in Cantabria, with the freedom that gives you compared to the city") and that there were many more cousins ​​back then.

"Vera and Ibai are the siblings Ona won't have," Mada says. The little girl often asks for a little brother or sister, but her parents decided long ago to give up on that idea. "We explained to her that she could have a brother or sister and not get along with them, and that, on the other hand, she has her cousins, with whom she has a good relationship," she emphasizes. When asked if she thinks that, in Ona's case, this relationship is more beneficial than in other children simply because she is an only child, Mada replies that, in part, yes. Ona's mother points out that having a good relationship with her cousins ​​"helps, in a way, to compensate for this lack or desire for siblings." On the other hand, she acknowledges that they, who were three siblings, have also benefited from having a close relationship with their cousins. "I think it depends on each child and the type of relationship they have with each other; there are cousins ​​who, although they see each other often, don't get along at all," she clarifies. In the case of Ona, Vera and Ibai, Mada, her husband, her brother and her sister-in-law hope that the children will maintain this relationship, "that the three of them will continue doing things together and that, although each one has their own space, they will find moments to meet and continue their friendship."