My own mother was a sibling of eleven others - boys and girls. I probably knew half of them well. Two were lost in WWII [very sad for all] - When they rest came home there was no room in a small three bedroom inner city house - so ,oste dispersed /got married and rarely popped in to see their Pa and Ma. The real cohesion of larger family life was much earlier I believe at least in Uk when families live in the countryside and all live close together and worked together.
As a kid I was lucky to have access to two sets of grandparents close by - a raft of cousins and half a dozen aunts and uncles - finally in the 50's this broke down and all the siblings left our town for better lives elsewhere - they rarely kept in touch - I was one of the few siblings who visited both grandparents and a few aunts and uncles - they didn't seem particularly interested in me or my brother and sister then?
So for us the end of WWII saw tremendous social changes and no space for large families to stay together [or perhaps wanting to?] A distant cousin rang me recently and he is now 100 - that was a rare pleasure! There were also of course the negative sides of the extended families - squabbles and jealousies - so maybe the nuclear family was the only was to go??
As a kid I was lucky to have access to two sets of grandparents close by - a raft of cousins and half a dozen aunts and uncles - finally in the 50's this broke down and all the siblings left our town for better lives elsewhere - they rarely kept in touch - I was one of the few siblings who visited both grandparents and a few aunts and uncles - they didn't seem particularly interested in me or my brother and sister then?
So for us the end of WWII saw tremendous social changes and no space for large families to stay together [or perhaps wanting to?] A distant cousin rang me recently and he is now 100 - that was a rare pleasure! There were also of course the negative sides of the extended families - squabbles and jealousies - so maybe the nuclear family was the only was to go??