My stepdaughter is encouraged by her mother to call basically every family friend, chummy neighbor, and child of those people aunt, uncle or cousin. Not a big deal... until they had a falling out with a good friend of theirs. Now they have no contact. My stepdaughter misses them immensely- something that would have happened anyways- but now she's afraid of her actual, real aunts and uncles exiting her life permanently. This summer after a visit, when my sister in law was about to embark on a plane home, my stepdaughter was extremely upset and begged her not to go because she was afraid of never seeing her again. This was directly related to the falling out with the family friend.

Now, I'm aware family falls out too. But before you come at me with that, I have to say that it's different. Say that my s/o fell out with his sister. Complete no contact. His sister would still be able to have contact with my stepdaughter through her parents. And falling out with family is comparably rarer than falling out with friends.

Also, while obviously some friends are for life, that's more of an exception than a rule. Throughout my life I've had many friends. Probably around 75-100, if not more. I've only maintained about 10 of those for 10 years. My cousins however? My aunts and uncles? I still see them, we still have contact.

Obviously there are exceptions to this. For example I know it can be hard for little kids to call old people by their first names so I think it's okay if old people ask for them to call them 'Nan' or 'Papa' or whatever. Also I know in some cultures, like Hawaii and India, kids just call everyone their parents age Auntie and Uncle. Otherwise I'm just pretty against this practice. People who do it should think twice before they encourage their kids to do it.