Once and Future Auntie Missa

[mrissa]

I've still got so many interesting journal prompts from my sleep dep night, it's not even funny. So here's another.

Someone asked for my thoughts on becoming an aunt. They are: EEEEEEEEEEEEE! (seagrit, have the deadbeats delivered the rest of The Kiddo's Christmas present yet?) At somewhat more length: I'm an only child, and my mom is an only child. My dad has three siblings, one of whom has children. Aunt Ruthie adopted Pat when he was already half-grown -- 10 or 11 -- and had Joe when I was 14, and we just didn't see them much. When I talk about my cousins, I'm talking about either further-removed cousins or else people who are no blood relation to me at all. In the part of the family we saw most often, I was the baby by 14 years (my godfather Dave being the next oldest). I still am.

What all that means is that I never assumed I would get to have a niece or nephew. I never assumed I would get to be Crazy Aunt mrissa. (I think being Sane Aunt mrissa is entirely out of the picture.) I don't think it's better or worse to be an auntie without blood ties, like my Aunt Kathy was for me, but it's different. I love being Roo's Auntie Missa, and nothing could make that less special, but it doesn't mean that I have a genuine relationship with his grands on either side. If I get to know porphyrin's or Mike's parents better, it will be because I'm around being Roo's Auntie Missa. The kid relationship will come first. Whereas with seagrit and Jeff's impending spawn, The Kiddo will come into a world where Auntie Ris already does fountain pen geekery with Grandpa Dave and exchanges volumes of Dumas with Uncle Matt and so on. My relationship with the rest of the Gritters won't depend on my relationship with the kid. I'm part of a close set of family this kid is coming into. This has never happened to me before.

I was not close with my dad's sisters when I was little. We didn't see much of them. Both of them were in suboptimal situations for awhile, and their father started behaving like a jackass when I was very young, so we never had Close-Knit Lingen Family Gatherings. (Well, we did, but they were with Aunt Ellen and Uncle Phil's.) I got to be closer with my aunt Mary, who is my godmother, once I was half-grown and she could just deal with me like an adult (Mary is not a "kid person"), and also her own life was better then. I don't feel like I was lacking anything -- I had my aunt Kathy, and I had my godfathers, particularly Dave, and I don't think most avuncular stuff is particularly gendered. Maybe I missed out on particularly gendered avuncular stuff, but if I did, I haven't become aware of it as a grown-up. I look at the Hallmark cards that say, "Kind of like a sister, kind of like a friend...MY AUNT," and I think, really? Do people have aunts like that? Because it doesn't describe most aunt-niece relationships I hear about, and it definitely doesn't describe most aunt-nephew relationships I hear about.

So I expect being Auntie Missa or Auntie Ris or Auntie Stupidhead* or whatever this kiddo calls me to be different from being Uncle markgritter because markgritter and I are different, not because being an aunt is all that different from being an uncle. And I expect the main difference between being a good aunt and being close with kids who have no blood ties is the rest of the family relationship. But I've never done this before. I could be wrong. It'll be fun finding out.

*Roo used to call timprov "Unca Dim." My dad said, "Does he mind that the baby calls him dim?" I said, "timprov loves that kid so much that if Robin called him Uncle Stupidhead, timprov would say, 'How cool! He has a special name for me!'"

Comments

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I just LOVE being the crazy eccentric aunt. I buy the kids things their parents never would; do things their parents don't; and we have a great time.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The problem with that is that seagrit is a Gritter, which means that coming up with things too crazy for this kid's parents will be...problematic.

I don't expect it to be a real problem -- there are always fun things Mom and Dad don't have time for, or don't have available in their area, or just didn't think of. Still, being eccentric for a Gritter is a much taller order than being eccentric for the rest of the world.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Still, being eccentric for a Gritter is a much taller order than being eccentric for the rest of the world.

I'm sure you'll be up to the task.

[couldn't resist]

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I can talk about books and traveling with my uncle. I can talk about books and music with my brother. I can talk about books and various other subjects with some of my friends. So I suppose technically it's true that my relationship with my uncle is kind of like the one with my one and kind of like the ones with my friends, but that wouldn't exactly be my first choice of descriptions.

I would say that my uncle and I are friends in addition to being relatives, but I don't think it's quite the same thing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I would categorize that differently as well.

But as an only child, I am extremely wary of the "like a sister" formulation. I know people usually mean it kindly, but.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I have two neices and two nephews on my husband's side, and one neice on my side. None of these kids are blood relatives (the one on "my" side is from a stepsister), but I have to admit having stronger feelings for the neice on my own side. I think this is because the relationship dynamics are easier. I haven't seen this neice in a long time, but I adore her unreservedly. The other kids are harder to love because of the choices and actions and different values of the parents. I wish that I could be the kind of auntie that some of my aunts and uncles were. In my world, aunts and uncles are people that take you for week-long pajama parties and act as secondary parents. But in my husband's family, access to the kids is pretty firmly mediated by the parents, and we just don't have that kind of relationship.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know what opportunities I'll have to kidnap the sibspawn. Some, possibly; if we all worked out time and energy, we could make it go. I'm not sure if it will happen, though. A lot will depend on...oh, gosh, more factors than I can count.

But even if I just see this kid with her/his parents around, I'm pretty sure it'll be good fun.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people forget that extended family members need to go through a bonding process with a child ina similar way to the parents. It's slower, and may take years, but if the parents are acting as a mediator to every interaction between child and auntie or child and grandma, it doesn't let this happen. I think I could manage to kidnap my neices, but my nephews are guarded by highly indulgent and overprotective parents. (translation: you can't kidnap them and there's no Christmas present in your budget that can impress them.)

I'm looking forward to when my neice is old enough to spend a week or two away from her Mom. She's not quite four, now, so it will be few more years, probably. Actually, they live in Orlando, now, so I can imagine Glen will be interested in spending time with *them*. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh.

As soon as I was weaned, my grands had me on a plane to Minneapolis with them. Okay, maybe not quite that soon. But still: I was really not very old. But my grands didn't have little kids of their own in the house, and they had oodles of vacation time. I can see where aunts and uncles would wait until the kid was a good deal more autonomous. I sure will.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, grandparents are crazy that way. Glen had his first overnight with the grandparents when he was two--BEFORE he was weaned. I can't remember why we did this. Maybe Brent and I had some evening event to go to. But preschool aged kids frequently have regrets about being separated from Mom and Dad, and they generally have them in the middle of the night. I wouldn't want the kids to be traumatized. I want them to have fun. :-)

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

*sheepish* Yes, we did in fact get the box, and it did, in fact, arrive the day before Christmas (it was shipped priority, by DHL, which I've never seen from Amazon before), according to Angela. I even have cute baby duck thank you cards sitting on the counter, ready to send out, just... not sent...

I'd have to agree that "like a sister, like a friend" doesn't seem right to describe the relationship I have with my aunts either. Part of that is probably the result of distance. We couldn't easily take shopping trips with Aunt Deb, or get a surprise visit from Aunt Karen. The times we visited with them, we spent more time with our cousins or our grandparents, since that was the only time we saw them.

I think I once slightly offended Laura by saying that she was "like a mom and like a good friend". After a bit of thought I appended "Well, really, like an older sister" which was a bit more acceptable, as she is my brother-in-law's wife...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, Jeff's brothers are a fair bit older than he is!

Anyway, I'm not sure Aunt Deb would have ended up feeling like a sister even if you'd lived in the same city for longer. And I love your Aunt Deb -- I think she's really cool. But what she feels like is...well...an aunt. Which is different. And feeling like an aunt and like a friend at the same time is perfectly acceptable. It's just not all that sororal.