I was raised in a typical Italian-American family. It was large and sociable. Family gatherings were frequent, offered occasions for parents to visit, children to play, and always centered on food and talk. Our home was near town and within a short drive were the homes of my parent's seven sisters and five brothers. The sisters talked daily; the brothers played cards every week. I don't think I was an especially difficult child, certainly not any more difficult than my brothers or cousins, but I did at the time think my parents were occasionally, and without justification, entirely unreasonable. At these times I visited Aunt Bea with my list of complaints.
Bea listened, acknowledged, encouraged and then would convince me that my parents were wonderful people, kind and generous, and I returned home comforted. I imagine my parents were a bit relieved to have their youngest son out of the house for a day. In the course of growing up my aunts and uncles were teachers and mentors, a source of support and occasional criticism, often fun, and central to the experience of what it meant to be a family.
Contemporary families are no different; they share many of the same qualities. And yet, aunts and uncles rarely enter the public discourse on family matters. It is as if the work they do were invisible. Of course, the business of doing family is quite clear to the actors.
I recently bumped into my friend Terri and asked her, as I often to, how her niece was doing. Terri replied: "Beth's great! She just got accepted to law school with a full scholarship."
"Good news," I replied. "Did you just speak with her?"
"No, not exactly. I spoke with my brother yesterday and he visited with Beth's mom over the weekend. We're really proud of Beth."
The news of Beth's achievements traveled to Terri by way of her brother who spoke with her sister and mother of Beth, a mix of three households. Aunts and uncles often form such bridging ties. They are linked in a change of communications organized across multiple households. What we might call a family ensemble. We'll talk more about ensembles in a later column. It turns out to be an important way families are lived; a way families are commonly enacted, although rarely is this simple fact acknowledged.
Terri and Beth are fortunate to have such a close relationship. Terri and her niece talk regularly and have done so for years. In fact, Terri was present at Beth's birth, and her parents have encouraged the relationship of aunt and niece. Terri has shared in virtually every important event in Beth's life, and heaps of fairly minor stuff as well, including years of field hockey, which I imagine to be a more interesting spectator sport than chess or Latin club. To be fair, not all relationships of aunts and nieces, or uncles and nephews are quite so close. But then again, my work with families over the last decade suggests close ties are not all that uncommon, and most certainly they are important to children (the nieces and nephews), to parents, and to the aunts and uncles.
In this column we'll explore the range of contributions aunts and uncles make to families, features that encourage flourishing relationships and those that impede closeness. We'll talk about how aunts and uncles successfully mentor nieces and nephews, and how nieces and nephews sometimes mentor their aunts and uncles. In the meantime, you might ask your sib or coworker how their aunting/uncling is going. Go slow. It might be the first time you've used the term aunting or uncling, and likely the first they've heard of it. But here is the kicker: I'm guessing that otherwise the terms of conversation will be quite familiar. It's what families do all the time.
© Robert Milardo
