Although divorce rates in the US have been declining since the mid-1980s, they remain high. Family scientists now estimate about 43% of all first marriages will end in divorce. So it's no surprise that divorce was a common topic among the families I interviewed in the Forgotten Kin Project. What I didn't anticipate was the importance of aunts and uncles in helping parents and their children adjust to deteriorating marriages. Aunts and uncles provided support for nieces and nephews as they struggled to understand their parent's divorces. In some cases the divorces of parents (siblings of aunts and uncles), or the threat of divorce, had a chilling effect on the relationships of aunts and uncles with their nieces and nephews.
Francesca is a 45-year-old single and childless professional working in public school system. Her niece, Maria, is 11, and the daughter of her brother. They live across the street from one another and visit frequently. Their relationship is remarkable because of amount of time they spend together and because of the way Francesca integrates Maria into her life and even her friendships. "We have a relationship beyond the family [connection]," she says. "We do a lot of stuff together, and I have always invited her along [when I go] hiking with friends or to a restaurant." Francesca and her niece have frequent dinners together at home, "soak in the hot tub" and talk about family, friends and school, occasionally shop together, and engage in outdoor activities, or attend sporting events. Francesca says: "She is really part of my life [and] every aspect of it" and she goes on to comment, "I have been more significant in her life on a day-to-day basis than her own mother."
Maria's father and mother frequently work evenings and Saturdays and Francesca fills in on these occasions. Their marriage is troubled, the parents recently separated, and Maria has asked her aunt whether they are going to divorce. Francesca provides support and perhaps most importantly a listening ear, but she is concerned. The possibility of being separated from her niece would be "devastating to everyone," and she adds, "a real anxiety for me." The situation is complicated by the estranged relationship between Francesca and her sister-in-law and they have not talked in months. Towards the end of our interview Francesca returns to the issue and shares her concerns and wishes.
"I really worry about [divorce] because I've seen how divorces can go. I've seen people do really foul things. I've said to my brother we can do some things to make it not be ugly; we can talk frankly. I don't want [my sister-in-law] to feel that I still wouldn't take Maria if she doesn't have a sitter or is stuck at work. I would never want her to feel that even though she's divorced from my brother that there's still not this connective tissue that we have. Maybe it will be okay....I don't want Maria to be put in the middle and not feel comfortable with both her parents."
Francesca is concerned and well aware of the potentially negative consequences of a deteriorating marriage. Her relationship with her niece is at risk should the parents actually divorce bringing to bear a change in residence of either parent, or otherwise exacerbating the already strained relationships between mother and aunt.
Parental divorce can be difficult for older children as well, and the effects of divorce can linger. As a college student Bess was deeply concerned about her parent's recent divorce and her father's deteriorating health resulting from diabetes and alcohol abuse. Bess took responsibility for her father's health care by arranging doctor's appointments and finding services when he lost his eyesight. Bess' aunt provided her emotional support when she most needed it. Of this time her aunt says, "[Bess and I] talked quite a bit. I don't know if it was advice [that I gave her] or if I was just consoling her."
In this case, as is true in many of the conversations we had, it is not always important that aunts or uncles provide direct advice, and perhaps it is not always possible to do so, rather it is important to have someone who can listen to your concerns. But sometimes even talking is too much.
Aunt Barbara prides herself and family on the idea of open communication. As she says, "we talk about just about everything", with one exception, the divorce of her niece's parents. "This was the one place I couldn't talk to [my niece]. She just didn't want to hear of it, so I had to back away a little bit." Given her concern about her niece, Barbara asked her niece's friends how they thought she was doing. "She's fine," they said. Barbara valued the assessment of her niece's friends in part because many of them had divorced parents, and "knew the ropes" as she recounted. She understood as well that friends were an important resource for her niece as she worked through a personal understanding of her parents' separation. The case is interesting because Barbara knew her niece well enough to judge when it was inappropriate to press an issue, and she knew her niece well enough to know her niece's friends who she then turned to for their insight. Here the business of family work, of caring for young people, is cast broadly to include the friends of a niece.
