Aunties Don’t Play: On (Genuinely) Enjoying Our Time with Children

What activities do you most enjoy doing with the kids in your life? What activities do you least enjoy?

This afternoon, one of the kids in my life stopped by my house to say hi. We sat on my front porch and contemplated a stink bug climbing up the mailbox. I asked about her day at school. She said they were learning about communities in her class and – as someone who has actually grown up in co-housing – she feels like the word community, when used in its general sense, is “too big.” She suggested we should finally pick a name for our co-housing community, and we kicked around possibilities evoking the tall cedars between our two houses. She leaned against my shoulder and we chatted in the sun, and then after a while she went home to watch a cartoon. It was sweet. It was mundane. It was a privilege. 

Spending time with kids can be such a joy, can’t it? But of course, it can also be a slog. If you’ve put in the hours, you know what I’m talking about. The constant vigilance (especially with the little ones) is exhausting; kid-friendly activities lose their cuteness and become boring; everyone gets cranky. But children need secure attachments to adults who will stick by them. Aunties need to show up reliably for the kids in our lives as well as – crucially – for their primary caregivers. Indeed, as I argued earlier this week, caring for kids who are not our own is a radical political act because it disrupts the capitalist imperative to fend only for ourselves and frees up the community’s capacity to focus on what matters to us. To persist in providing such care, it helps if we can genuinely enjoy our time with children. 

Children’s Games, Pieter Breughel the Elder, 1560

Now, I’ll tell you what I don’t enjoy: playing pretend. When the kid I mentioned earlier was four or five, she was obsessed with “playing family.” I was the mom and she and her little brother were the sisters and then I was the grandma and she was the mom and all of her stuffies were her babies and then she was the baby and I was going to give birth to her and on and on and on and on and like uggggghhhhhhh. I get why this is valuable developmental play for children, but I just do not like it. My heart has never been in it. I only went along with the incessant playing of family because I truly didn’t know how to get out of it. (Stay tuned, because in a minute I’m going to tell you how to get out of it). 

My sister’s kids also love playing pretend, but she, unlike me, is awesome at it. My sister was a theater/dance major, and after college she was in one of those theater troupes that go around to public elementary schools and put on plays about how to say no to cigarettes or intervene when you witness bullying. So perhaps unsurprisingly, my sister’s pretend games feature what they call in schools “social emotional learning.” I texted my sister to remind me about a pretend game they often play in her family and her reply was so wonderful that I asked if I could share it here, and she said yes. So, here is my sister on playing pretend:

I find pretend games really exhausting, but also up my alley. We have been playing Thunder Girls here and there for over four years now. The girls are a pair of superheroes called the Thunder Girls, who can activate the powers of different animals, so their powers change a little bit every time. 

We always start by coming up with the name of a new villain and the thing the villain is trying to do. Like the villain could be “Snacky Snatcher,” and they are trying to get rid of all the snacks in the world. Or “Friend Fiend” is preventing everyone from having best friends. And then I always play the villain, and I also do the theme songs. 

We generally start with the villain just about to enact their plan, but then the Thunder Girls happen upon them, and then the villain is shocked when these little girls activate animal powers and are able to stop the villain. But then the best part comes after the villain has been foiled, when the girls talk to the villain and ask them why they were trying to enact their plan. Then the villain can talk about how they never had a best friend, and they always felt lonely, and so they are keeping friends out of the world because it’s not fair. And then the Thunder Girls help the villain learn about kindness, or patience, or whatever the topic is. And then the girls always invite the villain to rehabilitate and be part of their family or friend group. And their house and yard is full of all these rehabilitated villains who are kind now. 

I mean. Let’s hear it for my sister, am I right?? I suppose it’s possible I don’t like playing pretend because my punk-ass younger sibling has set an unreasonably high bar – but I think not. Playing pretend is just truly not my jam. And my point here is that we can and should *play* to our strengths. My sister clearly does. 

Here’s how I got free of the tyranny of playing pretend. I read a super helpful New York Times editorial in which the novelist Edan Lepucki described how she had stopped playing pretend with her own children. 

I know I’m lucky they have each other to play with, so I’ve taught myself to hold back. I tell myself they’re learning about compromise and boundaries. As am I. I’m distracted by work (and life). I have a bad temper. I can be critical. And I don’t like to play, especially pretend, or anything with dolls or figures, or any game that asks me to hide or wield a Nerf gun. My motto is “Moms don’t play.” (The other context also applies: I do not play). 

When my kids and I stop doing our own things and come together, it’s because we want to. The activities we do together offer all of us pleasure; we opt in and because of this, we actually have fun. I may not play, but I’m goofy and affectionate, and I love to talk about feelings. I love to teach too: how to count, how to read, how to make guacamole. It feels good to be with my kids in these specific ways. 

Lepucki’s article was a revelation. It was the first time I’d entertained the possibility that I could simply opt out of an entire mode of play with the kids in my life, and instead self-advocate for what I want to do. I don’t know, maybe parents figure this out sooner, because if they don’t learn to say no to their kids’ demands they’d likely go crazy. But we Aunties tend to believe we have to always be fun, and that can translate to always saying yes. 

So the next time a game of pretend was proposed, I tried: “No thanks, I don’t really like to play pretend.” 

The kid looked at me, perplexed. “Wait, what?” 

“I have never really preferred playing pretend, actually,” I said. “I only did it because you wanted to, but now I think we shouldn’t say yes to ideas just because other people want us to. I’m not going to play pretend anymore. But I love hanging out with you. I’d be happy to draw together, or we could read or go outside and take a walk.” The kid shrugged. She picked something else for us to do. It was as easy as that. 

I do like playing Legos. If by "playing Legos" you mean sorting them into piles by color so that other people can build things out of them.

Aunties, this move has never let me down since, and I’ve deployed it with several kids. I learned that I can simply self-advocate for what I actually enjoy doing, and say no to activities I don’t like. It doesn’t get me out of doing the responsible stuff like changing diapers or helping a reluctant kid get to bed, but it does make our unstructured hang-out time way more fun, and therefore way more sustainable. I’m happier to offer childcare, or say yes to requests, because I can anticipate that I will likely have a genuinely nice time. In the meantime, kids learn that different people have different, totally acceptable preferences, and also that it’s okay to say no. Those are pretty important lessons.

Now it’s your turn! 

Please share: What activities do you most enjoy doing with the kids in your life? What activities do you have mixed feelings about? What activities do you least enjoy? If you’ve been acquiescing to an activity you don’t enjoy, feel free to share your intention to tell the kid how you feel.