The parents that I am closest with call me Auntie Mariah to their baby, so I guess that. The first time I heard one of them say it I was like “Oh, wow, I’m a person in this kiddo’s life that is meaningful and they want the baby to know that.” I don’t have any nieces or nephews (yet), so it was a new thing for me. It shouldn’t have been. I met the baby when he was four days old and was his first babysitter.
I think it is one of the magical experiences of life to be called Auntie for the first time. And so affirming to have that come from your friends! It occurs to me that an attribute of Aunties is that we are SUPER LOVED by somebody, by definition.
I had a similar thought: the Auntie title was bestowed by the parents, not chosen by me! It is so hard to explain to others, but this kid has been part of our life since he was conceived - his parents are our best friends, and we were the first people to meet him after his birth. We did bedtime and bath time and babysitting and daycare pickups and dinner at our house or theirs several days a week and quaranteam childcare intensely for about two years…and then we moved across the country, and while the parents are as close as ever, I know it will never be the same with the kiddo, but I still treasure my auntie status. And there are other kids who are not quite as close but still know me as Auntie.
Oh, Amanda, that is so heart-wrenching to have move across the country after all the bedtimes and bathtimes and pick-ups and all of it. I bet that was a really hard decision.
I have several nephews and a niece, so I've been Auntie Boogie to them for years. (They had trouble with the "th" and multiple syllables of my name.) I love the fun nickname and have an alloparenting role in one set of these kids' lives (albeit over long distance). I have a dear friend who just had a baby, and they already tell him I'm an auntie (and I intend to be!)! That said, I think Auntie and Cousin can both work for extended family and alloparenting explanations/titles. I had lots of honorary, adult cousins as a kid, along with a huge family of actual cousins. I love this role and and delighted to find you all as fellow aunties extraordinaire!
Auntie Boogie! I love it -- a little bit dancing, a little bit boogers, ideal in all ways.
I have an uncle who has always and exclusively been known to me, my siblings, and my cousins as Uncle Bucko. Recently my grandmother died and I spoke at the memorial reception. It was only after the second or third mention of Uncle Bucko (with whom I had organized the catering) that I realized everyone else in the room didn't automatically know who I was talking about. I hope that when the kids in your life are in their 40s, they'll still believe that everyone knows you're Auntie Boogie.
I refer to my friends' kids as "my littles" (the oldest is 4, so this might change when they stop being little). And my best friend, who I've known since I was 7 and consider a sister...her kid is my nephew, no need for disambiguation there. Her family half raised me, so my experience of this from the side of the child, to find the right words, was definitely harder. I called her grandparents mine (because you can have more than one set of those) but always struggled with how to categorize her parents. I still don't have a good answer. Sometimes aunt, sometimes second mom...whatever seems the easiest to explain in the context of the conversation.
Her grandparents called me "fotched on" possibly a Kentuckyism, but a term I've always liked.
I love "my littles" -- I'm soon to be an Auntie (descriptive) to a kiddo whose parents won't be using "aunt(ie)/uncle" for non-bio family, and this is such a good way to describe the kiddo in lieu of nibling!
I am always flummoxed by this whenever I get asked. I think I just roll a roulette wheel in my head and pick one of "uncle", "neighbor", "family friend". My favorite conversations are the one where I get to start out with "neighbor" and then get to "we're in an intentional community and knocked down the wall between our houses" since that starts to capture more of the nuance.
I saw a comment below recommending "alloparent" and I think I'll add that to my mental list! It would definitely be a good conversation starter.
Really looking forward to more of your writing on this! The first kids where I was meaningfully in their lives were my godkids and then my niblings, so I'm only just having to figure out the language thing now that more of my friends are having kids - some of those friends are referring to me as auntie, which both surprised and really moved me, as my family growing up v much only used the term for relatives. I recently discovered the word alloparent, which I kind of love (meaning the adults who help to bring a kid up who aren't the direct parents) but it's not exactly an everyday word...
Ooooh, yeah, I love alloparent! I think "allokid" is actually kind of a good candidate for how Aunties might refer to the kids in our lives, if we can get the definition of "allo" to catch on.
I'm planning an essay on alloparenting among humpback whales. Have you heard that new mother whales are often accompanied by a veteran nanny whale who shows her the ropes for a whole year??
So excited for the Auntie Bulletin! I noticed this language difference especially in chosen family vs biological family. I was very close with my friends daughter for many years when she was young. I even took her to an overnight girl scout camp one summer when she was 7 and we had so much trouble explaining our relationship and why I was there with her. We used to just joke I was her best friend and she was mine, but that didn't quite work with other adults. In contrast, when my nieces moved to the same city as me, it was so effortless to explain my taking them to camps and parks etc. It made me disappointed in our language gaps. I tried honorary niece/auntie for a while but it did not roll off the tongue. I also tried Tía for a while and while I'm Latina that worked, but it was weird for my friends daughter who is white. In short, I haven't yet found a word but I think we can come up with one together!
OMG, this story. I can absolutely imagine trying to take a kid who isn't mine to camp and how confusing that would be to everyone.
I'm really intrigued by folks using terminology from languages other than English, but I hadn't thought about what happens when the kids don't share that same language with their Auntie. I am learning so much from this discussion thread already.
I come from a culture where close friends of the family are referred to as Auntie/Uncle, and their kids were like our cousins, so that's how I always explained it to others.
A few years ago, my best friend, who was like a sister to me, died unexpectedly, leaving her kids orphaned. Out of all the adults in their lives, I was the only one who stepped in to make sure they were fully taken care of. I am now and forever will be, their Auntie, and as much as I try to not take over the mom role, I'm a Jewish mother, so yeah, I'm going to mom their ass on a regular basis (and they let me).
Oh T., my heart goes out to you and those kiddos and your whole kinship network. I am so afraid of losing the kids' in my lives parents -- not so much because of what responsibility that would put on me, but just because I understand so intimately how heartbreaking that would be. I am so, so glad these kids have you.
I come from a large extended Catholic family where Aunt/Auntie is used very loosely & as both a term of respect and a role identification. As in, the aunt is introduced first as Aunt Whoever, & then if someone inquires on which side, the explanation of “my maternal grandma’s long-time neighbor on the west side” gets dropped. And that Aunt may be someone who gave you $5 at Christmas, or someone who you saw every day while she was on hospice. The label Aunt sometimes hot attached by acts of service going in either direction.
Anyhoo! I’m Aunt to children of some friends, & in my case that involves mostly being a confidant, buyer of groovy gifts, and taking them to cool things like rock shows & art museums & college tours. I’m mostly the cool aunt who pinch-hits on other stuff, to kids who are now college age or older. These days that involves a lot of phone calls asking me to intervene with parents on topics such as life direction and lack of interest in providing grandchildren.
This discussion thread has made me realize how much I wish I'd had non-relative aunts and uncles when I was growing up. I love that the Aunt label was the default for close family friends in your community.
Thank you for this group! I had to think about this, but realized how very gendered it was in my family growing up. No honorary uncles, just aunts. And single/widowed, unrelated elderly aunts being taken care of by younger aunts. Community being created by women.
I was about to extend this thought to similar stepping up in the divorce portal, but I know I’m
This is an interesting topic for me. My husband (a parent of an adult and a teen) tries very hard to pull equal weight with my auntie-ing of both friends and family but is often kind of rebuffed. Like, if there is a baby crying he'll be like, "want me to feed/change/bounce her?" And the mom will be like "oh, thanks, no I've got her" but then 10 minutes later turn to me, a childless woman, and be like, "do you want to hold/ bathe/ soothe her?" Um, sure, I do, but why couldn't you accept my husband's help? He actually has a lot more experience than me at this???
As a non-religious person, I often describe my closest un-related children as my godchildren. Strangers accept this easily and usually don't ask follow-up questions. I also have nieces so "Aunt" is a pretty universal title because that's what other kids hear my nieces call me.
I am also a step-parent, but my step kids came into my life as middle schoolers and have never lived with me full-time. Even though many people tell me "a Step-Mom is a MOM!" (I don't disagree!) 'mother' has never felt like a core part of my identity. I think my relationship with my step kids is a bit more auntie-ish. They have two "load-bearing parents" (love this phrase) and I'm here to support both biological parents and kids to be sure everyone is getting what they need - even if that's a long break.
I'm delighted to be in on the ground floor of the Auntie Collective :)
I'd love to write sometime about the relationship/overlap between Auntie and step-parent. Claire Zulkey of the Evil Witches Substack recently republished an interview she did with some stepmoms a few years ago, and it was really lovely. Having never been a step-parent myself, I may need to interview some stepmoms for the Auntie Bulletin!
One of my best friends is pregnant with her first kid and due soon (4 weeks!!), and a month or two ago, her wife let me know that they had decided not to use "aunt(ie)/uncle" with their kiddo for non-bio family -- for a variety of personal reasons, none of which suggest at all that they value us and our roles any less. She said if there was something else I wanted to be called, I could absolutely let them know and they'd refer to me that way around the kiddo. I genuinely, sincerely respect that choice.
And also, for nearly as long as I've known this couple, when we've talked about their then-hypothetical/eventual kids, we've all referred to me as "Auntie Jess." (I'm genderqueer, and I personally find "auntie" to be unrestricted by gender, but not every trans or non-binary person feels that way, of course.) So it's been a bit of a shift in my own head as I try to think about how I might have the kiddo refer to me and how I might describe myself. I haven't landed on anything yet. It'll probably just be my name, or however the baby manages to baby-mangle my name because sounds are hard :D
I'm so excited about the role, regardless of the nomenclature, but it is weird to think about!
I can imagine having some feelings upon being told that, although I'd expected to go by "Auntie," I wasn't going to. On the other hand, I can also imagine it being fine. I'm glad it sounds like your friends' decision didn't feel like a demotion to you.
The kids I spend by far the most time with in my life just call me Lisa, and it doesn't feel like there's anything missing.
As is so often the case, I think the queer community (which I'm also part of) has so much to offer the world in terms of rethinking and broadening kinship and gender roles and the words we use to refer to them. I'm really curious what term you land on, if any!
The parents that I am closest with call me Auntie Mariah to their baby, so I guess that. The first time I heard one of them say it I was like “Oh, wow, I’m a person in this kiddo’s life that is meaningful and they want the baby to know that.” I don’t have any nieces or nephews (yet), so it was a new thing for me. It shouldn’t have been. I met the baby when he was four days old and was his first babysitter.
I think it is one of the magical experiences of life to be called Auntie for the first time. And so affirming to have that come from your friends! It occurs to me that an attribute of Aunties is that we are SUPER LOVED by somebody, by definition.
I had a similar thought: the Auntie title was bestowed by the parents, not chosen by me! It is so hard to explain to others, but this kid has been part of our life since he was conceived - his parents are our best friends, and we were the first people to meet him after his birth. We did bedtime and bath time and babysitting and daycare pickups and dinner at our house or theirs several days a week and quaranteam childcare intensely for about two years…and then we moved across the country, and while the parents are as close as ever, I know it will never be the same with the kiddo, but I still treasure my auntie status. And there are other kids who are not quite as close but still know me as Auntie.
Oh, Amanda, that is so heart-wrenching to have move across the country after all the bedtimes and bathtimes and pick-ups and all of it. I bet that was a really hard decision.
I have several nephews and a niece, so I've been Auntie Boogie to them for years. (They had trouble with the "th" and multiple syllables of my name.) I love the fun nickname and have an alloparenting role in one set of these kids' lives (albeit over long distance). I have a dear friend who just had a baby, and they already tell him I'm an auntie (and I intend to be!)! That said, I think Auntie and Cousin can both work for extended family and alloparenting explanations/titles. I had lots of honorary, adult cousins as a kid, along with a huge family of actual cousins. I love this role and and delighted to find you all as fellow aunties extraordinaire!
Auntie Boogie! I love it -- a little bit dancing, a little bit boogers, ideal in all ways.
I have an uncle who has always and exclusively been known to me, my siblings, and my cousins as Uncle Bucko. Recently my grandmother died and I spoke at the memorial reception. It was only after the second or third mention of Uncle Bucko (with whom I had organized the catering) that I realized everyone else in the room didn't automatically know who I was talking about. I hope that when the kids in your life are in their 40s, they'll still believe that everyone knows you're Auntie Boogie.
"Auntie Boogie" is so good omg. That's cracking me up :D
I refer to my friends' kids as "my littles" (the oldest is 4, so this might change when they stop being little). And my best friend, who I've known since I was 7 and consider a sister...her kid is my nephew, no need for disambiguation there. Her family half raised me, so my experience of this from the side of the child, to find the right words, was definitely harder. I called her grandparents mine (because you can have more than one set of those) but always struggled with how to categorize her parents. I still don't have a good answer. Sometimes aunt, sometimes second mom...whatever seems the easiest to explain in the context of the conversation.
Her grandparents called me "fotched on" possibly a Kentuckyism, but a term I've always liked.
I love "my littles" for so many reasons, including because you get to put "my" in front of it. It signifies to others that you are all in.
Your comment makes me think we should do a discussion thread soon about the non-parental adults in our lives (if any) when we were growing up.
"Fotched on!" Yesssss.
I love "my littles" -- I'm soon to be an Auntie (descriptive) to a kiddo whose parents won't be using "aunt(ie)/uncle" for non-bio family, and this is such a good way to describe the kiddo in lieu of nibling!
I am always flummoxed by this whenever I get asked. I think I just roll a roulette wheel in my head and pick one of "uncle", "neighbor", "family friend". My favorite conversations are the one where I get to start out with "neighbor" and then get to "we're in an intentional community and knocked down the wall between our houses" since that starts to capture more of the nuance.
I saw a comment below recommending "alloparent" and I think I'll add that to my mental list! It would definitely be a good conversation starter.
Knocked down the wall between your houses! You are living the dream, Ben. What an amazing yard you must have. :)
Really looking forward to more of your writing on this! The first kids where I was meaningfully in their lives were my godkids and then my niblings, so I'm only just having to figure out the language thing now that more of my friends are having kids - some of those friends are referring to me as auntie, which both surprised and really moved me, as my family growing up v much only used the term for relatives. I recently discovered the word alloparent, which I kind of love (meaning the adults who help to bring a kid up who aren't the direct parents) but it's not exactly an everyday word...
Ooooh, yeah, I love alloparent! I think "allokid" is actually kind of a good candidate for how Aunties might refer to the kids in our lives, if we can get the definition of "allo" to catch on.
I'm planning an essay on alloparenting among humpback whales. Have you heard that new mother whales are often accompanied by a veteran nanny whale who shows her the ropes for a whole year??
Noooo, that's incredible!!
So excited for the Auntie Bulletin! I noticed this language difference especially in chosen family vs biological family. I was very close with my friends daughter for many years when she was young. I even took her to an overnight girl scout camp one summer when she was 7 and we had so much trouble explaining our relationship and why I was there with her. We used to just joke I was her best friend and she was mine, but that didn't quite work with other adults. In contrast, when my nieces moved to the same city as me, it was so effortless to explain my taking them to camps and parks etc. It made me disappointed in our language gaps. I tried honorary niece/auntie for a while but it did not roll off the tongue. I also tried Tía for a while and while I'm Latina that worked, but it was weird for my friends daughter who is white. In short, I haven't yet found a word but I think we can come up with one together!
OMG, this story. I can absolutely imagine trying to take a kid who isn't mine to camp and how confusing that would be to everyone.
I'm really intrigued by folks using terminology from languages other than English, but I hadn't thought about what happens when the kids don't share that same language with their Auntie. I am learning so much from this discussion thread already.
I come from a culture where close friends of the family are referred to as Auntie/Uncle, and their kids were like our cousins, so that's how I always explained it to others.
A few years ago, my best friend, who was like a sister to me, died unexpectedly, leaving her kids orphaned. Out of all the adults in their lives, I was the only one who stepped in to make sure they were fully taken care of. I am now and forever will be, their Auntie, and as much as I try to not take over the mom role, I'm a Jewish mother, so yeah, I'm going to mom their ass on a regular basis (and they let me).
Oh T., my heart goes out to you and those kiddos and your whole kinship network. I am so afraid of losing the kids' in my lives parents -- not so much because of what responsibility that would put on me, but just because I understand so intimately how heartbreaking that would be. I am so, so glad these kids have you.
I come from a large extended Catholic family where Aunt/Auntie is used very loosely & as both a term of respect and a role identification. As in, the aunt is introduced first as Aunt Whoever, & then if someone inquires on which side, the explanation of “my maternal grandma’s long-time neighbor on the west side” gets dropped. And that Aunt may be someone who gave you $5 at Christmas, or someone who you saw every day while she was on hospice. The label Aunt sometimes hot attached by acts of service going in either direction.
Anyhoo! I’m Aunt to children of some friends, & in my case that involves mostly being a confidant, buyer of groovy gifts, and taking them to cool things like rock shows & art museums & college tours. I’m mostly the cool aunt who pinch-hits on other stuff, to kids who are now college age or older. These days that involves a lot of phone calls asking me to intervene with parents on topics such as life direction and lack of interest in providing grandchildren.
This discussion thread has made me realize how much I wish I'd had non-relative aunts and uncles when I was growing up. I love that the Aunt label was the default for close family friends in your community.
Thank you for this group! I had to think about this, but realized how very gendered it was in my family growing up. No honorary uncles, just aunts. And single/widowed, unrelated elderly aunts being taken care of by younger aunts. Community being created by women.
I was about to extend this thought to similar stepping up in the divorce portal, but I know I’m
leaking misandry & gotta … not.
There is sooooooo much to explore about gender and caretaking. This is going to be a central Auntie Bulletin topic for sure.
This is an interesting topic for me. My husband (a parent of an adult and a teen) tries very hard to pull equal weight with my auntie-ing of both friends and family but is often kind of rebuffed. Like, if there is a baby crying he'll be like, "want me to feed/change/bounce her?" And the mom will be like "oh, thanks, no I've got her" but then 10 minutes later turn to me, a childless woman, and be like, "do you want to hold/ bathe/ soothe her?" Um, sure, I do, but why couldn't you accept my husband's help? He actually has a lot more experience than me at this???
I'm mostly in smaller children's lives, but I can't wait to get calls from college age kids!! Look forward to really being the cool aunt then 😎
I had the same feeling!
As a non-religious person, I often describe my closest un-related children as my godchildren. Strangers accept this easily and usually don't ask follow-up questions. I also have nieces so "Aunt" is a pretty universal title because that's what other kids hear my nieces call me.
I am also a step-parent, but my step kids came into my life as middle schoolers and have never lived with me full-time. Even though many people tell me "a Step-Mom is a MOM!" (I don't disagree!) 'mother' has never felt like a core part of my identity. I think my relationship with my step kids is a bit more auntie-ish. They have two "load-bearing parents" (love this phrase) and I'm here to support both biological parents and kids to be sure everyone is getting what they need - even if that's a long break.
I'm delighted to be in on the ground floor of the Auntie Collective :)
The godchildren workaround is a nice move.
I'd love to write sometime about the relationship/overlap between Auntie and step-parent. Claire Zulkey of the Evil Witches Substack recently republished an interview she did with some stepmoms a few years ago, and it was really lovely. Having never been a step-parent myself, I may need to interview some stepmoms for the Auntie Bulletin!
One of my best friends is pregnant with her first kid and due soon (4 weeks!!), and a month or two ago, her wife let me know that they had decided not to use "aunt(ie)/uncle" with their kiddo for non-bio family -- for a variety of personal reasons, none of which suggest at all that they value us and our roles any less. She said if there was something else I wanted to be called, I could absolutely let them know and they'd refer to me that way around the kiddo. I genuinely, sincerely respect that choice.
And also, for nearly as long as I've known this couple, when we've talked about their then-hypothetical/eventual kids, we've all referred to me as "Auntie Jess." (I'm genderqueer, and I personally find "auntie" to be unrestricted by gender, but not every trans or non-binary person feels that way, of course.) So it's been a bit of a shift in my own head as I try to think about how I might have the kiddo refer to me and how I might describe myself. I haven't landed on anything yet. It'll probably just be my name, or however the baby manages to baby-mangle my name because sounds are hard :D
I'm so excited about the role, regardless of the nomenclature, but it is weird to think about!
So exciting, Jess!
I can imagine having some feelings upon being told that, although I'd expected to go by "Auntie," I wasn't going to. On the other hand, I can also imagine it being fine. I'm glad it sounds like your friends' decision didn't feel like a demotion to you.
The kids I spend by far the most time with in my life just call me Lisa, and it doesn't feel like there's anything missing.
As is so often the case, I think the queer community (which I'm also part of) has so much to offer the world in terms of rethinking and broadening kinship and gender roles and the words we use to refer to them. I'm really curious what term you land on, if any!