Being An Aunt

In our book, Infertility and the Creative Spirit, we wrote about the importance of being an aunt to many infertile women.  As an example, we discussed the twentieth-century American writer, Katherine Anne Porter, author of Ship of Fools.  Porter’s nephew, Paul Porter, who eventually became a writer himself, described what an attentive and powerful influence his aunt was on his intellectual development.  From lists of books to read and music to listen to and boxes of books arriving by parcel post, he wrote, “A whole new world was illumined and revealed.  It was my by-then-favorite aunt who did that for me, and I have never forgotten it.”   

A wonderful article in yesterday’s New York Times, “Let’s Hear It for Aunthood,” by Kate Bolick, childless aunt herself, reports that today nearly 1 in 5 American women in her early 40s has never had a child, according to the Pew Research Center, compared with 1 in 10 in the 1970s.  Echoing the sentiments of Paul Porter about his aunt Katherine, Bolick writes, “The aunt exists outside the immediate family unit, ambassador to a universe of other options, as well as—crucially—a grown-up who isn’t an authority figure or disciplinarian.”  Bolick also reports on a research-based study of aunts and uncles by sociologist Robert M. Milardo, The Forgotten Kin: Aunts and Uncles.  Among other topics, Milardo explores how generativity is expressed in the relationships of aunts and uncles to their nieces and nephews and how direct mentoring, “a cornerstone of generative action,” occurs in these relationships. 

Among the seven women that we profiled in our book, there were several very important aunt relationships.  When Juliette Low founded the Girl Scouts of America, she enrolled her niece, Daisy Gordon Lawrence, as the first registered Girl Scout.  Frida Kahlo was very close with the children of her sister Cristina, and Emma Goldman’s deepest family bond was with her niece Stella Comminsky.  Goldman’s fugitive status gave Stella new freedom, and Stella was there at the important junctures in her aunt’s life.

As an infertile and childless woman, my relationships with my nieces and nephew have been profoundly important to me.  Apparently I am among what Melanie Notkin, author of Savvy Auntie, calls PANKs, “Professional Aunts No Kids!”