Motherhood Lite

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The childless auntie is both romanticized and satirized in our society: In books and movies, she might be a crazy old loner living in a haunted house with her dozen cats. Or she might be fussy and lovelorn, the sort of aunt who comes around the house entirely too much, like Charlotte in A Room with a View. Then again, she might be a dashing young career gal or entertainer, fluttering in only at Christmas to beguile the children with strange gifts from faraway lands. The intentionally childless woman is demonized, or at least questioned, by straight America, but the loving auntie is happy to satisfy her maternal instincts on a purely vicarious level.

In my family, the Wacky Auntie stereotype has kept things interesting. Without our Wacky Aunties, the whole family would have devolved into a dull remake of the 1950s. There were Clara and Louise, my great-great-aunts who lived as spinsters back East and constantly sent me wonderful little boxes, jewels, handbags, and trinkets from as far back as their swinging years in the ’20s. "The Aunties" were certifiably nutty and got me started early on a lifetime fixation with vintage shopping.

My mother’s sister Deeb had a kid, but since she lived in a van and told us of her ’60s adventures in Haight-Ashbury, Aunt Deeb supplied a much-needed awareness that there was more to life than our nice house in the country and the little white church where my brother and I went to Sunday School.

And Aunt Cy’s daughters may not have enjoyed her wild, arty lifestyle, but it saved my life. She was, in fact, one of the few people I actually looked up to. When, as a wee tot, I started acting, drawing, writing, and playing music, everyone could say, "Look, she takes after Aunt Cy!" I took it as a compliment, and Aunt Cy became one of the very few people in my life I could actually look up to. In boring teenage years, when I wanted to nuke the small town we lived in, I’d visit Cy in Hollywood during the summer. She helped me fulfill my need for excitement, bright lights, big cities, weird people, and trendy clothes. And to do it, I didn’t even have to become a runaway and live on the streets. My mom, who sheltered us to the best of her abilities, probably considered her a "bad influence." On the contrary, Aunt Cy’s willingness to introduce me to the Big Bad World kept me from discovering it all alone and in much more dangerous ways. Who would you want to introduce your daughter to the big bad world: Your arty little sister or some dodgy guy with a gold Trans Am?

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