Uncle Issues

Regenerative Culture Birthing & Caring for Children
#1

I have a niece, and I love playing with her, but I start to get exhausted, and want to pass her off after an hour or so. I can tell she would keep up with me forever if I could keep up with myself.

What I want to ask, is my behavior damaging? Am I setting her up to expect this all the time, am I causing sudden disappointment that could be scarring?

She, and a few other babies, get so confused when I’m tired of running around with them, swinging them around, and having this exurberant fun.

Other than the baby, am I a little tossed in the brain for being so manic with young people? I get this emotional rush, where I can tell their needs are to strch their awareness out of their bodies, and that when I flip the little rug rats in the air, and make them laugh and scream as much as possible.

NOt so much for my nieec, but I oftentimes walk into the homes of friends and turn the tv off, put the kids shoes on, and take them outside. Am I being a bad friend, for jarring, even in a good way, this kids experience?

I know this one little boy, Jadyn, who is autistic, and he and I have a sign language. He shuffles his feet when he wants to chase me, he jumps and stretches his hand out when he wants me to throw him. Am I messing him up, knowing that I won’t always be in his life, setting him up for disappointment and frustration that his communications and needs go unnoticed by his parents?

I used to think it was harmless fun, but at a wedding I was at recently, Jadyn caused a huge scene and it was weird, because he kept running away from his parents and calling me mommy, and would only stop crying when I held him.

I was seriously uncomfortable, and made me pause, and reflect on a lot of things I’d rather not think about. Like how conscious young people really are, and how they are ready to make their own choices at a young age, and how they recognize anger and frustration, and how that plays with their tendencies to mimic behavior…

I guess, being Uncle Tony is hard, and I don’t want to stop being a source of joy, but how can I feel like I’m not interrupting people’s lives, but still do what I think is right, which is to focus on the child, not the TV? I think if I had kids of my own, I would be less exhausted, my baby would get me into a marathon’s shape. But how do I transmit this to my friends who are struggling, friend who are resenting me because their child won’t listen to them while I’m still fresh in their memories.

I’m sorry, this has become a ramble, and I have the utmost respect for anyone able to follow me.

Are there experienced parents who have advice for me?

#2

You can come to my house anytime! We could use an Uncle Tony around here.

I have a niece, and I love playing with her, but I start to get exhausted, and want to pass her off after an hour or so.
That happens all the time. It explains why some marketing genius came up with the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child." Her parents must love you for giving them an hour off. Seriously, you will definitely not damage these kids. The more people a child has in his life who love him the better. You can't have too much love. I had a kind of messed up childhood, but I turned out all right because I always had at least one adult around who cared about me. Do you feel afraid of traumatizing them because you plan to leave for New Orleans soon? Don't worry, kids don't break as easily as we adults like to think.

Regarding the way other people raise their kids, I struggle with that issue too. I want to have friends, but I really don’t agree with the authoritarian parenting style most people use. I cringe inwardly when people call their kids names or say things like, “Some kids just need spanking.” (some otherwise very nice, compassionate people have said this to me.) It reminded me of a guy in an anger management class who felt genuinely confused as to why he couldn’t beat his wife. He said, “How can I control her if I don’t hit her?”

#3

Thanks that makes me feel a lot better, seriously! It’s good to know that you can’t mess things up in a healthy relationship with lots of fun.

So what do you do with your friends who are, to simplify, very angry towards their children? I notice that children have this tendency to imitate whatever the adults are feeling around them. So when the adults are angry, the child starts to get frustrated as well. And it all goes down punishment hill after that, with angry adults and confused children.

I sometimes feel like young people are so in touch with their feelings, it’s all they got until they start to say and think words. So this Uncle effect, while somewhat new to me, is helping me understand children and myself emotionally. It’s like trying to communicate with animals, in a way. I feel like if I feel an emotion, they can feel the vibrations, too. Soon we’re communicating, and listening. It’s wild, to feel the same way about a small child like you can feel with a dog.

Where do we go wrong? What events in our life close these channels down? I think I’m just plain crazy, that’s my excuse for ignoring the indoctrination. What about all those sane people who are ‘doing their best’ ‘with what they’ve got’?

I guess having a ‘real’ niece is making all these kid issues come home. I hadn’t really spent a lot of time around her until I made the transition move back home before heading down south. It’s been eye opening, but it’s not all joy and warm fuzziness. There’s this dark underbelly of social expectation, and normative parenting techniques.

I really am starting to think diapers are child abuse, am I insane?

#4

Sometimes I go off into this fantasy where the leaders of our first world governments and mega corporations had been raised with more attachment and less authoritarianism. With intimate relationships to the land they lived on. Without great big gaping holes in the wholeness of their souls and selves, and in their fabric of connections to the communities of souls and spirits around them. Wow. Maybe we wouldn’t have mega corporations or first world governments.

I see this as the only possible route to real change from within. Of course those structures could change, come down, or disappear in plenty of ways that depend on external factors.

TonyZ, you don’t have to have your own kids to effect this kind of change. You already do it.

Viva Uncles and Aunties!

#5

thanks for bouncing my insecurities back in such a kind way, sometimes I need stuff like this when I’m losing my grip… it’s a tiny ledge, but it’s a place to stand during the long mountain trek

#6

imho, fairly irrelevant. you (& she) should enjoy the time you have w/o worrying about whether that time will be available in the future. sometimes scars hold as many good memories as bad. it’s not our “job” to shunt ourselves/others off from life in order to “protect”.

yeah, i’ve seen that before, but, really, what’re gonna do? not play with them at all? that’s a little whacked.

nah. kids are fun. exhausting, but fun.

if the kid’s into it, go for it. speaking as a parent, parents get burnt too. we have a hard time keeping up w/ the kids (not just the playing, but everything else too).

at a distance, it’s probably too easy for me to say no.

shrug truth be known, tho’, i don’t know enough about autism to say

hmm. i still get exhausted, i’ll say that :slight_smile: (tho’, maggie went thru a phase where she liked to ride on my shoulders while i jogged around the house; lost a lot of weight that year…)

as for your friends, i dunno. a lot of times kids form strong attachments to adults other than their parents. i don’t think there’s anything wrong with this, myself (and as someone mentioned above, it seems fairly normal once we recognize that it takes a village to raise a child). not that any of that addresses how to get them to not resent you. although, from my perspective, my wife and i enjoy getting a break when maggie spends time w/ her nana, uncle, aunts, etc so the entire idea of resentment seems odd to me.

it’s like cake. as her parents, my wife & i are the cake, and the other people that can go above and beyond are the icing. until we’re living in tribes (or villages or any sane living arrangement) i think that’s the best that we can get.

#7

I’m just an insane worrier, thanks for taking the time to give me a piece of your mind, and peace of mind :wink:

I do worry though, about upsetting a child’s norm, and creating conflict between the parents, or patterning the child through repeated outbursts. Like I said, had I a child, maybe it would make more sense to me, cause then I can see the development of a child as a whole, rather than in the “uncle” segments.

#8

[quote=“TonyZ, post:3, topic:488”]I guess having a ‘real’ niece is making all these kid issues come home. I hadn’t really spent a lot of time around her until I made the transition move back home before heading down south. It’s been eye opening, but it’s not all joy and warm fuzziness. There’s this dark underbelly of social expectation, and normative parenting techniques.

I really am starting to think diapers are child abuse, am I insane?[/quote]

I provided childcare for years before having my own children, but I never questioned diapers, strollers, or even cry-it-out until I got pregnant. As I began diapering my own first baby, I too felt that diapers constituted child abuse, and I stopped diapering. I never diapered my second baby.

#9

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I only remember starfish telling me about diaperless baby raising, and then making my own observations. Would you recommend some resources and cultural perspectives that might back me up in case I ever try and have a conversation about it, I would appreciate that.

#10

This website has a lot of info on diaper free, also known as Elimination Communication (EC) or Infant Potty Training:


I know of two books on the subject as well, and you’ll find a couple of Yahoo groups that deal with it.

The Natural Child Project has some great essays on positive parenting.
http://www.naturalchild.org/

I also like Mothering magazine

#11

thanks, again! I think the meme, I hate to admit, started for me when they had that infant communicating with sign language on that movie ‘meet the fockers’. It was a light bulb momoent that babies are people too!

#12

I loved Ingrid Bauer’s book, Diaper Free!

I received a cultural message that children exist as blobs of flesh with barely any brain activity, that they cry for no reason, have no control over elimination, etc. I never 't fully accepted that message, perhaps for the reason that I remember complex feelings and thoughts from early childhood, but I completely rejected the idea after getting to know my own babies. However, my in-laws, who had a child of their own obviously, still treat my kids as if they can’t possibly do or think or feel many of the ways I think they obviously do.

#13

I’m recently an uncle as well as my sister had a baby almost 3 years ago now and another on the way later this year. I am really attached to the little cherub and it’s amazing to watch a child grow, one of those wonderful things in life.

In any case, I do think it is important to pass the child around to lots of people at a young age, lots of aunts/uncles, friends, family, etc. I also think it’s important to include them in daily economic and social life as much as possible and I agree with most of what Jean Liedloff has to say in “The Continuum Concept” such as the mother carrying the baby strapped to her hip when she goes about her work and so on.

Many children are contributing members of society (not talking about factory-type slaves here) at a young age in third-world social groups because they are exposed to other family members and cousins all the time and want to contribute and “play like adults” as they witness all aspects of food production and social mechanisms at play in daily life. They often aren’t scolded much because they are allowed a lot of freedom to run around and get dirty and mimic the adults and at a young age they have the desire to contribute and are encouraged to do so. This is often why you see very young girls caring for even younger children and small boys offering tourists rides on camels and often doing many of the same things that the adults and older children are doing.