Discover more from ENTHUSIASM with Kate Leaver
My smallest niece has croissants for arms. She’s nearly two years old (which can’t be right because I don’t remember life before she was here) and she has perfect rolls from wrist to shoulder. Her arms? Croissants.
They cause me problems, these arms, they’re so precious I could cry.
This niece’s interests include snacks, running water, and whatever her big sister is doing.
That niece, the big sister, she’s got curls better than a renaissance cherub. She enjoys ice cream, doing her own moves at ballet class, and the question “why”.
I love everything about them and everything they do, all the time, even when they’ve told me to “go away, Auntie Katie” and especially when they lead a group of other children out the dog door of their home. One of them ground cocoa powder into every fabric she could get her little hands on, including the living room rug, and I wasn’t there to help clean it up, so I was free to find it charming and hilarious.
This is my right, as their auntie. I get to love them completely, to distraction, every day, even when I’m far away, even when they’re cheeky cheeky cheeky. I might only be physically with them part-time, but I’m actively obsessed with them during all waking hours. It’s great.
It’s not the sort of love we talk about much. Auntie love. As someone who will not be having her own children, I am often told about the mythical, unmatched, all-powerful love a mother has for her child. My sister's got it for her gals. My mum has it for us. Allegedly, I’ll never know anything like it.
I get it, I can imagine it must be staggering, to create a tiny little baby and then love them, through all the fear of being alive.
I don’t know how helpful it is to rank love; all I’ll say is that if that love is any stronger than what I’ve got going for my nieces, I’m not sure my body could take it.
Seriously, I wouldn’t get anything done. I barely do now, with the time commitments of thinking about my nieces and my dog. There are other small friends to think about, too: my step-niece, my step-nephews, the honorary nieces and nephews my friends have thoughtfully provided for me, and every dog I meet, hear about or see on instagram.
This might be confusing, but stay with me: I like kids, but I do not want to grow one inside my own body. For many reasons, all of which are valid, all of which are mine. I keep them in a private, quite long mental list.
This makes people angry. Not so much the people in my life; I’ve got really great, smart, lovely ones who trust that I know myself enough to make my own decisions. But I’m aware of the anger of strangers, because I use the internet, watch telly, and sometimes involuntarily hear what Elon Musk has to say.
It’s an odd thing to spend your limited time doing, being angry with people who do not have children, but everyone’s gotta have a hobby!
I have other thoughts about this. Perhaps I will share them sometime.
For now, I really just wanted to say that being an auntie is probably the greatest thing I’ve ever got to do.
All my life, I never really heard about or from women like me. I have had aunties and uncles of my own, and they’ve been wonderful!!! Thank you to them!!! Great aunting and uncling! But they’ve all been parents, too. They gave me cousins, which was really nice. I didn’t even truly understand that it’s an option to be an auntie but not a parent until I was in my thirties. That’s a bit weird, don’t you think?
I’ve done a lot of unlearning what’s expected of me, a lot of thinking, a lot of sobbing, a lot of paying attention to the reasons politicians and strangers want us all to keep procreating.
And I would like to promote the auntie lifestyle. It’s cool.
By the way, please don’t assume that because I love croissant arms so much, I secretly want to make a kid with croissant arms of their own. Try to hold two truths in your mind at once: that a person can love croissant arms very, very much and not be a mum. It’s hard, I know.
If you feel like you want to pity me, don’t. I get to hang out with the two best gals in the world and then go home to the solitude I require in order to function. It’s the right thing for me; I would know, I am me!
And if you know me, and you know I’m good at cuddles and have a sort of childlike quality, and you’re tempted to say, but you’d make such a good mum! Maybe. I’m also very good at certain dance moves but I’m not pursuing a career in dance. I’ll put my gentleness and my patience and my enthusiasm to very good use, as an auntie, don’t worry.
I stayed with my sister when she had her second baby, the one with croissants for arms. My mum and I looked after the curly-haired one, while my sister gave birth. I loved being there. It was total chaos. Tantrums, crying, demanding to be fed at all times of the day and night (and that was just me! Ha! Haha!). It was a shock, for someone who lives in a two-adult, one-dog home.
“Does this make you happy to not have kids?” My sister asked me one very loud tiring night, with a kid attached to her boob.
“Yes, but not for the reasons you think,” I said. I already knew about the noise and the mess and the infinite nappy changes. “The one thing that's bothered me about not having kids is that I do have a lot of love to give,” I said. “You do,” she said. “And now I know who to give it all to,” I said.
One day, my nieces will have grown up arms that do not look like pastry. That’s ok. I’ll always love them, no matter what their arms look like. How lucky I am.
Are you an auntie? Or uncle? Or non-binary bonus parental figure? Do you know someone with croissant arms? Lemme know, leave a comment, let’s chat cuteness.
Oh, hey. This is ENTHUSIASM. A newsletter by Kate Leaver, enthusiast. Thing she feels strongly about include but are not limited to: the Kylie Minogue song PADAM, being able to fall asleep at night, and Delta Goodrem’s acting career. Still to come: a ranking of potato products, sad thoughts about JK Rowling, and probably something about her dog.
Kate Leaver is an author, journalist, and former professional fairy. She’s written some books, edited others, and read absolutely loads of them. She’s currently working on her first novel, a cautionary tale about fame, represented by Jemima Forrester and David Higham Associates.
Aunts rule! I was thinking the other day that when people with children hope for their kids’ futures, I assume they want them to be and do whatever they dream of. Hopefully, no one looks at a cute kid and thinks “just the one compulsory life path for you little lady!” And yet there is this tension around whether women without children are living reduced lives or experiencing less overall love under some kind of curve. Kids deserve to grow up to be all kinds of people, so we should be happy there are all kinds of people. It is for the best that we are various.
Loved this perspective. In college I was voted "Most Likely To Be The Rich Aunt We Send Our Children To Every Summer" and I've never been able to shake the off (in a good way!) Happy to know I am not alone!