The Weekend: My nephew keeps calling me nana
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.
There is no adult in the world who can cut you to the core as cleanly as a small child. My unwitting assassin is my lovely not-quite-two-year-old nephew, who with a single, repeated word has forced me to reevaluate my hair, my clothes and my life.
The word? Nana.
My sister (and therefore nephew) lives 10 minutes from me and I see them approximately once a week. My mum (his nana) lives a seven-hour drive away and therefore they see each other every few months. And yet, whenever my nephew sees me, or wishes to refer to me after I've said goodbye, he calls me nana.
'No, that's aunty Mad,' my sister will gently say. 'Can you say Mad?' He'll look at her, look at me, and say nothing. Until the next time he calls to me and I'm nana again.
Trust me when I say that I do find it funny, and have taken to referring to myself as nana sometimes just to be consistent. But when one is referred to as nana despite not being 70 years old (his real nana's age), one must examine what sort of energy and look one is presenting to the impressionable youths of the world.
If I'm being very honest, I've been old my whole life, so it's not really a surprise that since I have similar length hair to my mum, my nephew has made us one person. But it is always jarring to be reminded of both age and stage.
I have been Aunty Mad since I was 12, so have always felt like a very young aunty. Nearly two decades and 15 nieces and nephews later, I have only just recently realised I'm a regular-aged aunty. And now, having lived with that realisation for a whole three months, I'm suddenly a very young nana.
This week, I read a lot of comments online about how any reasonably healthy person would be able to pass the police fitness test. I looked at the requirements and knew instantly that I'd fail every part of it. Five years ago I would've needed a few weeks to freshen up but could've passed. Today? Give me at least six months and you've got a maybe.
In watching Gilmore Girls recently I had to remind myself that mother-of-teenager Lorelai is only a year older than me in the show.
At the same time, I read about the chaos of the classroom these days and the ever-changing curriculum and the rise of AI where children are supposedly learning and think, 'thank god I'm too old to be impacted by this'.
You might think this is all a bit rich and predictable coming from someone in their early thirties but you aren't the one being called nana and wondering if maybe you need to just shave your head again to make things really clear.
On balance, I take it as a compliment that I am convincingly passing as a 70-year-old quiet woman to my nephew and assume it really is just the hair. And yes, I do now know that when I look at my mum, I am in fact looking at myself in 40 years.
But I may still shave my head and if he continues to call me nana… well, that's an existential problem for future, geriatric me.
The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Spinoff
6 days ago
- The Spinoff
Gone By Lunchtime: New polls, old PMs and a sacrificed goat
At the political half-time mark, we assess the ritual changeover, a brace of new surveys and a very New Zealand altercation at the music awards. We're officially in the second half of the term, a milestone marked by the historic handover of the hallowed deputy prime minister amulet from Winston Peters to David Seymour. The moment comes with pageantry, a flurry of interviews and a pair of new polls, which deliver intriguing, and sometimes divergent results. In a new episode of Spinoff politics podcast Gone By Lunchtime, Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas pore over the results and what they mean for the parties and the politicians in the post-budget, post-pay-equity-reshape wash-up. Plus: Jim Bolger and Jacinda Ardern have both been in the headlines in recent days. What do these returns tell us about the performance of their Chris-themed successors? And Chris Bishop found himself in a media moshpit after the Aotearoa Music Awards for calling the Stan Walker Toitū Te Tiriti parade 'crap' and earning the most painful denunciation imaginable: being called a dickhead by living legend Don McGlashan.
The Spinoff
02-05-2025
- The Spinoff
The Weekend: My nephew keeps calling me nana
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. There is no adult in the world who can cut you to the core as cleanly as a small child. My unwitting assassin is my lovely not-quite-two-year-old nephew, who with a single, repeated word has forced me to reevaluate my hair, my clothes and my life. The word? Nana. My sister (and therefore nephew) lives 10 minutes from me and I see them approximately once a week. My mum (his nana) lives a seven-hour drive away and therefore they see each other every few months. And yet, whenever my nephew sees me, or wishes to refer to me after I've said goodbye, he calls me nana. 'No, that's aunty Mad,' my sister will gently say. 'Can you say Mad?' He'll look at her, look at me, and say nothing. Until the next time he calls to me and I'm nana again. Trust me when I say that I do find it funny, and have taken to referring to myself as nana sometimes just to be consistent. But when one is referred to as nana despite not being 70 years old (his real nana's age), one must examine what sort of energy and look one is presenting to the impressionable youths of the world. If I'm being very honest, I've been old my whole life, so it's not really a surprise that since I have similar length hair to my mum, my nephew has made us one person. But it is always jarring to be reminded of both age and stage. I have been Aunty Mad since I was 12, so have always felt like a very young aunty. Nearly two decades and 15 nieces and nephews later, I have only just recently realised I'm a regular-aged aunty. And now, having lived with that realisation for a whole three months, I'm suddenly a very young nana. This week, I read a lot of comments online about how any reasonably healthy person would be able to pass the police fitness test. I looked at the requirements and knew instantly that I'd fail every part of it. Five years ago I would've needed a few weeks to freshen up but could've passed. Today? Give me at least six months and you've got a maybe. In watching Gilmore Girls recently I had to remind myself that mother-of-teenager Lorelai is only a year older than me in the show. At the same time, I read about the chaos of the classroom these days and the ever-changing curriculum and the rise of AI where children are supposedly learning and think, 'thank god I'm too old to be impacted by this'. You might think this is all a bit rich and predictable coming from someone in their early thirties but you aren't the one being called nana and wondering if maybe you need to just shave your head again to make things really clear. On balance, I take it as a compliment that I am convincingly passing as a 70-year-old quiet woman to my nephew and assume it really is just the hair. And yes, I do now know that when I look at my mum, I am in fact looking at myself in 40 years. But I may still shave my head and if he continues to call me nana… well, that's an existential problem for future, geriatric me. The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week
The Spinoff
25-04-2025
- The Spinoff
The Weekend: The sound of silence
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. I've been re-watching Girls lately, the HBO classic that perfectly captures millennial women in the most painful way. I highly recommend it especially if you haven't watched it before. Every character on the show is deeply flawed and frustrating in their own unique ways, but one of my favourites is Ray, the grouchy complainer who reminds me of a young Larry David. Near the end of the series he ironically yells at the drivers honking outside of his apartment: 'This incessant sound is doing irreparable damage. This incessant sound is prompting my norepinephrine production.' He's referring to the neuro-transmitter that enables fight or flight, and he's not wrong. Incessant noise can drive a person insane. That show came out over a decade ago but the issue of noise pollution is as pressing as ever. In New Zealand, I mostly find the noise of my neighbourhood comforting. The lawn mowers, the drills, the buses accelerating away from the bus stop outside our apartment every seven minutes. It's comforting because it's a consistent and reliable reminder that I live among many others. I find it so comforting that when I visit my rural dwelling parents, the silence (and darkness) at night can be alarming. It's a shock to the system to remember that almost all the noise we hear in the city is manufactured and directly the result of human activity. Couple that with the incessant roar of, well, the entire human population speaking at once and at all times on the internet, and suddenly the noise is overwhelming. So it is increasingly rare for thousands of people to agree to silence, even for a moment, as happens every Anzac Day to honour the troops who have served our country. The silence is always meaningful and heavy. But this year, that silence had an alarm ringing with it, after a call for a boycott of the ceremonial aspects of Anzac Day. The reason? Some veterans feel that the gestures and the speeches are prioritised over actually supporting the veterans around our country today. As Liam Rātana has reported, the call for a boycott came soon after the Waitangi Tribunal hearings in which the tribunal heard of the inequities in support for Māori veterans and the restrictive nature of veteran support, particularly for those who have recently served. Sometimes even silence can prompt norepinephrine production. This week on Behind the Story The unreported reality for NZ veterans Ātea editor Liam Rātana has reported two stories recently on the same topic, a topic that is so often ignored by both media and everyday New Zealanders: veterans. Our returned or retired army personnel are at the sticky end of almost every social measure: unemployment, mental health, suicide. But without even a national register of how many veterans we have, it's even harder to tell the stories of a community that hasn't been quantified yet. Madeleine Chapman talks to Liam this week on Behind the Story about his coverage of the recent Waitangi Tribunal hearings into the treatment of Māori veterans and a veteran group's call to boycott the formal ceremonies of Anzac day. Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week
