Latest news with #aunts
CBC
a day ago
- General
- CBC
I'm an aunt who chooses to be childless. Merchandise with passive-aggressive mom digs gets under my skin
This First Person column is the experience of Nicole Starker Campbell, who lives in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ. My sister-in-law, Laura, handed me a gift wrapped in Christmas paper, apologizing for what she said was a tacky present. I unwrapped a coffee mug and held it up for a look. The yellow-and-dusty-rose colour scheme and random pink paintbrush stroke pattern signalled that this cup was made in the '80s. Judging from the tiny chips on the bottom, it had seen some use. But printed on the side of the ceramic cup was, "For a Very Special Person," and below that, the word "Aunt." Laura and my niece, Serene, had been browsing in a thrift shop when Serene saw the mug and declared she wanted to give it to me for Christmas. Laura suggested they pick out a brand new mug, but my niece looked at her with eyes the same blue as mine and said, "But it says, 'For a very special person.'" Most of the text wore off years ago, yet that cup is still one of my favourites. I love my nieces and nephews to pieces and happily advertise that I'm a proud auntie. But when I recently saw another mug decorated with the phrase "Aunts … Like Moms, Only Cooler," I paused. This cup was less a tribute to aunts and more of a passive-aggressive dig. While many mothers are also aunties, this alluded to a comparison that concludes childless aunts are cool and moms are not. In other words, women stop being fun and interesting once they have a child. The us-against-them trap This false chasm existing between mothers and childless aunts is just a construct pitting women against each other. I think most of us live in the vast grey area between two polarizing stereotypes: that all women want to be mothers and that all childless women hate kids. In fact, there's no "womaning" better, there are just different choices. Even so, I admit that I still get caught in the us-against-them trap sometimes. Years ago, while chatting with a friend as she made us coffee, we began talking about the question of when to have children. She had decided it was time for her and her husband to start trying. Sitting at her kitchen island, I explained that I'd never wanted children and wasn't going to have them. As she reached into the cupboard for coffee mugs, she replied, "Oh, don't worry, you'll have kids one day." As if to say, you'll come around. My friend didn't ask why I felt the way I did and didn't seem interested in a conversation about the different choices that women make. At the time, it felt like she'd simply dismissed my feelings as being wrong. WATCH | Why fewer people are planning to have kids | About That: Why fewer people are planning to have kids | About That 1 year ago Duration 10:05 Research suggests a significant shift over the last two decades in the number of North American adults who are planning on having kids. Andrew Chang explores three main reasons for the generational change. I now realize my friend wasn't trying to intentionally dismiss my decision not to have kids. Rather, it was a lack of understanding about why I would make a choice that was different than hers. Most of the women in our friend group have felt the pull of motherhood. I haven't. I love kids, but I've never wanted any of my own. The responsibility of being a mom has always been far too daunting for me, and being an aunt is where I thrive. Most of the moms I know are cool — and their kids think they're cool, too. These mothers have living room dance parties with their sons and daughters, shepherd their children through mental health challenges or have even parented their kids through tough divorces. For all my advocating for, and defending of, the ability to not choose motherhood, I realize that children are still central to my identity. Growing up, I used to visit a favourite aunt who never had children. Some of my favourite childhood memories involve driving around Seattle in her Corvette, talking, sipping iced mochas and listening to Wham! Now, I'm making those memories with my nieces and nephews. I enjoy babysitting my nieces and nephews, bringing them to the water park, buying them cool YA books and taking them on trips. They've come to stay with me for a fun weekend visit and also when they needed support during a challenging time. As an auntie, I get to love my siblings' and friends' sons and daughters, and be involved in their lives, free from the pressures of parenthood. I'm happy to play an important supporting role. Serene is now in her early 20s. This past Christmas she gifted me a bright pink coffee mug that says "Best Aunt Ever." To my nieces and nephews, just being their aunt is enough, and I'm cool with that.
Irish Times
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Aunts fictional and real matter more to us than they may know
In a curious case of art imitating life (or vice versa), aunts are a big part of my literary and personal life right now. It was nearly three years ago that I first had the idea to write the story of Dorothy's aunt Em from The Wizard of Oz. I wonder if my fascination with exploring Aunt Em's backstory comes from the five fabulous aunties and a significant great-aunt who have been such a big part of my life. My sister and I were particularly close to my mum's three sisters. Family gatherings at Christmas and Easter were held, in rotation, at one of the sister's houses. There was always too much food, plenty of laughter and more than a touch of chaos. Auntie Margaret's homemade scotch eggs became the stuff of legend. Auntie Dallas's trifle got bigger and boozier each year (she was named after an American GI from Dallas who lived in the village during the war – I knew you were wondering). When everyone had stuffed themselves at the buffet tea, the aunties set to washing and drying the dishes and wrapping up leftovers with terrifying efficiency. The pride in hosting was so great that we arrived to my aunt's house in Hull one St Stephen's Day to be told that my uncle had suffered a stroke that morning. She didn't want to cancel, so on the show went! Yorkshire women are made of strong stuff and none more so than four sisters raised by their mother, grandmother and several 'aunties' after their father left them. Relationships with our aunts can be as significant as our relationships with our mothers. In some cases, even more so. Many of us become aunts before we become mothers, learning how to hold and mind a baby, before gladly returning them to their parents. Many women I know who aren't mothers absolutely treasure their role of auntie, finding seemingly endless ways to corrupt their nieces and nephews. And we all have women in our lives who aren't technically our aunties, but who have always been there for us. In Little Women, Aunt March is a rich widow who disapproves of Marmee's parenting, yet ultimately has a lasting influence on two of her great-nieces When my mum died at the age of 48, it was her sisters – our aunts – who stepped up to try to fill the void she'd left behind. I still get birthday and Christmas cards from the two surviving aunties and, yes, there's always a bit of money tucked inside (I'm 54!). In recent months, I've seen my aunties more often as I make regular trips from Kildare back to Yorkshire to visit my elderly dad. Only last month, I spent the night at my auntie's. I slept in my cousin's old bedroom, where I'd once played Scalextric and Subbuteo with him. Core memories unlocked and held tight. READ MORE Several fictional aunties have also stayed with me. From the kind and caring to the strict and unlikeable, literary aunts are often childless, unmarried or widowed. They can lend a delicious sense of unconventionality to a novel. Jane Austen (herself an aunt) gave us several memorable aunts, not least in Pride and Prejudice with Lizzie Bennet's Aunt Gardiner, and Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, a woman with all the worst traits of the stereotypical awful auntie. In David Copperfield , Charles Dickens gives us the marvellous Betsey Trotwood, the classic hardened Victorian widow and yet a woman who cares deeply for her nephew. In Oliver Twist, Rose Maylie, the young woman who cares for young Oliver when he is sick, is later revealed to be his aunt. In Little Women, Aunt March is a rich widow who disapproves of Marmee's parenting, yet ultimately has a lasting influence on two of her great-nieces. Paddington's Aunt Lucy also deserves an honourable mention as the little bear's north star and his connection to home. [ Ripeness by Sarah Moss: A captivating novel about the unwritten codes of Irish social interaction Opens in new window ] Significantly less loveable are Roald Dahl 's terrible Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker in James and the Giant Peach; aunts with no redeeming features at all who are eventually crushed to death by the enormous fruit, much to the delight of young readers. JK Rowling gives Harry Potter a particularly horrible aunt/wicked stepmother in Aunt Petunia, and who wasn't traumatised by Jane Eyre's experiences in the red room, sent there by her Aunt Reed in Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre. Whether fictional women who raised some of our most beloved literary nieces and nephews, or those in our real lives who have helped to raise us, here's to the aunties But one literary aunt who often gets overlooked is L Frank Baum's Aunt Em from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Left behind in Kansas while Dorothy sets off on her adventures along the Yellow Brick Road, it isn't surprising that Em isn't as prominent as other literary aunts, yet she is pivotal in Dorothy's longing to return home. Most of us know Aunt Em from the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland, with Clara Blandick playing the role of Dorothy's rather stern and brusque aunt. But it was from Baum's original book that I discovered a tantalising hint of a different woman. 'When Aunt Em came there to live, she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too... She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now.' [ Girl with a Fork in a World of Soup by Rosita Sweetman: A short, lively and fast-paced memoir Opens in new window ] In imagining what had happened to change her so dramatically, I saw Emily as a hopeful young woman - the daughter of Irish immigrants - embarking on a new life as a farmer's wife on the Kansas prairies when tragedy strikes and she takes in her orphaned niece. Aunt Em's love for Dorothy is evident in the final - short - chapter of the book when Dorothy returns home: ''My darling child,' she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses; 'where in the world did you come from?'' Whether fictional women who raised some of our most beloved literary nieces and nephews, or those in our real lives who have helped to raise us, here's to the aunties. You matter more than you'll ever know. Hazel Gaynor is the author of The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter. Her latest book, Before Dorothy, will be published by HarperCollins on June 19th
Daily Mail
07-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Mother, 51, reveals how she bought six crumbling Italian villas for less than £1 EACH for family and friends to move into... and unveils their incredible transformation after years of DIY
A mother-of-three has radically transformed six crumbling Italian villas she bought for just £5 all in to allow her friends and family to move in. Rubia Daniels, 51, paid just one euro for each of her six homes in Mussomeli, Sicily, in April 2019, taking advantage of a council scheme to encourage people to renovate abandoned homes. Admin costs, agency fees and the deeds took the cost of each property to 4,000 euros (£3,400), a total of 24,000 euros (£20,500). Several of the properties were bought with fully collapsed roofs and infrastructural issues such as no water and no electricity. But Rubia - a planning consultant by trade - used her 16 years of experience in the construction industry to break down the walls and renovate the properties. Now, some of the six homes are reaching completion and she hopes her family and friends will move to the Mussomeli area to work and retire. Rubia was keen to make the most of the council scheme and was one of the first to buy the homes - signing three for herself and carrying out the paperwork of one for her adopted daughter and two for her aunts. Her two aunts, Marilu Ferreira, 70, and Marua Fatima, 82, plan to move into their homes in Mussomeli permanently for the rest of their retirement. She spent a total of £20,500 on her homes Rubia - who is originally from Brazil but has lived in San Francisco since 1996 - said: 'We bought all six in April 2019. In June, I did all the paperwork and then got the deeds later that summer. 'I packed six suitcases of all my tools and a generator, and then me, my husband and my brother-in-law, who was in Brazil, flew out to get the keys. 'The house was fully collapsed, but now it's fully renovated and has a beautiful marble bedroom. 'Once the roof was fixed and water tight, the rest of it sort of fell into place from there. 'It's been my passion and I just have so much feeling for these houses and the community as a whole.' Rubia believes her job makes her adept to the task of converting a derelict property into a beautiful Italian home. She said: 'I'm very comfortable with the idea of transforming things and breaking walls. When I see something fully collapsed, I can already see what's going to look like, which is not for everybody. 'For example, my husband panics when he sees me eyeing up projects like this, but for me it's just a combination of excitement and joy. She said: 'I want to convert one of them into a wellness centre, where people can come and do yoga and meditation and the like' 'But you have to see beyond the way a place looks at the start, and imagine how it's going to be in the end. 'And my 'one euro' home is exactly the way I imagined it, and I'm proud because it was a small investment.' Rubia spent a total of 60,000 euros renovating her first purchase in Mussomeli, with the intention that she will not have to do any more work 'for 50 years'. But she hopes she can do up each of the rest under this budget. She said: 'I want to convert one of them into a wellness centre, where people can come and do yoga and meditation and the like - it would be nice to give back to the community this way. 'My daughter's one is almost done, we did a full remodel. I have a few changes still to make to mine, but it's my aunts which are the ones we're trying to move along the most now. 'I'm very happy I landed there and bought them early after reading an article about the project, because there are about 30 people looking at just one home now - they've increased a lot in popularity. 'When I first told my friends and family about it, they couldn't believe it.. They thought I was kidding when I said I was going to buy six. 'It can be intimidating, but you're getting the house basically for free and you can turn that into whatever you desire and it's just a really fun project - especially when your husband and entire family help out with the manual labour.' 'It can be intimidating, but you're getting the house basically for free and you can turn that into whatever you desire and it's just a really fun project', she said 'People actually mean it when they ask you how you are, and it's this social aspect which really attracted me to the area', Rubia said of living in Italy 'We sourced all the furniture locally, everything is from that little town - the kitchen, the flooring, the mirrors, the bath and sink. 'But we wanted to do it with the community in mind. We love it here - it's much nicer than California. 'People actually mean it when they ask you how you are, and it's this social aspect which really attracted me to the area. 'Nobody is rushing around, everything is affordable. You can eat really well with very little money - a coffee and a croissant costs Euro 1.50. 'In California, it's a very stressful environment and everything is so superficial.'
