Public Address | Cafe | Up Front: The Aunties

Hilary Stace

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:23:59 +1300

Thanks for all these aunt reminiscences. My mother was one of four sisters who were very close, although so different in many ways that they ended up actively supporting four different political parties.Only the youngest, in her mid-80s, is still alive (two died recently, in their 90s). She still skiis…

Aidan

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:59:22 +1300

Islander .. sorry, been away. Amazingly similar! The women are left and support each other. Bloody brilliant.

My Great Aunt Irene (the one who lived in the apartment out the back of the garage) had lived most of her working life back in the UK – she applied and was…

Isabel Hitchings

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:58:55 +1300

We may be small but we make up for it in closeness and honesty. My partner is frequently boggled b the way I can volubly enumerate all the ways my parents are wrong and we're still all ok with eachother afterwards.

Islander

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:46:00 +1300

Aidan, the Aunts lived together in the house nextdoor to my Nanna's home – there was a gate between the 2 fences. Florence (who had been widowed very early, and left with a small child) was the main breadwinner – she had her letters for teaching piano & organ. Cynth -…

Islander

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:34:02 +1300

On the other hand, I have only a few friends I would go to the wall for, and I actually think of them as my extended whanau.

Indeed.
I used to have quite a few very good friends, but 7 of them died between 1992 & the early 2000s. Those that…

Bart Janssen

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:03:12 +1300

the day after I’ve delivered a lengthy opinion on something she’ll ask me with all innocence, “What do you think about this, dear?” And then give every appearance of listening with interest to my reply.

Or she is simply determining that you believe that thing two days in a row…

Aidan

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:28:16 +1300

I had three Great-Aunties who lived together. Two in a little house and one in the a flat out the back of the garage. They were 3 of 7 girls, their widowed mother brought them out to NZ from England by herself in the 20s. Remarkable to think about that…

Lilith __

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:32:14 +1300

I come from a large family. My siblings (counting half-siblings) run into double digits. We all know each other's business and are fond of telling each other what to do, but as we seldom listen, nobody gets too offended. My mother has raised selective listening to a high art. I…

Hebe

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:09:12 +1300

my family just doesn't do this.Neither does mine, well not in the same way. Mine is more uptight and has many conditions attached while being fragmented individually and collectively. So gatherings can be good, can be fraught; you never know how it will play, but as a group never easy.…

Gee

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 06:23:37 +1300

On the other hand, I have only a few friends I would go to the wall for, and I actually think of them as my extended whanau.
Exactly this. And my 'aunties' and 'uncles' made it abundantly clear how much fun my parents had before us kids, and now that…

nzlemming

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:36:05 +1300

On a more serious note, I have 5 sisters and a brother and the age range spans 20 years with me in the middle. We all talk to each other (and sometimes listen), care for each other, argue with each other and basically love each other. As a band, we're…

nzlemming

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:16:01 +1300

What I think about my own children is that perhaps I should take them aside and caution them that their mother wasn't quite as big a slapper as her friends' Edited Highlights Reel sometimes makes it sound.

You're not supposed to lie to kids – they'll get a complex or…

Scott A

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:23:48 +1300

This story brought tears to my eyes, not least because my family just doesn't do this. Sad, for us, I guess.

Islander

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:59:10 +1300

I think that as long as a family is loving, it doesn’t matter the size. Like anything in life, what we have experienced is what we’re used to

O yes, dear Jackie, and, o yes!

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:55:45 +1300

I think that as long as a family is loving, it doesn't matter the size. Like anything in life, what we have experienced is what we're used to, and anything else takes getting used to. My husband came from a very small family, and we don't see any of them…

Islander

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:11:47 +1300

Surely, one can appreciate having had something without feeling that everyone else needs to have it too.

E tika. Indeed.

But trying to understand how the arms of a large loving group – present *and* past- which are ambient and embracing – *arnt* there for all other people is -…

Emma Hart

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:49:17 +1300

I think they need to hear those stories that show that their parents once had lives that were separate from them.

Is, this is pretty much what my mother said (in a rare moment of Bitchy) about my cousin's children a few years ago: that they needed to know that…

Isabel Hitchings

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:39:27 +1300

The guiding principle my mother lives by (and which she has successfully passed on) is to never, ever let the truth get in the way of a good story.

My family is tiny – there's just my parents and I in New Zealand. I've met a fair few of the…

Bart Janssen

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:12:17 +1300

I seldom have constructive advice or practical help

I always have advice and practical help ... it took me years to learn to stop er well reduce my inclination to give such advice.

Turns out most times my sympathy is far more valuable – that and I'm an excellent hugger.…

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:00:18 +1300

That's what succour is, though. The rendering of assistance. And if that happens to be laughter, all to the good.

Emma Hart

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:03:17 +1300

Yes, the best friends always give good succour.

And that example is pretty much my definition of friendship.

One of my Canadian friends, who's been having some Serious Issues in her relationship lately, recently told me, "No matter how bad it gets, you can always make me laugh." That's my…

Sacha

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:55:41 +1300

one born every minute :)

Tom Beard

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:52:31 +1300

Yes, the best friends always give good succour.

Tom Beard

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:41:10 +1300

Now you have me wondering whether I missed out. Until the age of seven, my extended family were in different cities and we only saw them a few times a year. After the age of seven, they were in a different hemisphere, and I saw them at most twice more.…

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:38:56 +1300

The definition of friends, for me, has always been succour.

Megan Wegan

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:06:56 +1300

It was just like Christmas except without the passive aggression and casual drunken racism and misogyny.

And not having to bite my tongue every time someone said something racist/misogynist/homophobic.

Emma Hart

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:57:21 +1300

Based on Christmas, it does. For me, at least.

We had Christmas with Megan, my dear friend Susan and her husband, and my partner and kids. It was just like Christmas except without the passive aggression and casual drunken racism and misogyny.

It was utterly wonderful, and after my last…

Emma Hart

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:51:48 +1300

more true, more loyal, and more loving and supportive, than the one that raises you in your youth.

This was particularly sharply true for my mother, whose friends stood by her when her family actively disowned her. Bev and Jean also went to lengths to conceal Mum's relationship with Peter…

Megan Wegan

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:49:56 +1300

Based on Christmas, it does. For me, at least.

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:42:56 +1300

I think sometimes that those famiies – the ones you bring together yourself – are, for many, more true, more loyal, and more loving and supportive, than the one that raises you in your youth.

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:41:10 +1300

And mine, Islander – except my mum's sister. Who, like my grandmother before her, has had her battles with mental illness, but who has survived, only to have to battle it with her youngest daughter. We have always been close, but she was never an escape for me. And then…

Emma Hart

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:39:48 +1300

I cant know what it's like, not being part of a large extended family: it is part of the sadness of life that all the aunts & the uncles have died-

I had two actual aunts. One lives in Australia and I've only seen her twice, and the other was fifty-six…

Islander

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:27:51 +1300

My father had six sisters...they were family (with all that implies.)
My mother had 2 brothers (who loomed large in our lives especially after my father died) but her mother had six sisters and altho' they were greataunts, they were known just as The Aunts. They were of Scots descent…

Craig Ranapia

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:12:53 +1300

Jean had a precious bluntness too.

Which can almost literally be a life-saver at time. After my foster Mother and Nan died on the same day (and some associated unpleasantness), I don’t think David quite gets what he did when he said, “You smell rank. Get in the shower, run…

Jackie Clark

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:12:32 +1300

Delightful. Absolutely delightful. I am so glad that you, and she, had those friends in her life.

Megan Wegan

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:11:42 +1300

MY "Aunties" are my actual aunties – 4 on my father's side, and 2 on Mum's. My Auntie Margaret is one of my favourite people on the world. No nonsense advice, undying support, and a willingness to make an ass of herself in any possible situation.

I have an aunt…

Tim Michie

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:08:24 +1300

extravagant story-telling with higher values than strict accuracy sadly under rated that is, but fortunately frequently unrated.

Geoff Lealand

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:57:05 +1300

Great stuff. Never had any grandparents (I was at the tail-end of my mother's three marriages, with children produced between and thus disinherited) and no aunts, except for a Auntie Mona, who richly deserved her name.

Megan Wegan

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:38:32 +1300

This Christmas, my son sat in slight mortification in rooms where my best friends were telling stories. That’s what aunties are for. The lying bitches.

Pfft. There was no lying.

Public Address

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:38:32 +1300

Discussion from blog post.