How Becoming An Aunty Changed Me

 

A couple of years ago, I shared the news that I had become an aunty for the first time. My sister the previous year had suffered a devastating miscarriage and we were all elated with the news. For some reason, I found that the news hit me really hard. All of a sudden, there was a rush of responsibility and things changed for me almost overnight. For context, I am from a very large family. I am blessed with more aunties and uncles than I can count. Some of my aunties have been very involved in my life and now as an adult woman, I would consider them friends. Others are people that I see every now and again at a family function, but nothing past that. I knew that kind of aunty I wanted to be. This blog post is about how becoming an aunty changed me.

 

I needed to think above how involved I was going to be.

When my sister first got pregnant, she told me that she needed help. I was ready to be involved and be hands on. For me, I want to be my nieces favourite aunty. I know that I shouldn’t fight for a child’s affection, but I wanted to be number one in her eyes. To do that, I needed to be there. In my everyday life, I am very laid back. I don’t have children and I can be as lazy as I want and come and go as I please. That had to change when I made a commitment to my sister and my baby niece. I wanted them to know that they could call on me and the that my niece would grow up with me always around.

 

I wanted to stop been flaky.

One of my weaknesses is that I am pretty flaky. I think at this stage, my family think that it is one of my rather charming traits. However, I don’t want to be what my nieces and nephews think of me. I will often commit to an event or occasion and then just simply not turn up. I tend to do things based on my mood and my mental health. If I don’t want to be social that day, I will simply be a recluse and hide away. That is all well and good, but sometimes people are relying on me and I’m not there.

 

I needed to think about how I portray myself.

One thing that I love, is that despite my social anxiety, I come across as a very outgoing and bubbly person. I love to make other people happy and get them laughing. My dad always says that I light up and room and dominate whenever I am around. To be honest, I kind of love that. However, in order to become that person, I shift my personality somehow. I often make myself the but of the joke, am pretty down on myself or even downplay my intelligence. For me, I don’t want that to be what my nieces and nephews think that you have to do in order to be remembered.

 

I had to create a better relationship with my sister.

One of the other ways in which becoming an aunty changed me was that a relationship had to be fixed. Me and my sister have never particularly been very close. We have gone through stages where we have got on, but generally we have sought to make the other suffer. It started when we were both stroppy teenagers. The older that we got, the more we found fun in pissing the other one off. Which isn’t a great foundation for a close friendship. Even when we were both in our mid-twenties, we would still have full on fights. We drew a line in the sand and vowed to make a change. It has worked pretty well, now we just make snarky comments to one another!

 

I hope that you guys enjoyed this blog post. Becoming an aunty changed me for the better. Even though I still feel like I will be the reckless aunty, I am going to be the present one. I feel so much responsibility. Not only to my nieces and nephews, but to my whole family. It takes a team to raise children and I am fully on board to help where I can. I want to be super involved. I want them to grow up and tell tales about me. For sure, I will be the aunty that buys them a bottle of cider on a Friday night and gives them a cheeky wink after. I honestly cannot wait for what is to come. But it really did change me in so many ways. Grateful doesn’t even come close to what I feel for my little mates.