The Blog Post That Started It All...

In February 2021, I volunteered to speak at my job during Black History Month and we were asked to speak on our personal experiences as people of color. Even though I'm pretty comfortable speaking in public and sharing my opinion in conversations, I was a bit nervous and struggling to find a topic. After talking to a friend of mine, she encouraged me to share my Dope Auntie story and why those women in our lives need to be celebrated. So here's the blog topic that started all of this:

They're the person who gives you life advice, the one who sneaks you an extra cookie before dinner, the one who ignores that you totally spit up on their sweatshirt while they were brushing their teeth.

For the record, I consider myself an auntie, not just an aunt. From my cultural community perspective, the term “auntie” is both an honorific given by younger folks to elders out of respect, to friend’s mothers, and something I’d yell out when my cousins were terrorizing me and I was seeking justice.

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In March of 2020, my biggest concern was making sure I could get the time off for a birthday trip to Canada in May. My sister, who I live with, was 9 months pregnant and we were preparing for the birth of my niece. Then came COVID-19, and suddenly I was working from home with no idea when we’d be able to travel again. We went from planning to being able to visit my sister in the delivery room to just my sister and her partner being present for the birth.

During those hours where I couldn’t visit my sister in the hospital, I spent the time at our home with our sister-auntie-family. A call came through while I was sitting in the living room, and my sister and her partner were on the other line. This person that I loved and admired most was now asking me to weigh in on a medical decision that could impact all our lives. That was my first indication that I would be more a part of Baby Z’s entrance to the world as her auntie and protector than previously thought. [There is a medical bias that is still taught today that overestimates Black women’s ability to bear pain and inaccurately assesses their discomfort. Black, American Indian, and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women are two to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women – and this disparity increases with age according to the CDC, in an article written in September 2019. This inability to trust that Black women and women of color know when they are suffering contributes to a lack of trust in medical professionals as we often remain under-diagnosed and under-medicated.] Knowing that this part of our family story could be triggering to those reading, I'll simply say that my sister’s deep understanding of her own body, her rights, and knowledge of proper consent procedures in a medical facility not only allowed her to give birth on her terms but may have saved her life. Many crazy hours later, my niece made it home and life hasn’t been the same since.

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While finding teething toys in my bed and tiptoeing around the house after 8:00 PM have been minor shifts in my life, a conversation with a younger cousin made a major shift in my perspective. While we laughed about Baby Z’s new tactic of squealing loudly to get my attention, my younger cousin said she wished she had been closer to her aunts and developed a stronger connection. I wasn’t particularly close with my own aunt, but I did get some wisdom and life lessons as a result of those conversations I had with her as a kid. That relationship with my aunt shaped a lot of how I saw the world and saw myself.

As adults, we share a lot about how our parents do or don’t mold us and how our grandparents inspire us or provide cautionary tales about waiting until you die to live. This whole experience has made me appreciate all the amazing aunties that work behind the scenes as caregivers, confidantes, and teachers. Some of the most fascinating women in my life were aunties by association: mothers of friends or elders in my dance community. These were the women who lived a thousand different lives (accountants, teachers overseas, pilots, political activists, millionaires, and muses) and represented the spectrum of possibilities available. They provided insight into the kind of woman my mom was before kids and the types of women I could be when I grew up no matter what message I was getting in school. Though I don’t feel like a grown-up yet, the way these women moved through the world unapologetically left an indelible mark on my spirit.

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I was encouraged to foster my love of sneakers, taught how to apply makeup, shown there was no danger in traveling across the world to follow a dream, and was always made to believe that tea and a good snickerdoodle could be the balm for whatever I was experiencing. I think of the women in mom’s book club, my dance and language instructors, teachers in my community: each of them old enough to be my mom and happy to remind me of said fact whenever I broke rank and voiced my displeasure at punishments or assignments. However, I know I was never so supported, so empowered, and so loved by a group as I was by this collective of dope souls, and doubt I ever will be. There is something quite amazing about being able to guide a young person and create a safe space for them to mess up, learn about themselves and find their voice in the world. As much as I love being able to live this amazing child-free lifestyle, I also enjoy having a new roommate that babbles loudly and doesn’t care if I’m having a Zoom Meeting. Despite her name meaning “Calm One With The Crown”, this fireball of a human has upended my existence in the world with humor at my attempts to control anything and a love bigger than I’ve ever known.

I consider it an honor that Baby Z was born into my tribe, a privilege to be able to watch her grow, and a choice that I make over and over again to show up. Here’s to the dope aunties: may we be them, may we raise them, and may we appreciate these women who step into our lives and leave marks on our hearts.