Do you think the aunts were popular among the children ? Explain with examples from the text ?
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April 9, 1984, Page 00012Buy Reprints
The New York Times Archives
EVERYONE is familiar with
motherhood, fatherhood, brotherhood and sisterhood, but aunt and unclehood are among the most neglected family positions, at least in the United States. Forms calling for the names of parents and siblings don't ask about parents' siblings. Sociologists examining ''significant others'' seldom consider aunts and uncles more significant than others, including cousins far removed.
''Even the hospital belittled my family standing,'' one first-time uncle complained. ''The grandparents could see their new grandchild, but I couldn't see my new nephew.''
This is a matter of cultural priorities, according to Michael Silverstein, a professor of anthropology, linguistics and behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago. And through much of this culture, he said, lineal relationships - such as those between child, mother and mother's mother - count, while collateral relationships - as between child and mother's brother - do not.
Why this is can be debated. Whether it is changing is unknown; anecdotal evidence suggests not. What is clear is that underrating the value of aunts and uncles seems to benefit few and can diminish all - parents, children, the aunts and uncles themselves. ''Among some ethnic groups, aunts and uncles serve as a network that can absorb children from another household when needed, as in a divorce or after a parent's death,'' said Helena Z. Lopata, a professor of sociology at Loyola University in Chicago. In this way, they offer a powerful support structure for children, parents and the family as a whole.
For children in particular, said Urie Bronfenbrenner, the Cornell University child development expert, ''The most important thing is to have an adult to turn to when it's necessary for the child and not convenient for the adult. Youngsters can do that only with people on whom they have a special claim, and who have a special claim on them - namely family.''
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Aunts and uncles, Professor Bronfenbrenner said, are made for the part because ''they're related to the child but they generally don't live under the same roof, so they are at the same time connected and detached - part of the family but not part of the household power plays.''
In this sense, aunts and uncles have much in common with grandparents, with some differences. They are younger and have more stamina than grandparents. And their perspectives, though often different from a parent's, are within the same time scale - they grew up within years, not decades, of each other. So they can talk to the parent in ways the child can't and to the child about the parents as no one else can.
The aunt or uncle can thus give special insight into the parent's childhood and personality. Iris Z. Feldman, whose Manhattan executive recruitment concern specializes in human resources professionals, calls it ''clarifying the parents.'' As an aunt, she considers herself a ''grown- up without the territory.''
''I don't need to maintain a lofty perch as the parent and the role- model adult ,'' she said. ''When my niece or nephews call, I'm free to be the mollifier, the interpreter, the grown-up - with a little 'g' - friend who they think is 100 percent for them and to whom they will listen more objectively about their parents.''
One psychologist, Aphrodite Clamar, noted that aunts and uncles can offer parents temporary relief from parenting. Dr. Clamar, whose interests include stepfamilies and adoptive families, said: ''Parents trust their own siblings to let the children do things the parents might not countenance, but not anything dangerous. So they can entrust the children to the aunt's or uncle's care.''
This can also benefit the aunt or uncle, Dr. Clamar said, since many people today are choosing not to have children. ''Here you have these nurturing adults, these repositories of experiences, with no one in a younger generation to pass it on to, if not the nieces and nephews,'' she said.
''That stuff really didn't bother me until I became a mother,'' said Dale Ronda Burg, a New York writer and humorist. Miss Burg said she wanted her child ''surrounded with these people who, like me, have accumulated a lot of lore and can be a resource.''
After all, she asked: ''Who's going to teach my kid anything about sports? Who's going to fill in my gaps besides my husband and the baby sitter?
due to her aunt criticism Maggie cuts her hair and later repent when it's too late. her cousin comes to the room to call Maggi for the dinner. Maggi refuses to come down but somehow she does. everyone scolded her except her father and this shows his affection for his daughter.