Excerpt

 From Uncle! The Definitive Guide for Becoming the World’s Greatest Aunt or Uncle

 Some parents, many parents, maybe almost all parents, don’t want their kids to act like kids. Let’s face it—kids can be a pain. They make more noise than machines that shear metal. They find dirt and make messes where none exists. They create entropy. They take apart things that should be together and put things together that should remain apart. They mix salt and sugar, water and soil. They would mix nitro and glycerin if they could get their hands on it.

Kids find danger in the safest of places and create it if it isn’t lying about. They work hard at trying to get killed. They search for broken glass to eat, electric sockets to poke metal objects into, and cliffs to fall from. As if by magic, they hone in on “The Place Where They Can Do The Most Damage.”

A colleague at work has three wonderful kids. They came into the office one day with their mom—a fun outing. The youngest, Amy, instantly sized up the office treasures: staplers, tape, top-heavy file cabinets, carefully arranged documents on the desk, pushpins, letter opener, Swiss army knife, telephone. Then she headed straight for the computer keyboard, arms outstretched and fingers wiggling. If I hadn’t headed her off, I’m certain the random keystrokes she’d have made would have resulted in this sequence:

<<Format hard drive?>>

Y.

<<Are you sure?>>

Y.

<<All data will be lost. Forever. Irretrievably. We’re not kidding. Are you still sure???>>

Y.

So parents have a real reason for wanting their kids to act like miniature adults. It’s just not a good reason. Dress them up cute, but don’t let them create messes, wail like banshees, find the lipstick, hide the car keys, fingerpaint the wall with shoe polish, write their names on the cat with bleach, or take all the CD jewel cases from the stereo cabinet and build forts with them. You see, parents don’t really want kids; they want harmless tiny adults—ones they can get to do what they want (unlike every single one of the full-sized adults they have to contend with every day).

This is where aunts and uncles enter the fracas. If parents got their wish, how would these little bitty adults grow up? I say: miserably. Into accountants probably. Or worse than that, economists (defined by some—not me of course—as accountants without personality). Humorless, dour, sour, serious, and generally un-fun to be around. To become an adult human being worthy of the title, you must be allowed to be a child when you are a child. The dough must be allowed to rise.

Aunts and uncles have a unique and indispensable role in creating a human race that will be up to the task of living well on the planet. It is we, the aunts and uncles, who must help kids learn how to be children. Nobody else will do it. They need to know how to chew food and show it to people on their wildly protruding tongues, blow bubbles, tell knock-knock jokes badly, and make cow and chicken sounds.

The ideas in this book provide a start! You won’t find every kid-thing in the world in here or every kind of kid-skill to impart. In writing this book, I stayed away from including activities that are dangerous, evil, or just plain mean. The world is full of human cussedness already, and we certainly need less of it. Kids can do mean things, but they can also learn not to do them.