Photo: @cherrypixlr via Instagram
The realization hit me at a family barbecue. Actually, something my cousin Tom said hit me?and then I hit him. ?You?ve become Aunt Shirl,? he teased as he watched me tussle with a pack of rowdy kids near the buffet table and then grill them about their summer plans.
I glared at Tom and swatted him with my paper plate. Those were fighting words.
Most women fear the moment they become their mothers, but I?d always been terrified of turning into my mother?s sister. Long-divorced with no children of her own, she would fly in from Ottawa on a thick cloud of Giorgio perfume, her long hair backcombed and smoothed into a chic, impenetrable chignon. An art gallery director, Aunt Shirley wore dinner-plate-size clip-on earrings and boldly hued caftans. Her presence, my Uncle George once quipped, turned holidays into a ?royal visit.? Our very own Auntie Mame (that archetypal eccentric aunt from the stage and screen) was a capital-C Character. She was generous and PhD smart, with a worldly flair for the dramatic. ?Chapeau!? she?d say, when others would opt for a simple, ?Good for you.? I was drawn to Auntie Shirl and craved her approval, but somehow, to my kid brain, her life always seemed a little sad behind all the flash, a little lonely. Now 44, I feared that was how people saw me.
I shouldn?t have been so self-conscious. As the number of child-free women in North America hits a record high?the ?no-baby boom,? as Maclean?s called it?we are everywhere...