Uncle Declan 1 March 2007, 19:40

I’m spoiling for a stack of posts on what I’m recently calling The Low Birth-rate Society.

Here’s the usual amusing angle from Dan Savage in The Stranger’s Uncle Issue, from a year or so back:

Most couples aspire to have one child, maybe two. So the uncle … is going extinct … Soon we will live in a world without uncles, so it’s important that we write down our uncle stories now, while we still can, while uncles still walk the earth.

The Touched by an Uncle vignettes were written by various Stranger staffers and others, so YMMV. Dedicated to uncles late, great, estranged, n00b, virtual, shirttail and monkey’s.

To me, uncles stand for benign authority and wisdom. Our son has uncles in Australia and Vancouver, so between visits we make do: dancing with Uncle Eugene or Uncle Tom when a newborn won’t stop crying, or (I know it’s utterly trainspotterly) promising a one-year-old, “Mama will stop playing FreeCell when Uncle Dan’s podcast is over.”

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Comment

  1. # And then like 671 days ago Monkeypants goes:

    I grew up with about ten uncles, blood-related and married-in.

    I’m not having children and neither is my brother. I guess he’ll be a faux uncle to his friends’ kids, just as I’m going to be a faux aunt to mine.

    Strange, when I think of all the uncle memories I have.

    — Monkeypants · 671 days ago · #

  2. # And then like 670 days ago Pam goes:

    Good on ya, I’m all for hanging out between kidded and nonkidded friends, and the forming of these kinds of attachments.

    Cut the shirttail ones (relatives by marriage) and tell us a story?

    — Pam · 670 days ago · #

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