Metro Pulse/Cover/The Family Issue

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My Life as Mom
Parenthood ain't for sissies

Not Death or Taxes
The options for giving birth in Knoxville are numerous

Butting In

Families Suck
God wasn't kidding around when he slapped Eve with familial duty for biting the bad apple

The importance of being an uncle

by Matthew T. Everett

My 4-year-old niece Riley passed an important milestone a few weeks ago. The two of us had spent a couple of hours on a Saturday morning clearing brush and litter from the Third Creek Greenway in Bearden and were heading back to my car. Riley, as usual, ran ahead of me, directing me up the side of a hill instead of around the trail's switchbacks, and prattled in her own toddler-pidgin language that I only barely understand.

The point of the morning had been to introduce Riley to the ideas of community service and civic-mindedness. Riley, however, had been more interested in playing monster with her new friend Grace than in packing trash bags with cleared brush, which is fair enough for a 4-year-old. But I couldn't help feeling just a little disappointed that she'd paid such slight attention to the high-minded virtues I was trying to pass on to her.

I considered giving her an amiable lecture about what we'd been doing, and why. But she was too wound up to listen for very long, so, in an effort to salvage some meaningful and long-lasting value from the day, I took the low road. Even if Riley and I aren't quite compatible in our sense of community obligation, we do share the same sense of humor. My sister, Riley's mother, might tell you that I have the sense of humor of a pre-schooler, but I'm convinced that Riley's is above-average, if not outright remarkable, in its sophisticated grasp of complex ideas. Like chicken butt.

That's the milestone she passed that morning. I was trudging along behind her, my arms loaded with her jacket, two pairs of gloves, my own sweatshirt, and a bag of trash. Riley stopped and stood on a hillside, waiting for me to catch up.

"Guess what?" I said to her.

"What?" Riley replied. She had a quizzical look on her face.

"Chicken butt."

She put her little hands over her mouth and laughed. It was one of those conspiratorial laughs that we have together, since her mother has outlawed the word "butt," along with "stupid," "shut up," and several other, more obvious and useful words and phrases that I've pledged to teach Riley at the appropriate time.

That laugh brightened my disappointment. I felt like I'd accomplished something important that morning, even if it wasn't what I intended. In fact, she might have learned it better than I was ready for. By the end of our ride back to her grandparents' house, she had exhausted the joke, relishing the illicit thrill of saying "butt" for 15 straight minutes.

"Guess what?" she would say.

"Chicken butt. I know."

"No, that's not it. Guess what?"

"What?"

"Chicken butt."

It's not all fun and games between us. I really am committed to Riley's edification, since, if it's all left up to the rest of the family, it won't be long before she acquires a taste for Thomas Kincaid paintings and Ron Howard movies. My mother has even said she hopes Riley is a cheerleader someday. It's a burden I've taken on myself, and one that Riley seems unaware of.

At her birthday party in April, when she opened a package from my mother, Riley not only squealed with excitement at yet another shorts-and-T-shirt set, she recognized the price tag that identified its origin.

"Oh, more clothes!" she said. "And they're from Target!"

I scowled in the corner, appalled at the crass consumerism that's already eating away at her little insides. I reacted awfully, but my objections were sincere. I don't like that the three great cultural landmarks for Riley are Target, Scooby Doo, and McDonald's. I have wider vistas in mind for her—and they're mostly the ones I'd like to have for myself.

Before we get too far along here, I need to make clear that my sister, Susan, and her husband Ed are very good parents. For God's sake, my sister deals with a particularly energetic 4-year-old all day long, and she doesn't hit her or throw her against a wall or leave her on the side of the interstate. To me, that's pretty good parenting. But besides what she doesn't do to Riley, Susan plays with her, takes her to church and to play with her friends, visits the park, and sits inside a frozen ice skating rink for hours every week for months during Riley's lessons. She lets her watch entirely too much television, I think, but sometimes the only good kid is a kid entranced by dancing pixels of light. My sister loves the little rat, in ways I can't imagine.

My parents, too, who can be infuriatingly indulgent in some ways and unnecessarily lenient in others, love Riley in an unblinking but unfettered way that I don't understand. My mother will tell me every last detail of an afternoon she's spent in the backyard with Riley, narrating several hours' worth of typical toddler-talk, then underscore it all with, "She's such an exceptional child," and mean it, as if Riley had just revealed the unifying theory of the cosmos or explained the mechanical details of a perpetual-motion machine.

Probably because I'm still single and unmoored and, for the time being, still under 30, Riley and I have formed a fragile alliance against the other adults in the family. (Actually, Riley may have the upper hand on me at the holidays; she's usually allowed a seat at the big table, while I'm shunted off to the den to eat in a recliner and watch football. It's fine with me, but I suspect that it's fine with the rest of them, too.) She's often suspicious, but she's also old enough now to know that I'm just a little bit of trouble, so in my mind she's a willing accomplice to our mischief.

I'm usually the one who encourages her to do things she's probably not supposed to do (I take care not to ask until after she's done whatever it is I've prodded her to do), like climb trees and drink coffee and tell her mom, "You're not the boss of me." I make faces at her when the family's praying before dinner. I'm eagerly waiting for her seventh birthday, the day I've set for her to learn how to swear. I always offer to let her drive when she's in the car with me. She reached for a beer in my refrigerator once and I pondered, just for a second, how cute it would be to let her drink it.

But I'm also the worst kind of stage uncle, hoping to live the childhood I think I'd like to have had through her. I want her to climb into my lap on Sunday mornings to read The New York Times, and I keep waiting for the day when she asks to borrow my copy of To the Lighthouse, or White Light/White Heat, or for a subscription to Granta for her birthday. I'm ready to read The Elements of Style to her at bedtime. I'm waiting for her to ask me, "Who's Francois Truffaut?"

I'm sure I'm going to keep waiting, for a long time. Riley's a 4-year-old. She's smart and capable, but she's typical, in all the best ways. She's happy, and loves to be outside when it's warm. She loves cheese, and swinging, and, despite my efforts, Mickey Mouse. She loves her parents, who tuck her in at night, and her grandparents, who feed her juice boxes and cheeseburgers. She loves her dog and pets it with a frightening enthusiasm. She even loves her uncle, who's gotten her in plenty of trouble so far. But best of all—at least until she starts reading David Foster Wallace and listening to my Roky Erickson CDs—she likes to say "chicken butt."