My Niece Nephew

The Queen Aunts

When Conner was born 11 years ago, Andi Rosenthal was 30 and in the process of converting to Judaism. “I had no idea that there was room in my life or in my heart” for Conner and his younger brother, Ryan. “I never anticipated the space that they would create for themselves and how much love would emerge for them. I never knew that they would be just everything to me,” says the Westchester resident.

She expected those emotions from the boys’ parents, she says, but she was just their aunt. Well, not “just.”

“We’re expected to be removed, or to not love them as much,” she tells The Jewish Week, explaining that the birth of a niece or nephew is a “very overlooked moment” for aunts. “You hear so much about how parents adjust to parenting, but no one talks about how aunts adjust to the presence of a new child in their lives,” she says.

Melanie Notkin, founder of the popular web community SavvyAuntie.com, wants to change that. The Jewish 42-year-old lives on the Upper West Side and is devoted to her five nieces and one nephew. She recently published “Savvy Auntie: The Ultimate Guide For Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, and All Women Who Love Kids” (William Morrow: 2011), a book she hopes will help women view aunt-hood as a badge of honor rather than a consolation prize.

“These PANKS (Professional Aunts No Kids) aren’t childless — they’re childful!” Notkin says. “And their love is a gift.” The time Savvy Aunties spend baking, doing homework, bathing and playing with the children in their lives is a tremendous contribution, and should be viewed as such, she says. “Every book we read, every booboo we kiss, is a gift; there is no obligation.”

The idea for Savvy Auntie grew out of Notkin’s own experiences as a single professional living in Manhattan who couldn’t find any resources for the cosmopolitan aunt — someone more akin to Carrie Bradshaw as an aunt to Charlotte and Miranda’s kids, than a gray-haired lady with 12 cats. “Swaddling a baby may be harder than the Rubik’s cube,” she says, yet there weren’t any books on the market geared toward new aunts. Notkin envisions her book being bundled with Heidi Murkoff’s pregnancy bible, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” “You’ll get my book to find out what to expect when she’s expecting,” Notkin says.

My Life In A Nutshell: A lesson from the younger generation

And I have the story to prove it. Monday, I watched my sister's kids while she attended a meeting and her husband was at work. My niece and nephews of course played with their trains and Legos but I think what held even greater appeal was my father's new hammock. I watched my niece and oldest nephew do running belly-flops onto the mesh of woven material or perform crazy swings.

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