Cool Auntie Vivian
This piece is part of Family Story’s All Our Families story-telling project.
Single mothers are often pitied (or disparaged) because of the assumption that the absence of a spouse means that they’re parenting alone. But there are a multitude of ways to be a “single mom,” many of which do not involve raising kids alone. In fact, many single mothers have a network of co-parents, partners, family, and friends who help them raise their children. Married parents could learn a lot from single mothers about creating the “village” every parent and child needs.
Vivian Davis* was 14 when her middle sister, Rita, had a daughter and made Vivian an aunt. Vivian’s niece, Leslie, joined her, her parents, and two older sisters in the family’s household in the Far Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, NY. “I think at that time I was just very happy to not be the youngest anymore,” Vivian remembers. “Someone was actually looking up to me and calling me an official title — Auntie. That was exciting to me.”
Like many families, the Davises had mixed feelings about their 19-year-old, unmarried daughter becoming a parent. Vivian’s parents had come to the US from the West Indies to, like many immigrants, provide a “better life” for themselves and their children. “We were to do nothing else but go to school, do well, graduate from high school with high honors, go to college, and become professionals in some way, shape, or form,” Vivian explains.
While deviating from that path was not what Vivian’s parents had in mind for any of their children, everyone loved Leslie and played a role in raising her. For Vivian, that meant typical teenage babysitter tasks like feeding the child and providing a watchful eye. As Leslie got older, Vivian’s role sometimes included picking her up from daycare or school, watching her until Rita got home, and providing discipline (“probably poorly, given that I was a teenager”).
When Leslie was 11, Vivian and Rita bought a duplex just a few blocks away from their parents’ house. Vivian moved into the top, Leslie and Rita lived on the bottom floor. After her mother left for work, Leslie would wait for the bus in the morning in Vivian’s upstairs apartment. It’s also where she and her group of girlfriends gathered to hang out and have sleepovers under the supervision of Leslie’s “cool aunt Vivian.”
Vivian, who worked at an Early Head Start center, also took Leslie with her to work during the summer and other breaks from school. Leslie got to volunteer playing with and caring for the babies at the center.
Vivian was part of Leslie’s everyday life.
“Then as she became a teenager, she went off on her own a little bit more. Sometimes I wouldn’t even see her as much as I saw her friends.” Even as Leslie gained independence, she and Vivian remained close.
Leslie became a mother for the first time when living in the duplex. Then, when Leslie was 22 and pregnant with her second child, Hurricane Sandy destroyed the apartment she shared with her mother. They lost everything. Leslie moved in with her boyfriend under less than ideal conditions. Vivian soon realized that Leslie’s job at the airport wasn’t going to be enough to support her and her kids. That awareness pushed Vivian to follow through on her own plans to move to Brooklyn, and have Leslie move into the upstairs apartment, which had been untouched by Sandy.
“She could have gone on welfare and been in the projects, but I couldn’t deal with the thought of that,” Vivian says. “I gave her my apartment and said, ‘You live there. You’re close to family, so you’ve got good support.’ [Leslie] says, ‘Well, I can’t pay that rent.’ I said, ‘You just get yourself together. You’re going to have the baby soon. Stay with the baby for a little bit, get on your feet, go to work, and then we’ll talk about how much you can pay.’”
That support ended up being critical for Leslie, whose daughter was born with Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes severe physical and mental disabilities. Her baby’s needs meant that staying home for only a few weeks and then going back to work was not an option. Vivian’s support meant Leslie didn’t have to face the impossible choices many parents have to make between caring for their child’s immediate needs and working to earn enough money to ensure necessities like housing, food, and medical care are covered.
Today, Vivian helps make Leslie’s kids’ lives fuller. She does standard auntie things like trips to the nail salon, museums, and restaurants, but her involvement goes beyond fun outings. Vivian explains, “For example, my oldest niece wanted to do gymnastics, so I got the family together to chip in for six months of lessons. Also, she hated going to her school, but she’s such a bright kid and used to love it. So, I found a school out here in Brooklyn that is much more appropriate for a child of her intelligence and her hands-on learning style.” And since the distance to the new school was so far, Vivian got a driver to take her to school and bring her home.
Like her mother Rita, Leslie is navigating being a single mother in a society that prioritizes marriage and nuclear families. And also like her mother, Leslie has the support of people like Vivian who provide her and her daughters with practical help and additional love and attention — something all families need, regardless of structure.
While Leslie has benefitted from her aunt’s support, Vivian is quick to emphasize how much she gets out of the relationship. “I’ve loved just watching her grow, having seen her go from this little child to this very caring mother. I feel completely fortunate to have witnessed that more than anything else.”
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.
